Bowling Alone, Scrolling Together

I’ve had a front-row seat to something I don’t think we fully understand yet.

Two books

I never get around to reading books anymore. Maybe soon. Young children just aren't helping me with productivity...although they may be providing me with two things that seem pretty important to most people: the meaning of life and an afterlife.

Punishment and condemnation

I've heard people ask the same question that Robert Wright, author of Moral Animal, poses in this column:

In this view, if I had Tiger Woods’s genes, and was born into his environment, I’d become exactly what he’s become. And so too with all others who violate norms or laws, including the most heinous criminals: If any of us had been born with their genes, into their environment, presumably we’d have become them. So how can we possibly condemn or punish them? Yet, as a practical matter, we have to punish heinous criminals, right?

First, I'd like to respond to his major premise: that athletes like Tiger serve as de facto role models in our society, and so their personal behavior off the athletic field is very important. He may be right that children do hold up athletes as role models, but perhaps this is a failure in our parenting. Perhaps the focus ought to be on getting children to recognize altruistic and philanthropic behaviors as superior indicators of character, and thus emulation, to athletic prowess. Perhaps we should spend more time explaining that athletes are just really good at their sport, not superheroes worthy of all-around emulation.

Back to his moral dilemma: it's not so troubling to worry about justification if all we're doing is condemning bad behavior with rhetoric. But the more substantive thorny issue involves crime and punishment: "Well, if people just behave how their genes and environment cause them to, then how can we blame/condemn them for it?" The feeling is that we aren't justified in blaming someone if they "can't help themselves" on some level.

It's important to note that the issue of justice and punishment don't have to involve some sort of moral high ground. When we lock up a murderer or rapist, we are protecting society from a dangerous person. On purely utilitarian grounds, this person has forfeited their right to go freely in society by behaving in such a way as to pose a grave threat to the freedoms of others to do the same. And so we don't have to say we're "better" than that person. We just have to say that we don't pose the same threat as they do, and so punishment does not have to equal condemnation.

Parent perceptions and teenage drinking

I read about a project by one of the Intel Society for Science contest winners in the NYT and it reminded me of a conversation I had last year with a drugs and alcohol expert. Ms. Jurman's research pointed out that when teenagers learn that their parent(s) crossed certain boundaries, it emboldened them to cross the same boundaries. I remember having a conversation with Jeff Wolfsberg last year about the myth of European culture having a dampening effect on teen alcohol abuse. Jeff shot that idea down, saying that the permissivity of European and Latin American cultures towards alcohol actually seemed to create more young alcoholics than in America, although he admitted we have a wider-spread problem with binge-drinking during college.

Jeff does support teaching teens preparing to leave for college how to drink (and how not to) using tips like these:

1. Never drink just for the sake of drinking, as a game or contest, or with the aim of getting drunk or forgetting troubles.
2. Don't drink on an empty stomach. Eat both before and while drinking.
3. Pace yourself. Until you are familiar with your own reactions to alcohol, don't consume more than one drink per hour. One drink can be a 12-ounce can or bottle of beer, a 4-ounce glass of wine, or 1 ounce of liquor in a mixed drink.
4. Remember that carbonated drinks get alcohol into the bloodstream faster.
   

Know when to say "when." Monitor your own feelings. Be wary of any changes in mood or perceptions.

I think it's difficult for reality-bound parents to ignore the fact that their children will learn how to use alcohol from them first, and then from culture if their parents don't teach them by example. I fully intend to drink responsibly around my child(ren) and show them by example how to ask others to drive and plan ahead and know your own limits. I think this is a far more effective teaching tool than scaring or controlling them into total abstinence (even if you could) during high school, after which, in college, they may find themselves passed out in a ditch in the first week. I guess one option is to ship your kids off to some "camp" to try to scare/train them off experiencing things.

I know I could've benefitted more from positive role models involving alcohol use, and I blame this absence partly for how I got so wild in high school. (Partly.) I ended up being told by AA people that I was an alcoholic (complete BS). By the way, AA sucks as a form of "treatment" and doctors are now realizing that there is no such thing as a binary solution for all people who abuse alcohol.

So while Ms. Jurman's findings indicate more teens will try alcohol if their parents did, it doesn't talk much about whether or not these teens use alcohol more responsibly than their peers if taught by example.