I - for whatever reason/s - cannot drink in a safe or moderate manner. For some people, it just seems to be like this - alcoholism runs in my family, but I don't think the tendency is reducible merely to genetics. I consequently choose not to drink, but I find the choice itself a very beautiful and important one. Choosing not to drink strengthens my relation to God, and I often feel grateful that this is the test I've been given. I can sit with other who do without resentment (or, let's say, that's getting easier), and I would in no way wish for any crackdown on drinking from above, of the mean-minded kind that we've already seen from this hollow, moralising, hypocritical, prosecutorial government.
I therefore agree with your argument about freedom and about the broader implications of a war against risk/responsibility, and what this means for a sociability that remains outside of that which can be measured or surveilled. In my lifetime, the tide has definitely turned against alcohol. While we were perhaps overly hedonistic in the 90s, since then the steady decline of social drinking and its replacement by fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, or of being recorded has contributed to an age of severe anxiety and the diminution of camaraderie and concomitant values, loyalty in particular. It's a sadder, meaner, more authoritarian world, and I do not think we should be told what to do by people who are more stupid and meaner of spirit than the people they seek to control.
This is always the problem, really: it's one thing to be bossed around by somebody you respect. It's quite another to be bossed around by somebody you don't.
You raised an important point that I didn't mention but really should have - the fact that widespread consumption of alcohol rests on a high level of social trust. The possibility that one might say or do something stupid and be forgiven is such an integral part of social cohesion, and something again that the presence of alcohol tends to cultivate in people.
I was brought up in a Baptist church which had a lot of teetotallers. I fully respect the decision. But as you say, that's kind of the point: it's a decision!
Social trust and forgiveness have massively declined within living memory. Forgiving someone for being a bit of an idiot on drink is not possible in a brittle black-and-white, judgemental era in which one mistake can be dredged up forever by moralists who nevertheless lack a moral framework (the most terrifying kind). Christianity makes it clear that the fault runs through us all, and that we are all capable of harming and being harmed, and that we all sin. I admire people who can drink well and who forgive and can be forgiven.
I share the concern and I'm sure the decline of Christianity has a lot to do with it. But I'm always struck by cultural differences. I lived in Japan for a long time, and there I encountered an even more live-and-let-live attitude to drinking than we did here in Britain in the 90s. This can't really be attributable to Christianity or widespread religiosity. There has to be something else going on. No doubt tech is part of it - it's a drive to conceptualise other people instrumentally. When other people's significance is construed on the basis of how useful they are or how they make *you* feel, it's natural to want to cast those who are not useful, or who make you feel uncomfortable, into the metaphorical rubbish bin.
Scruton that rare person on whose death I felt a sense of personal loss. Reading him articulated for me that I was a conservative. His books line my bookshelves.
Excellent, nothing to disagree with. A couple of things to add on the nature of freedom and responsibility: No-one is responsible for everything, but everyone is responsible for something. So freedom is about choosing one's responsibilites. These will involve self-discipline, in contrast to discipline imposed from outside. Individual freedom therefore involves choosing one's disciplines (and limits).
It's very disturbing that the state is suddenly assuming so much authority over not just what in its eyes we shouldn't put in our bodies, but what we should - in order to be good citizens.
I meant to add the elephant in the room of the irony that what's actually making people sicker and overburdening the NHS, on top of unhealthy habits that are anyway largely coping mechanisms, is all the stuff we're told we should put in our bodies. Not just stuff that was being mandated not long ago, but all the other pharmaceuticals citizens are advised to swallow and inject, that may have a very specific therapeutic effect but mostly also act like poisons when viewed holistically. Alcohol and cigarettes bad, all pharmaceutical drugs good...
Yes, well put. I had sleeping trouble a few years ago and it was amazing how speedily the GP prescribed a two week course of sleeping pills. Thankfully I never took them as I coincidentally was introduced to meditation as a remedy - but I got an insight into how easy it would be to end up hooked on prescription medication.
Ditto! The same thing happened to me, and I never took them!
It's a no-brainer: the sicker we are the more the pharmaceutical industry has to gain, and most people only too gladly take their tablets because we're not encouraged to take responsibility for our own health. It's part of what you're saying here about learning to use alcohol wisely.
I remember reading rather similar arguments in a religious context i.e. why would a benevolent god give wo/man free-will, when s/he might then go so manifestly wrong in its exercise. The basic argument offered was we could never prove we were ‘good’ if we didn’t have the option to be bad. Even the abstemious would be robbed of their smugness if it were simply imposed.
24 hrs ago·edited 23 hrs agoLiked by David McGrogan
As I remember the system in Sweden (from 25 years ago), there was no alcohol at all permitted to be sold except from shops licensed by the state, so it sounds as though the position may have slightly relaxed.
I also came across this in the States, specifically New Jersey, where each township can vote as to whether it is 'dry' or 'wet'. The former have usually just one 'liquor store', which makes eating out an interesting experience. Restaurants are all unlicensed, so before dinner you visit the store and select a bottle (from a vast range - a lot of NJ is 'stockbroker belt' for NYC) that you can take to your chosen restaurant, which will charge a small corkage fee (because they're not competing with their own profits from wine sales). The system works quite well. Whether it reduces overall alcohol consumption (which is presumably the intent, as in Sweden), I have no idea.
One thing that is (or certainly was when I worked for a Swedish company 25 years ago) the case is / was the “booze cruise”.
Hundreds of people would board a ship which cruised nowhere in particular over a weekend, the sole purpose being to get into waters outside the reach of the Swedish law where normal rather than watered down alcohol could be consumed at sensible prices.
My impression however is that governments are not becoming more authoritarian, but rather more PURITAN. The puritan streak has, of course, run through English history for centuries. I think it has become more pronounced in recent years. There seems to be a view that anything good must hurt, that enjoying oneself is a suspect thing to do, that we all deserve to be punished.
The great Peter Simple in his column in the Telegraph used to have an imaginary character, Dr Heinz Kiosk...
"Among that cast were Dr Heinz Kiosk, the crazed psychiatrist given to ending all his grim verdicts on the state of the world with the doom-laden pay-off, “We are all guilty”. "
It is as though, no longer having the possibility of redemption through the sacrifice of Christ, people now seek some kind of redemption through their own suffering.
“…it is worth observing that the existence of socialised health care inserts a very strong dose of moral hazard into the equation which really ought not to be present”.
Indeed. My main principled argument for the abolition of the NHS - apart from the practical objection that a nationalised behemoth will by nature always be awful - is my profound objection to the pernicious intrusion on personal freedom that its proponents feel free to advocate.
As a former keen home brewer and (briefly) commercial brewer, I can vouch for the fact that brewing low gravity beer (less about 4% ABV) with a decent bitter-sweet flavour balance between the malt and hops is the most difficult part of the brewers art, the flavours are so light that it's easy to get it off-kilter and end up with a dud. The 3.5% ABV lagers in Norway I found to be universally poor. More ingredients in a stronger beer gives the brewer more wiggle-room.
I have never been to Sweden, but restrictions in Norway are similar, and there you can only buy the weak beer in supermarkets or other shops, and anything stronger has to be bought at the government shops. Interestingly, at Bergen Airport there was a huge duty-free shop in the arrivals area. Usually you find that in departures before you board. Everyone getting off our flight from Aberdeen was stocking up.
Norway does have a strong home brewing community, (lots of small scale craft breweries too) , but there is also home distilling. Not a surprise given the prices of spirits, but dangerous (to my mind as a former anlytical chemist and brewer) and something that I wouldn't do ever. Commercial distillers have to work hard to get the ethanol 'clean', i.e without the methanol (wood alcohol, makes you blind) , and without the higher alcohols (propanol, butanol) which are hang-over material. Amateur distilling is very difficult to control, and the products therefore not 'clean'. The tax regime in Norway (and Sweden I guess) thus tempts/pushes people into dangerous practices.
As for what the new puritans currently pretending to be our government intend, they should remember that beer and wine have been a part of human culture for millenia. Trying to restrict their use on the grounds of 'public health' won't end well. You are quite right about the freedom and responsibility aspect of this. This government of ours seem set on annoying us with yet more intrusion into our lives. Heat, food, travel, drink, there's always some finger-wagging self-righteous bore telling us what should or should not be doing. All on the basis of 'models' and 'projections', of course.
I'm not as healthy as I was ten years ago, and was considering selling my home brewing equipment. I might just hang on to it now, and start brewing again as my own personal protest against 'them' .
Moderation in all things, including alcohol, is not a bad motto to live one's life by. Most of the things I regret in mine are linked to over-indulgence - not least, I have to confess, involving the demon drink. Some of us, I fear, are addictive by nature. I used to do a lot of binge drinking in a social setting, but as I have grown older managed to moderate my intake and behavior, with beneficial results not only to myself but crucially to friends and loved ones all too often became casualties of my over-indulgence. I was helped on the road to greater respect for the perils of this perenially popular poison by the news that one of my former much-loved partners had died suddenly and extremely unpleasanty of alcoholism. Her husband, who broke the news to me, said her drinking had brought him "fourteen years of hell".
Or, alternatively, whether or not the state 'cracks down on' some things and not others is a political question to be settled politically, and therefore to be argued over and discussed by the electorate without having to pay too much attention to glib and facile accusations of hypocrisy. Of course people are going to stick up for things they like or consider to be important, against the things which they don't. That is basically what politics in a democracy consists of. I'm open to a convincing case as to why porn and meth should be liberalised - why not make it?
I - for whatever reason/s - cannot drink in a safe or moderate manner. For some people, it just seems to be like this - alcoholism runs in my family, but I don't think the tendency is reducible merely to genetics. I consequently choose not to drink, but I find the choice itself a very beautiful and important one. Choosing not to drink strengthens my relation to God, and I often feel grateful that this is the test I've been given. I can sit with other who do without resentment (or, let's say, that's getting easier), and I would in no way wish for any crackdown on drinking from above, of the mean-minded kind that we've already seen from this hollow, moralising, hypocritical, prosecutorial government.
I therefore agree with your argument about freedom and about the broader implications of a war against risk/responsibility, and what this means for a sociability that remains outside of that which can be measured or surveilled. In my lifetime, the tide has definitely turned against alcohol. While we were perhaps overly hedonistic in the 90s, since then the steady decline of social drinking and its replacement by fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, or of being recorded has contributed to an age of severe anxiety and the diminution of camaraderie and concomitant values, loyalty in particular. It's a sadder, meaner, more authoritarian world, and I do not think we should be told what to do by people who are more stupid and meaner of spirit than the people they seek to control.
This is always the problem, really: it's one thing to be bossed around by somebody you respect. It's quite another to be bossed around by somebody you don't.
You raised an important point that I didn't mention but really should have - the fact that widespread consumption of alcohol rests on a high level of social trust. The possibility that one might say or do something stupid and be forgiven is such an integral part of social cohesion, and something again that the presence of alcohol tends to cultivate in people.
I was brought up in a Baptist church which had a lot of teetotallers. I fully respect the decision. But as you say, that's kind of the point: it's a decision!
Social trust and forgiveness have massively declined within living memory. Forgiving someone for being a bit of an idiot on drink is not possible in a brittle black-and-white, judgemental era in which one mistake can be dredged up forever by moralists who nevertheless lack a moral framework (the most terrifying kind). Christianity makes it clear that the fault runs through us all, and that we are all capable of harming and being harmed, and that we all sin. I admire people who can drink well and who forgive and can be forgiven.
I share the concern and I'm sure the decline of Christianity has a lot to do with it. But I'm always struck by cultural differences. I lived in Japan for a long time, and there I encountered an even more live-and-let-live attitude to drinking than we did here in Britain in the 90s. This can't really be attributable to Christianity or widespread religiosity. There has to be something else going on. No doubt tech is part of it - it's a drive to conceptualise other people instrumentally. When other people's significance is construed on the basis of how useful they are or how they make *you* feel, it's natural to want to cast those who are not useful, or who make you feel uncomfortable, into the metaphorical rubbish bin.
Oh to be sure, Christianity is not the *only* way we can imagine ourselves in this more balanced way.
I refer one and all to the late, much lamented, Sir Roger Scruton on this matter
https://thecritic.co.uk/what-wine-meant-to-roger-scruton/
Scruton that rare person on whose death I felt a sense of personal loss. Reading him articulated for me that I was a conservative. His books line my bookshelves.
Excellent, nothing to disagree with. A couple of things to add on the nature of freedom and responsibility: No-one is responsible for everything, but everyone is responsible for something. So freedom is about choosing one's responsibilites. These will involve self-discipline, in contrast to discipline imposed from outside. Individual freedom therefore involves choosing one's disciplines (and limits).
I'm afraid that the taking up of responsibility is essential, but now failing.
Dr. Jordan Peterson, passim...
bringing up young children (having a family) forces one to think about responsibilities as well as ways to make the young'ns aware of them.
It's very disturbing that the state is suddenly assuming so much authority over not just what in its eyes we shouldn't put in our bodies, but what we should - in order to be good citizens.
I meant to add the elephant in the room of the irony that what's actually making people sicker and overburdening the NHS, on top of unhealthy habits that are anyway largely coping mechanisms, is all the stuff we're told we should put in our bodies. Not just stuff that was being mandated not long ago, but all the other pharmaceuticals citizens are advised to swallow and inject, that may have a very specific therapeutic effect but mostly also act like poisons when viewed holistically. Alcohol and cigarettes bad, all pharmaceutical drugs good...
Yes, well put. I had sleeping trouble a few years ago and it was amazing how speedily the GP prescribed a two week course of sleeping pills. Thankfully I never took them as I coincidentally was introduced to meditation as a remedy - but I got an insight into how easy it would be to end up hooked on prescription medication.
Ditto! The same thing happened to me, and I never took them!
It's a no-brainer: the sicker we are the more the pharmaceutical industry has to gain, and most people only too gladly take their tablets because we're not encouraged to take responsibility for our own health. It's part of what you're saying here about learning to use alcohol wisely.
I remember reading rather similar arguments in a religious context i.e. why would a benevolent god give wo/man free-will, when s/he might then go so manifestly wrong in its exercise. The basic argument offered was we could never prove we were ‘good’ if we didn’t have the option to be bad. Even the abstemious would be robbed of their smugness if it were simply imposed.
Correct - and the result of The Fall is that we gained self consciousness
As I remember the system in Sweden (from 25 years ago), there was no alcohol at all permitted to be sold except from shops licensed by the state, so it sounds as though the position may have slightly relaxed.
I also came across this in the States, specifically New Jersey, where each township can vote as to whether it is 'dry' or 'wet'. The former have usually just one 'liquor store', which makes eating out an interesting experience. Restaurants are all unlicensed, so before dinner you visit the store and select a bottle (from a vast range - a lot of NJ is 'stockbroker belt' for NYC) that you can take to your chosen restaurant, which will charge a small corkage fee (because they're not competing with their own profits from wine sales). The system works quite well. Whether it reduces overall alcohol consumption (which is presumably the intent, as in Sweden), I have no idea.
I wonder if home brewing is therefore popular in Sweden, or is that somehow heavily regulated?
Might be - I think it explains a lot about home brewing culture in the US, for sure.
One thing that is (or certainly was when I worked for a Swedish company 25 years ago) the case is / was the “booze cruise”.
Hundreds of people would board a ship which cruised nowhere in particular over a weekend, the sole purpose being to get into waters outside the reach of the Swedish law where normal rather than watered down alcohol could be consumed at sensible prices.
We used to have booze cruises here too - I think in order to get cheap wine on the continent and avoid customs duty. An age-old tradition!
Wasn’t that more cross channel ferries to fill the car boot up at Calais with wine rather than floating pubs? Actually I think that still goes on.
It's certainly very popular in Norway, where the alcohol restrictions and taxation are similarly punitive. Home distilling is also a thing there.
Very eloquently argued, as always!
My impression however is that governments are not becoming more authoritarian, but rather more PURITAN. The puritan streak has, of course, run through English history for centuries. I think it has become more pronounced in recent years. There seems to be a view that anything good must hurt, that enjoying oneself is a suspect thing to do, that we all deserve to be punished.
The great Peter Simple in his column in the Telegraph used to have an imaginary character, Dr Heinz Kiosk...
"Among that cast were Dr Heinz Kiosk, the crazed psychiatrist given to ending all his grim verdicts on the state of the world with the doom-laden pay-off, “We are all guilty”. "
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10005884/Michael-Wharton-The-man-who-foresaw-the-way-of-the-world.html
It is as though, no longer having the possibility of redemption through the sacrifice of Christ, people now seek some kind of redemption through their own suffering.
Reminds me of the old Judge Death character from the Judge Dredd comics. 'The crime is life; the punishment is death.'
“…it is worth observing that the existence of socialised health care inserts a very strong dose of moral hazard into the equation which really ought not to be present”.
Indeed. My main principled argument for the abolition of the NHS - apart from the practical objection that a nationalised behemoth will by nature always be awful - is my profound objection to the pernicious intrusion on personal freedom that its proponents feel free to advocate.
As a former keen home brewer and (briefly) commercial brewer, I can vouch for the fact that brewing low gravity beer (less about 4% ABV) with a decent bitter-sweet flavour balance between the malt and hops is the most difficult part of the brewers art, the flavours are so light that it's easy to get it off-kilter and end up with a dud. The 3.5% ABV lagers in Norway I found to be universally poor. More ingredients in a stronger beer gives the brewer more wiggle-room.
I have never been to Sweden, but restrictions in Norway are similar, and there you can only buy the weak beer in supermarkets or other shops, and anything stronger has to be bought at the government shops. Interestingly, at Bergen Airport there was a huge duty-free shop in the arrivals area. Usually you find that in departures before you board. Everyone getting off our flight from Aberdeen was stocking up.
Norway does have a strong home brewing community, (lots of small scale craft breweries too) , but there is also home distilling. Not a surprise given the prices of spirits, but dangerous (to my mind as a former anlytical chemist and brewer) and something that I wouldn't do ever. Commercial distillers have to work hard to get the ethanol 'clean', i.e without the methanol (wood alcohol, makes you blind) , and without the higher alcohols (propanol, butanol) which are hang-over material. Amateur distilling is very difficult to control, and the products therefore not 'clean'. The tax regime in Norway (and Sweden I guess) thus tempts/pushes people into dangerous practices.
As for what the new puritans currently pretending to be our government intend, they should remember that beer and wine have been a part of human culture for millenia. Trying to restrict their use on the grounds of 'public health' won't end well. You are quite right about the freedom and responsibility aspect of this. This government of ours seem set on annoying us with yet more intrusion into our lives. Heat, food, travel, drink, there's always some finger-wagging self-righteous bore telling us what should or should not be doing. All on the basis of 'models' and 'projections', of course.
I'm not as healthy as I was ten years ago, and was considering selling my home brewing equipment. I might just hang on to it now, and start brewing again as my own personal protest against 'them' .
Moderation in all things, including alcohol, is not a bad motto to live one's life by. Most of the things I regret in mine are linked to over-indulgence - not least, I have to confess, involving the demon drink. Some of us, I fear, are addictive by nature. I used to do a lot of binge drinking in a social setting, but as I have grown older managed to moderate my intake and behavior, with beneficial results not only to myself but crucially to friends and loved ones all too often became casualties of my over-indulgence. I was helped on the road to greater respect for the perils of this perenially popular poison by the news that one of my former much-loved partners had died suddenly and extremely unpleasanty of alcoholism. Her husband, who broke the news to me, said her drinking had brought him "fourteen years of hell".
Or, alternatively, whether or not the state 'cracks down on' some things and not others is a political question to be settled politically, and therefore to be argued over and discussed by the electorate without having to pay too much attention to glib and facile accusations of hypocrisy. Of course people are going to stick up for things they like or consider to be important, against the things which they don't. That is basically what politics in a democracy consists of. I'm open to a convincing case as to why porn and meth should be liberalised - why not make it?