British drunkenness is not a pleasant story. I can remember years ago reading for some class or other of gin and the 18th century. Hogarth portrays a world little different from the ghetto of the crack whores a decade or two ago. Alcohol may seem fun, but it doesn’t always look all that good.
One of the numerous reasons I got fed up with running a business in the notorious strip across from our local university were the tiresome drunks. Wedged between bars, our copy shop gave us a front row seat on well, on a guy pissing on the window with such glazed over eyes that his only reason was probably the most primitive nature called. The night guy complained to me the next day- he’d tried to place himself between the window and the young girls working with him; he knew animals he’d just gotten his PhD. in ag and he knew the world he’d just returned from a Peace Corps tour in Africa; he wasn’t shocked but he was angry. Thirteen years of locking up late at night and walking out into the cool night air to see two drunks “helping” an equally drunken girl into a car, of seeing evidence that many had relieved themselves in the bushes and in the gutter around us didn’t make me sad to sell. Yes, drunken man is not noble man; he does show us how vulgar and selfish our instincts can be and why it is a good thing they are restrained. Then there was the guy whose intentions were clearly dishonorable toward another of my workers as she moved toward her car; since he was falling down, tangled in the pants he was trying to get off, she found him less threatening than disgusting. Man can be loutish. (And if drunks dominate here, I don’t remember the druggies on the Drag in Austin being any prizes, either.)
What England did in the Victorian years is Himmelfarb territory and it is a remarkable century in terms of restraint and duty and productivity. For instance, the number of crimes that were punished by hanging went down, but the police became respected and so were women. (The few crimes more punished at the end of the century than the beginning were against women.) Those gin-soaked mothers became the hands that rocked the cradle. As both the Chicagoboyz and Dalyrmple note our culture can encourage or discourage. But we also need models. The manliness of firefighters asking for last rites as they went into the burning towers or of the Iraqi man throwing himself on the suicide bomber headed toward his mosque – these are in my head and I’m thankful for them.
But if our species demonstrates an instinctive & eternal vulgarity, an ugly & base self that seeks oblivion in drinks or drugs or mob violence, we also long for consciousness, our heroism instinctive, too.
Kaus critiques the Mumbai responses, but if the tragedy demonstrated failings in law enforcement, it also showed us what man could be. A&L often links to cynical academia, but this time it found virtue. Michael Pollock’s “Heroes at the Taj” concludes:
It is much easier to destroy than to build, yet somehow humanity has managed to build far more than it has ever destroyed. Likewise, in a period of crisis, it is much easier to find faults and failings rather than to celebrate the good deeds. It is now time to commemorate our heroes.