"Salute!"
and the clink of wine glasses tinkled through the cozy kitchen of Isa and
Roberto's house in Campagno di Roma. While abroad in Venice, I traveled with a
friend to visit her family outside of Rome. Her family doted upon us with
homemade pasta that the chef showed us how to cut as well as homemade ragu. The
antipasto consisted of freshly made bread drizzled with homemade olive oil in
which the hint of olives could still be tasted. A bottle of wine from a family
friend's vineyard accompanied the meal. While Isa was showering this wealth of
food and alcohol on us, she also poured a glass of the red wine for her 10-year
old nephew, Barto. No side glances were cast between other family members.
Wine, such a commonplace beverage, is coupled with most dinners in Italy.
Italian parents and children alike consume the alcohol because the body of the
wine complements the meal. The emphasis on fresh ingredients of local origins
increases the wine's appeal as well. These differing attitudes toward alcohol
consumption struck me, and upon my return from Italy, I found myself
juxtaposing American and Italian cultural messages to teenagers about alcohol.
When I was near Barto's age, I was at a family party with my grandmother. I
remember hearing the adults inanely chatter as the sound of wine being poured
echoed in the room. Not fully knowing any better, I asked if I could try the
wine. Several adults noticeably blanched at my query, and my grandmother carted
me off to the kitchen where my mouth was promptly washed out with soap for my
sass and improper questions.
When reading about Mead's work in Samoa, I was
reminded of my own experiences. Mead's relevance to my opposing sociocultural
experiences with alcohol can be seen in her purposeful use of her data to
dispel certain American notions about experiences in adolescence. Her work,
foregrounded as it was to inform western society, illustrated to the American
public that a tumultuous adolescence was not a universal concept. Her model
used sexual permissiveness for adolescent girls in Samoan culture to illustrate
how another society constructs the process of maturation, and the result,
according to Mead, was a more peaceful transition within adolescence. She built
her data set of pertinent cultural experiences through participant observation
in Samoa, and then she employed a method of controlled comparison in order to
apply information gleaned from a "simple" society to the more complex
American society. By showing the peace associated with more sexual freedom on
Samoa, Mead looked to sexually repressive norms within the United States as a
specific cause for a more difficult, tumultuous period of adolescence within
our culture.
In the US, alcohol,
not just sex, can be characterized as an experience that matures and if abused,
makes our teenage years tumultuous. The cultural norms I was exposed to as a
child always portrayed alcohol as a forbidden pleasure that was exciting in part
because of its illicit nature. My early prohibitive experiences with alcohol caused me to seek access to and
experiment with alcohol later in my teenage years as a form of surreptitious
rebellion. Friends of mine developed a dependence on alcohol, which had been
cultivated in the shadows of friends' basements as opposed to the dining table.
Until I held open discussions with Italian university friends in Venice, I
thought that such behavior must be the norm among Italian teenagers as well.
Media of different varieties has contributed in recent years to the reclaiming
of such universalizing ideas about the experience of being a teenager. However,
my Italian friends' responses illustrated the point that Mead was driving at
through her work with Samoan girls. Cultural experiences differ, and your
culture constructs your experiences. My Italian friends never saw alcohol as a
form a rebellion, and they rarely scapegoated alcohol in our discussions as a
reason for messy situations as a teenager. Additionally, drunkenness was a goal
that we thought to strive for in Venice, when in fact the city showed us how
much disdain they have for people who cannot recognize their limits.
As a result of her
research, Mead had a tendency to advocate for a less sexually repressive
American society, in the hopes of reducing the difficulty of maturing within
the U.S. In a similar fashion, many social scientists as well as myself
advocate for the reduction of the legal drinking age here in the hopes of
creating a more open society where wine and other alcohols are simply other
beverages to enjoy and not a form of resistance.
I find your argument interesting, and I mostly agree with it. As the daughter of an alcoholic, I have heard stories of what caused my father's alcoholism, and have feared the results of genetic research linking alcoholism to heredity. However, when he speaks of his experience, he talks about the culture surrounding alcohol in college, where he first began to drink. In this culture of excess, he never learned how to drink "in moderation". The habits of college life affect him still, and he cannot drink. I applaud how candid he has been with me in recent years, and am proud that he is sober today. However, the question I would like to pose is this: to what extent is the concept of alcoholism as a disease a cultural construction? And, in response to AG’s post, would a more permissive culture surrounding alcohol help alleviate the problem?
ReplyDeleteClearly, my opinions are biased by my own experience and by a lack of evidence. My opinion is that if people were taught to drink in moderation by responsible adults rather than by peers, there were be fewer alcohol related deaths and fewer cases of alcoholism. With regards to my original question though, I wonder how the definition of alcoholism would change if American culture were more permissive of alcohol overall. From a Boasian perspective, it becomes difficult to apply the rules of Italian culture (or most any European culture) to the United States. I am picturing, in particular, the Appalachian Mountains where Baptists dominate, and people view alcohol as sinful. At a restaurant in Winston-Salem, my boyfriend’s grandparents balked and were upset that alcohol was even available for purchase. The culture is so deeply ingrained in the people, I doubt very much a change in law would deter these attitudes. Now, if the culture could be changed to permit imbibing alcohol in moderation, perhaps the law would lessen the frequency of alcoholism, but as we know, culture is a tricky thing to change.
I would like to consider the condition of alcoholism as a type of deviancy in American culture. Staying within the context of the Baptist dominated South, Benedict would argue that culture punishes people for drinking excessively. Though this is common in other cultures, my experience leads me to believe it is more extreme in American than in most European and Asian countries. Appalachian culture values hard work and a literal interpretation of the Bible. Therefore, the personality writ large will make most people avoid alcohol (at least in public). To perpetuate this personality deviants are punished by being labeled as sick, lazy, drunkard, crazy, etc. I don’t believe this model works particularly well in practice, as many people do drink in secret, but the idea still stands. The personality writ large of the Appalachian South has such a disdain for alcohol that is impractical to draw a comparison to Italian culture, and therefore until the culture has shifted, a mere change in the legal drinking age will not stop alcoholism or overconsumption during adolescence.
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ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to see though as America is such a “melting pot” of cultures how your experiences in your youth were very different from mine in regards to alcohol. It interesting to see that the values, even across one country, can be so different. In applying this to theory, Benedict would note that in my community your family’s actions to you asking for a drink of wine would be considered deviant, whereas your parents may have had to go through a lot more soap if I were to have lived with you!
ReplyDeleteBeing from a very large Italian-American family, alcohol has always been incorporated into all family gatherings. From my earliest memories of family events, I always remember having a fully stocked bar available to all guests. My family you could say would be very similar to Isa and Roberto’s. Some of my oldest memories include me behind the bar in my uncle’s house emptying glasses and “playing bartender”, and almost every photo taken during family events shows everyone having a glass in their hand.
Additionally, being from New Orleans where alcohol and Mardi Gras are such a valued and important parts of the tourism industry through which New Orleans makes almost all of its money, being permissive about alcohol consumption is the norm. Parents often throw parties for their high school children so that they can drink on private property and not have to worry about things such as driving while intoxicated or sneaking around. As such, alcohol is not a forbidden, or taboo thing in my life and as a result, have never had the experiences you described with sneaking alcohol in friend’s basements as we were often in the living rooms drinking with our friends and their parents.
Additionally, my transition to life here at Wake Forest has proved how I would definitely be labeled a deviant in terms of alcohol as I had to learn about open container laws (walking around outside with a drink is allowed, and many places will offer you a to-go cup for your drink), the fact that there is a separate store just for alcohol (we don’t have ABC stores, all liquor can be purchased at your local Walmart or corner convenience store), and the idea that you were prohibited from buying alcohol on Sundays. With things such as drive-through daiquiri stores considered normal, being restricted from purchasing alcohol seems wrong or deviant to me.
This further elaborates the fact of cultural relativism and historical particularism created by Boas and whose influence is evident in Benedict is so important in the study of deviants. This is because even in an area that has a unique “personality”, such as the United States, can have areas of vastly different values and norms. This only further exemplifies the idea that in each culturally distinct area, different values are considered culturally accepted or culturally repulsive, and thus each and every culture truly has to be studied through the emic viewpoint in order to make the correct interpretation.