The song isn't exactly about sXe, because the sXe movement, though based on the ideals in this song (and "Out of Step" and "Straight Edge"), didn't properly exist as a cohesive idea at the time the song was written--and in fact, even Ian tried to defuse the formation of that movement on the re-recording of "Out of Step."
That's the point of his whole digression on the re-recording where Ian says, "Listen, this is not a set of rules. I'm not telling you what to do." Well, the sXe movement specifically is a set of rules. Brian Baker talks about this in interviews as when sXe "went tragically wrong."
Now, "In My Eyes" is ABSOLUTELY about the ideas that led people to turn to sXe as a movement. I'm not saying it's not about those ideas. I'm saying it's not about the movement, because not only didn't it exist when they wrote the song, but Minor Threat as a band went out of its way to try to avoid the formation of sXe as a movement. (Ian obviously wanted one and the others obviously didn't, but when they were still together as Minor Threat, Minor Threat was against telling people what to do. Probably because a movement with a set of rules is the most outrageously anti-punk thing ever created out of punk.)
The song isn't exactly about sXe, because the sXe movement, though based on the ideals in this song (and "Out of Step" and "Straight Edge"), didn't properly exist as a cohesive idea at the time the song was written--and in fact, even Ian tried to defuse the formation of that movement on the re-recording of "Out of Step."
That's the point of his whole digression on the re-recording where Ian says, "Listen, this is not a set of rules. I'm not telling you what to do." Well, the sXe movement specifically is a set of rules. Brian Baker talks about this in interviews as when sXe "went tragically wrong."
Now, "In My Eyes" is ABSOLUTELY about the ideas that led people to turn to sXe as a movement. I'm not saying it's not about those ideas. I'm saying it's not about the movement, because not only didn't it exist when they wrote the song, but Minor Threat as a band went out of its way to try to avoid the formation of sXe as a movement. (Ian obviously wanted one and the others obviously didn't, but when they were still together as Minor Threat, Minor Threat was against telling people what to do. Probably because a movement with a set of rules is the most outrageously anti-punk thing ever created out of punk.)