Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The Politics of Alcohol
Curious article by Zoe Williams in the Guardian - here - in which she discusses the case of Mel Gibson's drunken outbursts against Jews. I'm not sure I follow Williams's logic but, at the heart of her piece, she appears to say: a)people become more right wing when drunk, b)everybody becomes less intelligent when drunk, and, therefore, c)left wingers are more intelligent than right. This baffled me because, in Guardian terms, Gibson actually became more left wing after a few drinks. It is, these days, left wing to attack the Jews. Furthermore, I don't think I've ever seen anybody become more right wing when drunk. I've seen mild liberals turn into raving Maoists and I've seen many outpourings of sobbing, left-wing sentimentality. But I've never seen or heard anybody turn, in drink, to the right. I have also, I might add, seen plenty of people become much more intelligent after a few glasses. (This, I realise, would seem to support an aspect of Williams's case - more intelligent, more left - though only by inverting all her logic.) Perhaps the problem is that nobody really knows what left or right opinions are any more. The left is only defined by being anti-American - this allows them to support fascist groups like Hezbollah; the right is only defined by the varying success with which its thinkers ape the prose of the late great Auberon Waugh. It's quite funny but it's hardly politics. Incidentally, Williams also asserts that the left is more comfortable with alcohol. The Guardian is truly another planet.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
More spilt religion here I reckon - couldn't bring myself to read the Williams piece (naturally), but isn't she saying in effect that, when inhibition is loosened by alcohol, our true sinful nature comes out - sinful of course equating with right-wing on planet Guardian. Or you could call it the return of the repressed - we're all ravening right-wing animals under the thin veneer of left-wing civilisation (again the only kind on planet Gaurdian). If Williams is right (on the stopped clock principle, she might be occasionally) it only goes to show - In vino Veritas.
ReplyDeleteMahatma Kane Jeeves
How does this fit in with the Compton McKenzie '2 drinks below par' scheme ?
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteYou will have to refresh my memory - or, rather, tell me. Compton only a name to me.
Bryan
I find lager tends to send my political views spiralling towards the right while stout, eg Guinness, sends me in a roughly equivalent distance
ReplyDeleteto the left.
Interestingly red wine sets me to eulogising rather romantically about the joys of perpetual revolution, and while I don't drink whiskey, I intuintively feel it would result in deep enthusiasm for the Roman Republic's dedication to manly virtues.
Fascinating, Andrew, this could lead to endless speculation. What bevvy, for example, would inspire one to become a Libdem? And where would Tequila take a man politically. There is a Norfolk beer called Wherry which, after, say, two pints, seems to take me in a Frank Field direction. Abbott Ale, however, is pure John Prescott
ReplyDeleteA half of shandy is the bevvy to turn you into a LibDem, I imagine - or perhaps a small milk stout. On the other hand, grappa is the boy for putting you in touch with your inner Pol Pot.
ReplyDeleteMKJ
I feel, Bryan, that a Henineken shandy is probably the beverage that would send one into the grateful clutches of the Libdems.
ReplyDeleteWhisky Galore-
ReplyDeleteDr Maclaren: It's a well known fact that some men were born two drinks below par.
So does that make these people normally left wing before imbibing?
Stone me, both Andrew and my old friend Anonymous came up with the libdem-shandy link. It is established fact. Grappa is indeed a radical among drinks. Metaxa? What about that? Anarchist, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteI fear our cosmic sensibilities and awareness of divine interaction in the minutiae of everyday life has been sadly eroded over time, due no doubt to a puritanical monotheism and even worse, a dried up atheism.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the Greeks believe that when drinking wine, one actually became physically possessed of Dinoysus, the God of said drink? Well what has clearly happened is Dionysus/Bacchus has had quite a few offspring in the meantime (the licentiousness of such a deity needs no explaining), and these offspring have various political leanings. And so when one drinks such and such a drink, one is possessed of such and such a political doctrine.
That myself and Anonymous(strangely reminiscent of Odysseus' NoMan- a coincidence, I think not) both inedpendently arrived at shandy being the Libdem tipple is a clear omen of divine approval of this theory.
And by the way, isn't it about time omens returned to the political landscape?
You are deep, Andrew. (You're not, see above, Paris Hilton are you?) I've never entirely abandoned chicken entrails myself. Mel Gibson also has something of the oracle about him. Perhaps his recent outburst, redolent as it was of his performance in Braveheart, signifies that a Scot will not triumph. Gordon Brown will not succeed. It is written. There is, of course, no drink brewed or distilled that could put me in his political mindset.
ReplyDeleteI fear the subtlety and financial acumen of Paris Hilton are beyond my reach, Bryan. Someone I strongly tip to become the new Germaine Greer by the way.
ReplyDeleteWhat of Irn Bru ???
ReplyDeleteI think with Irn Bru we're firmly in the Braveheart territory again, rather an unsophisticated localised ideology of Scottish nationalism. Irn Bru itself a pretty unsophisticated localised drink I think it fair to say. This elegantly explaining the lack of obvious enthusiasm for Scottish nationalism outside of Scotland.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, Paris Hilton IS Germain Greer. Brilliant. And I admire your humility.
ReplyDeleteAh, Irn Bru is to blame. I suspected as much.