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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Incidentally, alcohol is a culture war in Finland, or at least a heavily culture-war-type subject that pops up in national politics from time to time. Prohibition is not on the agenda, but the alcohol laws are still fairly tight, and there are set tribes on this topic that keep having the same debates over and over again (with nanny-state leftists and conservative Christians in one camp and various free-marketeers and cosmopolitan 'European' types in the other). Alcohol deaths and its effects on health are a constant worry, though of course the opinions on whether public policy can actually account for this vary.

Underpinning it all is a consistent topic on whether Finns are just culturally unable to handle alcohol without being tightly regulated or whether instead Finnish drinking habits (ie. binge drinking during the weekend, sobriety during the week) could be developed to a more "European" direction of (presumably) not bingeing in the weekend but also having wine and beer during working lunches and so on. During the COVID time, of course, the alcohol policy debates became about whether bar closures etc. are evidence of nanny-statist government hating alcohol so much it is willing to let barkeepers go under, instead of doing some other restrictions or not doing restrictions at all.

In some ways, after following all this closely, it starts looking a bit surprising that alcohol isn't a culture war issue in other countries. Alcohol is, after all, a huge part of the Western culture in general, various alcohol-related fields form a considerable part of economy (ie. not only considering the sales of alcohol as such but its role in restaurants, tourism etc.), alcohol abuse has a vast amount of negative effects on health, crime and such, and the comparable subject of drug policy has certainly been a culture-war issue.

Knowing little of Finland, but knowing how severe alcohol abuse is in your neighbor Russia, would have me siding with the many-state leftist if there was even 5% chance it could get just as bad and possibly irreversible.

In some ways, after following all this closely, it starts looking a bit surprising that alcohol isn't a culture war issue in other countries.

It sort of is, in Ireland. We've long had a problematic relationship with alcohol, attempts at temperance have been driven by religious organisations - even when I was making my confirmation back in the mid-70s, the joke at the time was they got us to take the (temporary) pledge then at age 12 because if they left it later we'd already have started drinking - and there are the same arguments over "European-style drinking" and extended opening hours, etc. The proponents say that if we have European-style opening hours and nightclubs and so forth, people won't be rushing to drink to excess in a few hours but can spread it out over the night.

The problem in part is, when people are young, they drink to get drunk (legal drinking age in Ireland is 18 which always trips me up when I see Americans talk about under-age drinking at college, and they mean '20 year old drank beer or even alcopops'). They don't care about taste, they drink as much as fast as possible to get shit-faced and they want more bang for their buck, which of course is why bars offer special rates to college students.

We even have the charity campaigning for responsible drinking being funded by the alcohol industry, copying the UK version. Partly this is to help ameliorate the stigma from public drunkenness and to avoid punitive measures by government to cut down drinking by slapping taxes etc. on alcohol. They want to sell drink, after all, not promote Prohibition. So if campaigns around "don't binge drink" work, then all the better for them, as it means no pressure for prohibition (though that would never work here). Much the same motives as described below:

UK version:

In 2006, Drinkaware was established as a charity in the United Kingdom following a memorandum of understanding between the Portman Group and various UK government agencies. This debate piece briefly reviews the international literature on industry social aspects organizations, examines the nature of Drinkaware's activities and considers how the public health community should respond. Although the British addiction field and the wider public health community have distanced themselves from the Portman Group, they have not done so from Drinkaware, even though Drinkaware was devised by the Portman Group to serve industry interests. Both long-standing and more recent developments indicate very high levels of industry influence on British alcohol policy, and Drinkaware provides one mechanism of influence. We suggest that working with, and for, industry bodies such as Drinkaware helps disguise fundamental conflicts of interest and serves only to legitimize corporate efforts to promote partnership as a means of averting evidence-based alcohol policies. We invite vigorous debate on these internationally significant issues and propose that similar industry bodies should be carefully studied in other countries.

I don't know about the Finns, but I don't think Irish drinking culture will change that greatly even if we do adopt "European models". Underage drinking is being tackled, and is improving, but it's still a problem. The kind of solutions offered as in this article (the Icelandic model) may or may not work - a national curfew where all under-16 year olds have to be home by 10 pm? Good luck with that, I can already hear the civil liberties crowd complaining about a police state.

I don't know about the Finns, but I don't think Irish drinking culture will change that greatly even if we do adopt "European models".

One common guess is that adopting the "European model of drinking" would just mean getting tipsy during the week and also continuing weekend binges.

It should be noted that alcohol consumption has been going down lately in Finland, particularly among teens. This has been combined with some amount of alcohol law liberalization, leading to crowing from liberalization advocates on how the nanny-statist argument on liberalization leading to alcohol abuse being proven wrong, though I'd guess it's more that any potential increase from liberalization has been negated by general effect of stay-at-home smartphone teen culture, and possibly nanny-statish informing/nudge campaigns on harms of alcohol actually having some effect.

The kind of solutions offered as in this article (the Icelandic model) may or may not work - a national curfew where all under-16 year olds have to be home by 10 pm? Good luck with that, I can already hear the civil liberties crowd complaining about a police state.

Do you think they're wrong? That policy sounds absolutely terrible to me, effectively infantilizing young adults out of a misplaced concern for their safety. When I was 16, it was pretty common for me to be at a friend's house pretty late, playing video games or just messing around, then drive home. If I lived in a town, I suppose it would have been walking or biking home instead. I have trouble imagining growing up in world where playing Halo until 11 PM is unreasonably dangerous behavior.

In some ways, after following all this closely, it starts looking a bit surprising that alcohol isn't a culture war issue in other countries. Alcohol is, after all, a huge part of the Western culture in general,

Culture War is a result of there being a massive rift in the culture. In most European countries "alcohol is a huge part of culture" in the sense that most people enjoy it, and are on the same page on how it's supposed to be enjoyed - i.e. what "is a huge part of culture" is supposed to mean, rather than "we love to hate each other about it".

True, but it's not like there haven't been areas with wide societal and cultural shared understanding that have then become hugely divisive culture war topics before.

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