I probably sat here for ten minutes looking at this question and thinking, “I don’t know!”

Honestly, I haven’t had a ton of hardcore cred in a long time, and I stopped going to shows for fun many, many years ago. But when I think about the potential I saw in the hardcore scene when I first discovered it in 1986 — and when I realize that was twenty-four years ago — I can’t help but feel like, to some extent, I was given a post-dated check that I’ll never be able to cash.

So all I have are more questions.

Like, how is it that even though 7 Seconds sang “Not Just Boys Fun” in 1984, the hardcore scene is still a totally male-dominated subculture? Or, if hardcore is about revolution and change, why is it that the scene is totally unwilling to give up on rote traditions like slamdancing and stage-diving? And why was I always the only non-white kid singing along to “Break Down The Walls” at Youth of Today shows in 1988? What is it about hardcore that — in spite of its literally hundreds of anti-racist songs and fanzines and T-shirts — still utterly fails to attract more people of color today? Also, is it weird that hardcore kids spend hundreds of dollars on 25-year-old T-shirts when they could be spending that money on things that really matter in the world? Is it about mining for nostalgia or forward-thinking?

The hardcore scene influenced my life in profound ways, and I will always owe an amazing debt to it. But it’s flawed, and I wouldn’t be paying that debt by pretending that it’s not. As for my own personal experience — and this might be an unpopular thing to say — I’d argue that the scene itself is something like the Buddhist parable of the raft: We build a raft to cross a river, but if we continue to carry that raft on our backs once we reach the shore, it can only weigh us down. If we’re going to move forward, we need to abandon the raft, and leave it for the next person.