Kids are on the rampage. Binge drinking is out of control. We need tighter licensing laws. Kids can't get their hands on the wicked booze. Make it difficult to drink if you're under 21.
These are the self-defeating rallying cries of today's reactionaries. I offer you a simple, liberal solution. Let teenagers drink in pubs like they used to. I am in a rather good position to judge this issue as I am just old enough (21) to have been allowed, with a wink, to drink quietly in a pub corner underage. My brother (16) isn't. The police are far stricter and it just isn't viable for a pub to let him in. Wonderful, I hear the conservative cry, but this is a mistake. I started drinking in adult space, under adult rules. If I overstepped the mark, I couldn't drink. This not only fostered a responsible drinking ethic in me. I knew how to drink. I knew how adults drank. There was no mystique around it. Consequently, when I got to 18 I didn't go on the rampage. If we compare drinking cultures between people of my age int he UK and in the US the difference is marked. Americans in their early twenties often drink like "Frank the tank" beasts. They've not been inducted into drinking by adults, they've gone it alone, often with disastrous results.
The pub is a crucial social institution providing a space where kids can share adult space, and get to know its contours of acceptability. We have so few areas for young people, especially boys, to gently become adults. The pub was one of these. Let us return to the wink, wink, nudge, nudge approach. Let landlords turn a blind eye to well-behaved 16 year olds having a few pints. The Landlord is likely to know what their limit is and how to treat them. This important socialising role is being removed by reactionary "think 21" policies. Lets not infantalise young people but help them become adults, and have a pint or two whilst doing it.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Teenagers, pubs, and adult spaces
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6 comments:
Did you know that a hundred years ago when the Liberal Party was also he political wing of the Temprence League in some respects, one of the "liberal" justifications for taxing booze and villifying brewers (although several of Oxford's Morrell family were Liberal MPs at one point!) was that local brewery and pub monopolies were operating to fleece the worker of his wages before he ever got home (I wonder if D H Lawrence was a Temprence League member!).
Anyway, I do think a similar situation arises today, with the steady erosion of the local pub in favour of the town centre beer barn. People knew who I was and to whom I was related or where I went to school or whatever when I drank in pubs under age. If I was more trouble that just throwing me out would resolve, the news would get back to my guardians and I would be in for it. Now these places are so anonymous they have no choice but to farm out enforcement to "the law".
I imagine that the smoking ban disproportionately hits smaller pubs which perform this social role too.
if alcohol was banned, people of all ages could socialise in these public houses
Socialise doing what? coffee houses are for all ages but are a rather different type of public space. The adult nature of the pub is important in socialising teenagers and young adults.
Why, Bob, don't you allow my comments on your blog. Its three now you've deleted. What ever happened to free exchange? I'm more than happy you disagreeing with me and commenting here. Please grow up and publish my comments.
Could not agree more. There are two points here. Firstly how legalisation controls behaviour far better than prohibition. The other thread I picked up was a nostalgia for a time when behaviour was less regulated and the judgment of people such as publicans were more respected.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far, we legislate behviour to death and in doing so we remove the responsibility on people. Perhaps it is time to start trusting people again.
Kids will won't to get fucked. Its in our nature. As you said in a comment on another post we've still got the biology and psysionomy we had 100,000 years ago. We used to be initiated into adult culture. Now we're left on our own (this is on balance probably a good thing). We need to create safe(ish) environments for kids to learn how to be an adult. The pub is one of the safest places. Far better than necking cheap vodka in the park.
Liberalism is far safer, in this circumstance, than any crack down or authoritarian action.
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