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Wow, this is a hugely reductionist and patronizing take. You really think there weren’t lower class people choosing not to drink, or to drink less? I’m hoping

Wow, this is a hugely reductionist and patronizing take. You really think there weren’t lower class people choosing not to drink, or to drink less? I’m hoping you might simply be biased by the fact that most of what we know about history, and even in more recent times most of what gets mindshare, comes from the upper class. For one, many religious movements across the world preached against alcohol use - and while you can argue in some cases the doctrine was set by the upper classes, that doesn’t hold as much water when looking at the many popular Protestant movements which were pretty grassroots. Temperance in the US was hugely driven by middle and working class women, not just elites. And alcohol use was highly controlled by such elitist movements as Leninist Russia.

keiferski 3y ago
The temperance movement was limited to a fairly small percentage of Christians and only began in the 19th century. > Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine" in their central rite—the Eucharist or Lord's Supper. They held that both the Bible and Christian tradition taught that alcohol is a gift from God that makes life more joyous, but that over-indulgence leading to drunkenness is sinful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_alcohol