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Originally Posted by LittlePuppetBoy
I thought Mackaye hated the idea that straight edge became this doctrine-like thing.
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He does.
Ian (as far as I know) never told anyone they couldn't drink, smoke, fuck each other, whatever. I'm pretty sure all he was trying to get across was that a lot of those things don't really interest him. A big reason he didn't drink or do drugs was that a lot of people he knew in the DC scene became junkies and ended up ruining their lives, and I think his stance was at least partly a reaction to that. A lot of people hated Minor Threat (and many other so-called political hardcore bands, DKs, MDC, etc...) because they were thought of as preachy.
Personally, I've never really thought of Ian Mackaye as being preachy. He was simply making a personal statement, in fact, in the one recording of "Out of Step" there's a little break down part where he even says "I'm not trying to tell people what to do... etc...". The problem with "straight edge" is that certain people were militant about it, and thought that because they didn't drink or whatever it somehow made them better than everyone else. Like LittlePuppetBoy pointed out, Ian Mackaye never wanted to start some kind of movement, and he was actually really dissapointed by the fact that people were such fucking zealots as soon as they decided to be "straight edge".
That said, I've got a lot of respect for the guy. Everything I know about him suggests that he's a very genuine person. Hey, he's stuck to his ideals this far, that's gotta count for something. Plus he's made some great music.