Hardline (syncretic movement)
Encyclopedia
Hardline is a radical deep ecology
movement that has its roots in the straight edge
hardcore
scene. From an initial founding statement the movement attempted a break with the straight edge
and hardcore
scenes. The founding statement and subsequent literature pushed a bio-centric
view of the world, pro-life
stance on abortion and much more extreme version of straight edge
.
, drinking alcoholic beverage
s, and using illicit drugs
or modern medicines. Hardliners (as they are called) are expected to follow a strict dietary regimen based on the above-mentioned pillars of respect for innocent life and the natural order. Hardliners eat only foods that are vegan and relatively natural (e.g. brown rice over white, evaporated cane juice over white sugar, organic produce over conventional, natural oils over hydrogenated). Human rights
issues are also factored into the movement's food politics, and followers are urged to shun third-world cash crops such as coffee, chocolate, sugar, and most tropical fruits. Hardliners include caffeine in their stance on mind-altering drugs so the first two items are generally abstained from, but consumption of the last two is often given more leeway.
In keeping with its Abrahamic
view of the natural order, the sexual politics of the hardline movement are very conservative. Sex
is not allowed except for the reason of procreation, homosexuality
is seen as anathema
, pornography
is abjured, artificial contraception
is avoided, and abortion
is militantly opposed. Although the official hardline stance on sex is that its natural purpose is purely procreative, many hardliners justify recreational sex within the context of committed relationships as potentially procreative by opting not to use artificial contraceptives. Hardline has always been highly syncretic (over time absorbing influences from Islam
and a host of other schools of thought), and initially attempted to give its obviously Biblical/Islamic sexual morals added credibility by claiming a Taoist foundation for them. This appeal to the orientation of the punk and hardcore scenes met with little success, and the topics of abortion and homosexuality have always been sources of tension between hardliners and their subcultural cousins.
, straight edge
, veganism
, animal liberation
, with religious philosophies such as Dharmic and Abrahamic morality.
The movement began to attract followers shortly after the 1990 release of Vegan Reich's "Hardline" EP and the official founding of the movement. Other bands soon formed; the most notable of them being Raid
from Tennessee.
Although Sean Muttaqi was still editing the zine
Vanguard (hardline's official press organ) and therefore exerting massive ideological influence on the movement, the center of its activities quickly shifted to Tennessee. Many in the Memphis hardcore scene adopted Hardline stances and started editing zines, organizing protests, engaging in direct action
against industries that exploited animals, and otherwise acting on their new beliefs. Some of the most notable achievements of Memphis Hardline were organizing the movement's first annual Gathering and founding the long-standing and relatively mainstream The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade
(CAFT) As things began to fade in Memphis, and Muttaqi left for Jamaica to explore the Rastafari movement
and decided to leave the hardcore scene along with hardline altogether, the movement was gaining attention and momentum in central Indiana.
Not wanting the movement to die, but not wanting to be responsible for it either, Muttaqi transferred the editing of "Vanguard." After a few years, the "Vanguard" torch landed with David Agranoff.
Under Agranoff's direction the movement made unprecedented inroads into activism outside of the punk and hardcore scenes. Hardliners were instrumental in CAFT, the Animal Defense League, and Vegans For Life. Some were also involved in Earth First!
, anti-imperialist organizations, and other leftist causes and groups. Starting with Agranoff's Upstate Hardline chapter, some cells began making direct contact with the general public by hosting educational forums that were essentially lectures on current events centred on Hardline's perspective.
Running parallel to, but largely outside of, Agranoff's current was an attempt by some Hardliners from Massachusetts
to establish an intentional community in Hawaii
. The effort quickly failed due to personality conflicts (especially the ongoing debate among group members as to whether or not cooked food was natural enough) and a distinct lack of required agricultural and engineering skills.
When Vegan Reich briefly reformed in 1996, Muttaqi credited the movement with the spread of vegan straightedge ideals in the 1990s. Partially true, vegan straight edge came from hardline. Hardline was undoubtedly heavily inspired from its inception by straightedge. The original logo of the movement was an outline of a large "X" (the sign most often associated with straightedge) with two crossed M16 rifles inside it. Muttaqi has said that he was first exposed to the idea of fusing veganism and abstinence from drugs by an English punk named Rat (of the bands Statement, Unborn, Talisman, and others). Rat had allegedly coined the term "vegan straight edge" by the mid-1980s.
However, Rat was doing little to spread his ideology while Muttaqi was transforming and propagating it. Vegan Reich was for many in the hardcore scene their first exposure to ideas about militant animal liberation, and the controversy they aroused drew considerable attention to their positions. Those in the subculture who gravitated toward animal-related causes but disagreed with some of hardline's finer points found themselves becoming vegan straightedge. Vegan straightedge band Earth Crisis
initially wanted Muttaqi to release their debut EP "All Out War" on his record label, Uprising Records
.
As the movement came into its own, many hardliners decided that their philosophy was so beyond the narrow scene politics of straightedge that the two were entirely different things. The "X" was removed from the crossed rifles logo, straightedge was harshly criticized, and hardliners were encouraged to leave the hardcore scene. Much of this sprang from the momentum being gained by the more activist-oriented elements within the movement. Eventually hardliners came to consider their network wholly divorced from the hardcore scene. However, the nature of information dissemination in a mostly pre-Internet media environment made recruiting from outside the hardcore subculture next to impossible. Although hardline served to involve people heavily in political activity, the overwhelming bulk of new members were straightedgers who would with time come to identify primarily as activists instead of hardcore kids.
In mid-1998 the movement experienced a massive internal upheaval as Sean Muttaqi returned to Hardline and with a group of new followers issued the eighth edition of "Vanguard" without warning Agranoff or the rest of the extant membership. "Vanguard" number eight announced the reorganization of the movement under the authority of the newly created Hardline Central Committee (HCC) and castigated Agranoff and his comrades for softening the network's ideology through their refinement and development of it. Chapters were instructed to report to the Committee for evaluation and were told in no uncertain terms that they would not be recognized as cells until they submitted to this review. Also in the issue was a document about the stages through which the Hardline revolution would progress which was presented as being from 1990, but had never before been seen and was suspiciously contemporary feeling.
Many chapters (including Agranoff's) opted to leave hardline entirely and instead established a new activist network called Education For A Sustainable Future (ESF). ESF differed from its predecessor in that it took no stances on sexual politics, was not a membership organization, and was entirely based in activism instead of subcultural activity.
(Tennessee, US), Recoil (Tennessee, US), Pure Blood (Tennessee, US), New Dawn (US), Uprising (New York, US), and Talisman (New York, US). Rat from Unborn (UK) had a one-man studio project called Statement which initially was aligned with Hardline; however, he discarded the label over a disagreement over the issue of homosexuality.
Bands with some Hardline members were Day of Suffering (North Carolina, US), Ecorage (Essen, Germany), Vegan Militia (Essen, Germany), Birthright
(Indiana, US), Abnegation (Pennsylvania, US), Racetraitor (Chicago, US), Absence (Italy), Força Vegan (BRA), Contempt (New York, US), Beta Minus Mechanic (New York, US), Framework (New York, US), Path of Resistance (New York, USA), Captive Nation Rising (California, US), Gatekeeper (New York, US), Altopuck (California, US), Sunrise (Poland), Pressure (California, US), XsafeguardX (UK), Sacrifice (Italy), Warpath (Indiana, US), Slavearc (UK), Unborn (UK), Withdrawn (UK), Blood Green (UK), Perversion of Idolatry (UK), Seconds X Out (UK), Apostle (Sweden), Hardball (Indiana, US), Pain Runs Deep (Poland), Healing (Poland), Unsilent (Poland)
Hip-hop acts affiliated with Hardline were Naj-One (AKA Foekus, AKA Foeknawledge) (Utah, US) and Amir Sulamain (Washington, DC, US) and went on to become members of Taliyah.
Hardline-affiliated publications included the zines "Praxis", "Destroy Babylon", "Contention Builder", "Declaration", "Unveil The Lies", "Defense, Rescue, and Survival", "S.E.A.L." [Straight Edge Animal Liberation], "Caring Edge", "Vanguard", "Eco War", "VoiceboX" and "A Call For Justice".
, in the second recording of Out Of Step by Minor Threat
, stressed that straight edge
"is not a set of rules". Hardliners have been harshly criticized for their stance on sexuality, i.e. their belief that homosexuality and bisexuality (and even masturbation, according to some hardline literature) are unnatural and therefore wrong, and their opposition to abortion.
In their song "Indie Sux, Hardline Sux, Emo Sux, You Suck!", American punk rock
band Anti-Flag
criticizes the subculture, specifically their anti-abortion stance and intolerance of individuals with different beliefs.
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
movement that has its roots in the straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
scene. From an initial founding statement the movement attempted a break with the straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
and hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
scenes. The founding statement and subsequent literature pushed a bio-centric
Biocentrism (ethics)
Biocentrism , in a political and ecological sense, is an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species, ecosystems, and processes in nature - regardless of their sentience...
view of the world, pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
stance on abortion and much more extreme version of straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
.
Beliefs
The hardline philosophy forbids its adherents from smoking or chewing any form of tobaccoTobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, drinking alcoholic beverage
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
s, and using illicit drugs
Psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
or modern medicines. Hardliners (as they are called) are expected to follow a strict dietary regimen based on the above-mentioned pillars of respect for innocent life and the natural order. Hardliners eat only foods that are vegan and relatively natural (e.g. brown rice over white, evaporated cane juice over white sugar, organic produce over conventional, natural oils over hydrogenated). Human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
issues are also factored into the movement's food politics, and followers are urged to shun third-world cash crops such as coffee, chocolate, sugar, and most tropical fruits. Hardliners include caffeine in their stance on mind-altering drugs so the first two items are generally abstained from, but consumption of the last two is often given more leeway.
In keeping with its Abrahamic
Abrahamic religions
Abrahamic religions are the monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him...
view of the natural order, the sexual politics of the hardline movement are very conservative. Sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
is not allowed except for the reason of procreation, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
is seen as anathema
Anathema
Anathema originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:...
, pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
is abjured, artificial contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
is avoided, and abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
is militantly opposed. Although the official hardline stance on sex is that its natural purpose is purely procreative, many hardliners justify recreational sex within the context of committed relationships as potentially procreative by opting not to use artificial contraceptives. Hardline has always been highly syncretic (over time absorbing influences from Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and a host of other schools of thought), and initially attempted to give its obviously Biblical/Islamic sexual morals added credibility by claiming a Taoist foundation for them. This appeal to the orientation of the punk and hardcore scenes met with little success, and the topics of abortion and homosexuality have always been sources of tension between hardliners and their subcultural cousins.
History
The hardline movement grew out of the hardcore and hardcore punk scenes in the 1990s. Although one of the basic tenets of hardline is that it has existed in various forms since the beginning of time, the ideology was largely formulated by Sean Muttaqi of the band Vegan Reich. The hardline philosophy is said to be rooted in one ethic (the sacredness of innocent life), but in reality the ethos rested on that base and on an idea of an immutable natural order. Hardline can be described as a synthesis of deep ecologyDeep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
, straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
, veganism
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
, animal liberation
Animal liberation movement
The animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and...
, with religious philosophies such as Dharmic and Abrahamic morality.
The movement began to attract followers shortly after the 1990 release of Vegan Reich's "Hardline" EP and the official founding of the movement. Other bands soon formed; the most notable of them being Raid
Raid (band)
Raid were a Tennessee based straight edge hardcore band that formed from the ashes of the band One Way. Along with the Californian band Vegan Reich and the English band 'Statement', Raid helped pioneer the Vegan straight edge movement and the Hardline lifestyle and ideology.Their music was loud,...
from Tennessee.
Although Sean Muttaqi was still editing the zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
Vanguard (hardline's official press organ) and therefore exerting massive ideological influence on the movement, the center of its activities quickly shifted to Tennessee. Many in the Memphis hardcore scene adopted Hardline stances and started editing zines, organizing protests, engaging in direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
against industries that exploited animals, and otherwise acting on their new beliefs. Some of the most notable achievements of Memphis Hardline were organizing the movement's first annual Gathering and founding the long-standing and relatively mainstream The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade
The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade
The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade or CAFT is an informal international coalition of grassroots groups that campaign against the production and use of animal fur for clothing and other items. It started in the USA in the 1990s, when fur farms were being raided quite regularly...
(CAFT) As things began to fade in Memphis, and Muttaqi left for Jamaica to explore the Rastafari movement
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
and decided to leave the hardcore scene along with hardline altogether, the movement was gaining attention and momentum in central Indiana.
Not wanting the movement to die, but not wanting to be responsible for it either, Muttaqi transferred the editing of "Vanguard." After a few years, the "Vanguard" torch landed with David Agranoff.
Under Agranoff's direction the movement made unprecedented inroads into activism outside of the punk and hardcore scenes. Hardliners were instrumental in CAFT, the Animal Defense League, and Vegans For Life. Some were also involved in Earth First!
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
, anti-imperialist organizations, and other leftist causes and groups. Starting with Agranoff's Upstate Hardline chapter, some cells began making direct contact with the general public by hosting educational forums that were essentially lectures on current events centred on Hardline's perspective.
Running parallel to, but largely outside of, Agranoff's current was an attempt by some Hardliners from Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
to establish an intentional community in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. The effort quickly failed due to personality conflicts (especially the ongoing debate among group members as to whether or not cooked food was natural enough) and a distinct lack of required agricultural and engineering skills.
When Vegan Reich briefly reformed in 1996, Muttaqi credited the movement with the spread of vegan straightedge ideals in the 1990s. Partially true, vegan straight edge came from hardline. Hardline was undoubtedly heavily inspired from its inception by straightedge. The original logo of the movement was an outline of a large "X" (the sign most often associated with straightedge) with two crossed M16 rifles inside it. Muttaqi has said that he was first exposed to the idea of fusing veganism and abstinence from drugs by an English punk named Rat (of the bands Statement, Unborn, Talisman, and others). Rat had allegedly coined the term "vegan straight edge" by the mid-1980s.
However, Rat was doing little to spread his ideology while Muttaqi was transforming and propagating it. Vegan Reich was for many in the hardcore scene their first exposure to ideas about militant animal liberation, and the controversy they aroused drew considerable attention to their positions. Those in the subculture who gravitated toward animal-related causes but disagreed with some of hardline's finer points found themselves becoming vegan straightedge. Vegan straightedge band Earth Crisis
Earth Crisis
Earth Crisis is an American metalcore band from Syracuse, New York, active from 1989 until 2001, reuniting in 2007. Their most recent record, To the Death, was released in May 2009 through Century Media....
initially wanted Muttaqi to release their debut EP "All Out War" on his record label, Uprising Records
Uprising Records
Uprising Records is a record label founded in 1994 by Sean Muttaqi - having released records by Fall Out Boy, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, Cipher, Red Knife Lottery, Underminded, Amir Sulaiman, iCON the Mic King, The Crest and more...
.
As the movement came into its own, many hardliners decided that their philosophy was so beyond the narrow scene politics of straightedge that the two were entirely different things. The "X" was removed from the crossed rifles logo, straightedge was harshly criticized, and hardliners were encouraged to leave the hardcore scene. Much of this sprang from the momentum being gained by the more activist-oriented elements within the movement. Eventually hardliners came to consider their network wholly divorced from the hardcore scene. However, the nature of information dissemination in a mostly pre-Internet media environment made recruiting from outside the hardcore subculture next to impossible. Although hardline served to involve people heavily in political activity, the overwhelming bulk of new members were straightedgers who would with time come to identify primarily as activists instead of hardcore kids.
In mid-1998 the movement experienced a massive internal upheaval as Sean Muttaqi returned to Hardline and with a group of new followers issued the eighth edition of "Vanguard" without warning Agranoff or the rest of the extant membership. "Vanguard" number eight announced the reorganization of the movement under the authority of the newly created Hardline Central Committee (HCC) and castigated Agranoff and his comrades for softening the network's ideology through their refinement and development of it. Chapters were instructed to report to the Committee for evaluation and were told in no uncertain terms that they would not be recognized as cells until they submitted to this review. Also in the issue was a document about the stages through which the Hardline revolution would progress which was presented as being from 1990, but had never before been seen and was suspiciously contemporary feeling.
Many chapters (including Agranoff's) opted to leave hardline entirely and instead established a new activist network called Education For A Sustainable Future (ESF). ESF differed from its predecessor in that it took no stances on sexual politics, was not a membership organization, and was entirely based in activism instead of subcultural activity.
Hardline-affiliated bands and publications
Among the hardcore bands who adhered to the Hardline ideology aside from Vegan Reich were RaidRaid (band)
Raid were a Tennessee based straight edge hardcore band that formed from the ashes of the band One Way. Along with the Californian band Vegan Reich and the English band 'Statement', Raid helped pioneer the Vegan straight edge movement and the Hardline lifestyle and ideology.Their music was loud,...
(Tennessee, US), Recoil (Tennessee, US), Pure Blood (Tennessee, US), New Dawn (US), Uprising (New York, US), and Talisman (New York, US). Rat from Unborn (UK) had a one-man studio project called Statement which initially was aligned with Hardline; however, he discarded the label over a disagreement over the issue of homosexuality.
Bands with some Hardline members were Day of Suffering (North Carolina, US), Ecorage (Essen, Germany), Vegan Militia (Essen, Germany), Birthright
Birthright (band)
Birthright was a vegan straight-edge band in existence during the mid to late 1990s. It was based in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States.-Band history:...
(Indiana, US), Abnegation (Pennsylvania, US), Racetraitor (Chicago, US), Absence (Italy), Força Vegan (BRA), Contempt (New York, US), Beta Minus Mechanic (New York, US), Framework (New York, US), Path of Resistance (New York, USA), Captive Nation Rising (California, US), Gatekeeper (New York, US), Altopuck (California, US), Sunrise (Poland), Pressure (California, US), XsafeguardX (UK), Sacrifice (Italy), Warpath (Indiana, US), Slavearc (UK), Unborn (UK), Withdrawn (UK), Blood Green (UK), Perversion of Idolatry (UK), Seconds X Out (UK), Apostle (Sweden), Hardball (Indiana, US), Pain Runs Deep (Poland), Healing (Poland), Unsilent (Poland)
Hip-hop acts affiliated with Hardline were Naj-One (AKA Foekus, AKA Foeknawledge) (Utah, US) and Amir Sulamain (Washington, DC, US) and went on to become members of Taliyah.
Hardline-affiliated publications included the zines "Praxis", "Destroy Babylon", "Contention Builder", "Declaration", "Unveil The Lies", "Defense, Rescue, and Survival", "S.E.A.L." [Straight Edge Animal Liberation], "Caring Edge", "Vanguard", "Eco War", "VoiceboX" and "A Call For Justice".
Criticism
The hardliners' elitist, strict, ascetic, often violent and controlling stance has often put them at odds with hardcore's "think for yourself, do what you choose" attitude. Ian MacKayeIan MacKaye
Ian Thomas Garner MacKaye is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, label owner, and producer. Active since 1979, MacKaye is best known for being the frontman of the influential hardcore punk bands Minor Threat and The Teen Idles, the post-hardcore bands Embrace and Fugazi, as well...
, in the second recording of Out Of Step by Minor Threat
Minor Threat
Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. The band was relatively short-lived, but had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene, both stylistically and in establishing a "do it yourself" ethic for music distribution and...
, stressed that straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
"is not a set of rules". Hardliners have been harshly criticized for their stance on sexuality, i.e. their belief that homosexuality and bisexuality (and even masturbation, according to some hardline literature) are unnatural and therefore wrong, and their opposition to abortion.
In their song "Indie Sux, Hardline Sux, Emo Sux, You Suck!", American punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Anti-Flag
Anti-Flag
Anti-Flag is a punk rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States, formed in 1988. The band is well known for its outspoken political views. Much of the band's lyrics have focused on fervent anti-war activism, criticism of United States foreign policy, corporatism, U.S. wealth...
criticizes the subculture, specifically their anti-abortion stance and intolerance of individuals with different beliefs.
See also
- Uprising RecordsUprising RecordsUprising Records is a record label founded in 1994 by Sean Muttaqi - having released records by Fall Out Boy, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, Cipher, Red Knife Lottery, Underminded, Amir Sulaiman, iCON the Mic King, The Crest and more...
- Consistent Life EthicConsistent Life EthicThe consistent life ethic, or the consistent ethic of life, was a term coined in 1983 by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin to express an ethical, religious, and political ideology based on the premise that all human life was sacred and should be protected by law. The ideology opposes legal abortion,...
- bioethicsBioethicsBioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
- pro-life feminismPro-life feminismPro-life feminism is the opposition to abortion by a group of feminists who believe that the principles which inform their support of women's rights also call them to support the right to life of prenatal humans...
- punk ideologyPunk ideologyPunk ideologies are a group of varied social and political beliefs associated with the punk subculture. In its original incarnation, the punk subculture was primarily concerned with concepts such as rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism, free thought and discontent...