Stupidity kills
Toolbox
Published: January 26, 2010
John McCardell has taken his campaign to lower the legal drinking age to the Vermont Legislature, which will consider the idea, probably in the abstract, while declining to take McCardell's advice.
For one thing, the state would have to surrender about $17.5 million in federal transportation money if it lowered the drinking age to 18. Federal law penalizes states that don't keep the drinking age at 21.
Then there are those who testify that lowering the drinking age would create greater danger for younger teens, causing more death and mayhem. No legislator would want to face the mother of a 15-year-old killed because of more readily available alcohol.
But McCardell is doing us a service by drawing attention to the pathology of drinking that exists around the nation. His view was shaped by his years as president of Middlebury College, where he saw the toll taken by the binge drinking and other immature behavior caused by the 21-year-old legal age and the need for students to socialize in secret. Even if discussion of a lower age is mostly abstract, it is useful for how it forces us to recognize the ways we encourage our young people to behave in a self-destructive fashion.
Culturally, we celebrate drinking. Beer commercials are a subspecies of comedy usually involving a dimwitted male whose thought processes have been severely compromised by his desire to get his hand around a cold one. Presumably, the beer companies want us to think all of these overgrown teenagers are actually 21 or older. Whatever. The promotion of beer as an all-purpose elixir perpetuates the culture of mindless partying. If there is a contradiction between the stupid behavior that is promoted and the promise that beer will gain you the affections of the beauteous babe, that contradiction is not explored in most beer commercials.
Then we make it all illegal. The result is to sequester those below 21 into dorm rooms or forest clearings where the excitement of the forbidden gives an extra thrill to the excesses that occur. It is as if we want kids to go off by themselves beyond the reach of common sense.
How do you moderate this behavior so that kids don't do real harm to themselves? McCardell's idea is that we allow those 18 and older to learn responsible behavior by treating them as adults. Drinking can become an ordinary part of life, as it is for grown-ups. A glass of wine at dinner or a cold beer on a hot day are something to enjoy, and the sooner kids get the idea that getting wasted is mainly a waste of time, then the better off we will all be.
There are some difficulties, however. Excess is wired into the brains of older teens. It is a time of extreme emotion and the testing of limits, of courting danger, of adventure, lust and experimentation. Asking an 18-year-old in for a glass of sherry with the faculty may not do the trick.
Also, the culture will not soon be cured of its immature tendencies. McCardell's appeal to reason is useful in part for the way it calls attention to the broader cultural problem. But it won't quickly solve it.
And then there are those mothers, who have suffered the ultimate loss. If a 15- or 16-year-old will have an easier time getting his or her hands on a six-pack after 18-year-olds can legally buy, then that is a reason to question the quick lowering of the drinking age.
Colleges are particularly vulnerable to the follies of the drinking culture, especially when it comes to tailgating, fraternity parties, and the quest for social acceptance within a hothouse social environment. It is understandable that McCardell, having witnessed the costs, would want to open up this topic for discussion.
It's time for kids and their parents, in college and out, to wean themselves from behavior that leads nowhere but to grief. McCardell is moving that process along.
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