5 ms·

This article, in my opinion, makes an incredibly important point. And yet, does it in an incredibly boring manner. I'm not sure if its purpose is supposed to be

by SeoxyS 12y ago

This article, in my opinion, makes an incredibly important point. And yet, does it in an incredibly boring manner. I'm not sure if its purpose is supposed to be a literary analysis, or a point about american social values and the taboo placed on drinking. If it's the latter, though; the literary analysis is a distraction. That said, I do agree with the sentiment—teaching responsibility would be much more effective than abstinence.

ScottBurson 12y ago
To each their own. I enjoyed it immensely.
bshimmin 12y ago
I can only imagine it's hard to enjoy this article if you haven't also read - and enjoyed - "The Bacchae" (I did and have - and did - respectively). There was another enjoyable article from The Chronicle about alcohol which was posted here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683034 (No knowledge of Greek tragedy required.)
clay_to_n 12y ago
"Incredibly boring" is a bit harsh from my reading, but I mostly agree with you. I am about to graduate from college. I think it is sad and a bit weird that the majority of people I know here don't seem to see intoxication as similar to "being on the edge of a knife". I think most people (who are sociable and drink) view alcohol as an always-positive thing. Only when people have close personal experiences to the dangers of alcohol (or any other drug) do people seem to understand the magnitude of what intoxication can do to a person. The article resonated with my personal experience. Drugs effect people differently, and while alcohol is nice to me I have seen it do bad things to people I care about. It really bugs me when people think "x is harmless", for any drug (including weed but especially psychedelics), because in their experience they've only seen the good outcomes. In any case, slow articles and drinking wine pair well.
chillingeffect 12y ago
> incredibly boring manner. I'm not sure if its purpose I very much miss the style of writing in which the entire point is given in the first paragraph. The remaining paragraphs then expose the story. I was taught that way and it makes it easier to understand what to pay attention to. Writing in this style has come into vogue. It begins like NPR stories, with no foreshadowing, just a large number of mysterious statements like, "It's 3 am. I'm hearing tinkling sounds. John Wayne had several unusual hobbies. 80s arcade games had references to screen doors." Then, they pile on details until eventually, you hope, a point emerges. I have no idea what parts are relevant and which parts are merely building suspense!
- fluidcruft 12y ago
  I think that style of progressive writing was designed primarily for print journalism. It makes it easier to chop the story to size and fit in the space available during layout. It is a very authoritarian cognitive style, however.
- Ntrails 12y ago
  I recently went on a "business writing course" and about the only thing I can remember was endless repetition of the expression: "Tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"
sebular 12y ago
I'm cringing at your comment. If you'd paid attention to the literary analysis, you'd realize that the author's point is a lot more nuanced than something as obvious and basic as "teach responsibility, not abstinence". Any college with a non-religious/ideological bent already teaches "responsible drinking" and has done so for decades. But as the author notes, it's a lesson that's taught outside of the context of classrooms and professors, and is instead usually relegated to a cheesy hour-long seminar and accompanying workshop at the beginning of the fall semester. What colleges fail to do, in the author's eyes, is address the deeper questions about intoxication. He's not talking about teaching freshmen to "never let a stranger pour your drink", or "limit yourself to one drink per hour", he's talking about teaching students to think about what it means to be intoxicated, why we do it, what we're seeking from it, and how it affects us. Liberal arts curriculums ask students to ponder these questions in the context of socioeconomic structures, race, politics, religion, art, literature, and history, but not intoxication. The reason the author digs into the symbolism and themes in The Bacchae isn't so he can have a pretentious backdrop in arguing for a realistic approach to college drinking; it's to show us what it looks like when someone really tries to stop and think about humanity's relationship with intoxication.
- sgentle 12y ago
  For what it's worth, I think your comment did a better job of explaining what the author had to say than the author did. I wouldn't go as far as "incredibly boring", but the article strikes me as having its priorities mixed up. Is trying to use Euripides to talk about society, or use society to talk about Euripides? Maybe the intention was the former, but I came away thinking "that sounds like a neat play" and not particularly closer to any insight on the nature of intoxication.

by SeoxyS 12y ago

ScottBurson 12y ago

To each their own. I enjoyed it immensely.

bshimmin 12y ago

I can only imagine it's hard to enjoy this article if you haven't also read - and enjoyed - "The Bacchae" (I did and have - and did - respectively). There was another enjoyable article from The Chronicle about alcohol which was posted here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683034 (No knowledge of Greek tragedy required.)

clay_to_n 12y ago

"Incredibly boring" is a bit harsh from my reading, but I mostly agree with you. I am about to graduate from college. I think it is sad and a bit weird that the majority of people I know here don't seem to see intoxication as similar to "being on the edge of a knife". I think most people (who are sociable and drink) view alcohol as an always-positive thing. Only when people have close personal experiences to the dangers of alcohol (or any other drug) do people seem to understand the magnitude of what intoxication can do to a person. The article resonated with my personal experience. Drugs effect people differently, and while alcohol is nice to me I have seen it do bad things to people I care about. It really bugs me when people think "x is harmless", for any drug (including weed but especially psychedelics), because in their experience they've only seen the good outcomes. In any case, slow articles and drinking wine pair well.

chillingeffect 12y ago

> incredibly boring manner. I'm not sure if its purpose I very much miss the style of writing in which the entire point is given in the first paragraph. The remaining paragraphs then expose the story. I was taught that way and it makes it easier to understand what to pay attention to. Writing in this style has come into vogue. It begins like NPR stories, with no foreshadowing, just a large number of mysterious statements like, "It's 3 am. I'm hearing tinkling sounds. John Wayne had several unusual hobbies. 80s arcade games had references to screen doors." Then, they pile on details until eventually, you hope, a point emerges. I have no idea what parts are relevant and which parts are merely building suspense!

fluidcruft 12y ago
I think that style of progressive writing was designed primarily for print journalism. It makes it easier to chop the story to size and fit in the space available during layout. It is a very authoritarian cognitive style, however.
Ntrails 12y ago
I recently went on a "business writing course" and about the only thing I can remember was endless repetition of the expression: "Tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"

sebular 12y ago

I'm cringing at your comment. If you'd paid attention to the literary analysis, you'd realize that the author's point is a lot more nuanced than something as obvious and basic as "teach responsibility, not abstinence". Any college with a non-religious/ideological bent already teaches "responsible drinking" and has done so for decades. But as the author notes, it's a lesson that's taught outside of the context of classrooms and professors, and is instead usually relegated to a cheesy hour-long seminar and accompanying workshop at the beginning of the fall semester. What colleges fail to do, in the author's eyes, is address the deeper questions about intoxication. He's not talking about teaching freshmen to "never let a stranger pour your drink", or "limit yourself to one drink per hour", he's talking about teaching students to think about what it means to be intoxicated, why we do it, what we're seeking from it, and how it affects us. Liberal arts curriculums ask students to ponder these questions in the context of socioeconomic structures, race, politics, religion, art, literature, and history, but not intoxication. The reason the author digs into the symbolism and themes in The Bacchae isn't so he can have a pretentious backdrop in arguing for a realistic approach to college drinking; it's to show us what it looks like when someone really tries to stop and think about humanity's relationship with intoxication.

sgentle 12y ago
For what it's worth, I think your comment did a better job of explaining what the author had to say than the author did. I wouldn't go as far as "incredibly boring", but the article strikes me as having its priorities mixed up. Is trying to use Euripides to talk about society, or use society to talk about Euripides? Maybe the intention was the former, but I came away thinking "that sounds like a neat play" and not particularly closer to any insight on the nature of intoxication.