The Drinking Life

Theodore Dalrymple, the ever-depressing chronicler of the dark underbelly of British social life, bemoans the rampant drunkenness that defines much of British youth culture, and the insane lengths to which the government will go to deal with the problem without holding individuals responsible for their own behavior:

That the British are now a nation of drunken brutes, justly despised throughout the world wherever they congregate in any numbers, is so obvious a fact that it should require no repetition. A brief visit to the centre of any British town or city on a Saturday night - or indeed, almost any night - will confirm it for those who are still in doubt. There they will see scenes of charmless vulgarity, in which thousands of scantily clad, lumpen sluts scream drunkenly, and men vomit proudly in the gutters.

The Government, whose solution to any social problem is to make it worse, now proposes that the British, having conclusively proved that they cannot (or rather, will not) control themselves, should be granted even more licence to make a public nuisance of themselves whenever they feel like it, which is often. They will henceforth be able to drink in pubs and bars at all times of the day and night, 24 hours a day, instead of just most of the day and night. If there were shares in debauchery, I'd buy them now.

Of course, the Government claims to believe that, by allowing drinking establishments to open 24 hours a day, it will reduce public drunkenness. If it really believes this, it is a terrible indictment of the British nation: that it can allow itself to be led by such a collection of hopeless fools. As to the suggestion that we might develop here the kind of civilised Mediterranean café culture if only drinking outlets were open long enough, you might as well preach the comforts of the igloo and the tastiness of whale blubber to the Masai of Kenya.

I find it hard to accept Dalrymple's depiction of British life without a grain of salt. Certainly it is not as bad as he makes it out to be in all places. Based on accounts of inner city crime from America in the 1970s, many Europeans got the impression that America was awash in murder and mayhem. But I've read enough accounts of the downward slide in British manners to not accept that such behaviors are a serious problem.

Certainly the government's response to the problem is laughable, and a perfect example of a misplaced faith in the power of the carrot over the stick as a motivational force in human nature. It is as if firemen decided to pour gasoline on fires instead of water, under the impression that the fire would soon get its fill and go out voluntarily. It is the same mistaken thinking behind the "self esteem" movement in education, which posits that success can be bred into a student by praising failure.

Of course, if people were self reliant and accountable for their actions, how would government bureacrats sell their indispensability to the electorate?