http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/opinion/17wed3.html
This editorial discusses the current movement among college presidents to lower the legal drinking age, which has been an issue of great interest for a very long time. The writer argues that a 21-year-old floor for drinking is not what leads to binge drinking on campus, and instead blames the problematic drinking culture in college for being wholly responsible for excessive drinking among college students. The writer uses very little pathos in delivering his/her claim, but focuses on logos. However, this claim, although true to some extent, is not completely valid. And throughout this post I will explain to you why.
Although the legal age of drinking is set to 21, in reality the effect of the law is negligible on the accessibility of alcohol among adolescents. In fact, in an experiment 97% of underage attempts succeeded in buying packaged beer in Washington, D.C. (Preusser & Williams, as cited in Wagenaar & Wolfson, 1994). Moreover, underage drinkers could easily find alcohol in parties or they could even simply ask their older friends to purchase alcohol for them. A bigger problem lies in the fact that very little action is taken against these violations of law-- only 0.2% of underage drinkers and only 0.005% of liquor outlets that sell alcohol to underages are subject to regulative action (Wagenaar & Wolfson, 1994).
While the legal drinking age has so little impact on college students' access to alcohol, it subjects the students to drink in an environment that is either more dangerous or more likely to binge drink, or both. A large number of people are learning to drink from their peers in college, where binge drinking is prevalent, instead of learning moderate and appropriate manners from their parents or other elderly members of the society. And since the majority of underage drinking occur in secluded places such as dorm rooms or house parties, the underaged are prone to drinking excessively because there exists very little restraint in such circumstances.
I agree with the writer that the legal age of drinking is not what's causing the prevalence of binge drinking in college throughout the United States. I value the ethicality in the rhetoric also, and I believe that simply lowering the minimun drinking age would not result in a dramatic improvement in the drinking reality on college campuses. But it's not only the drinking culture on campuses that's to blame. Rather, reformations on various levels should be carried out to resolve this issue.
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3 comments:
I agree to a certain extent that lowering the drinking age ffrom 21 may not help with the problem of binge drinking. Kids everywhere tend to drink excessively whether it is to party and have a good time or because they simply like the feeling of being extremely intoxicated. As a 21 year old with friends of the same age and older, we are able to drink yet that has not had an impact on how much we drink. The trend of drinking excessively has remained the same from the ages of 18 to 21. While it may seem like kids feel the need to sneak around in order to get drunk, those adolescents who are of age and still enjoy partying are binge drinking as well. I dont feel that if the legal drinking age were lowered that binge drinking would be minimmized; not to say that it would maximize. If anything, naive children who are just looking to party now have access to alcohol in which destructive decisions may be made. While I make this argument that lowering the drinking age may not have an effect on binge drinking, it is not to say that I think the drinking age shouldnt be lowered. In order to properly limit binge drinking outside the home, there needs to be more responsible employees as bars/ restaurants whether it is cutting their customers off once tehyve had too much to drink or not allowing them to enter if they feel they are too intoxicated. The more responsible people are, the better the outcome.
Although I am an advocate for lowering the drinking age, I am not sure that it will help with the problem of binge drinking. Binge drinking has become an integral part of our entire culture (not just the college culture as the editorial’s author claims); thus lowering the drinking age may not directly change that. However, I do believe that lowering the drinking age would help to increase young adults’ responsibility. While I was in Spain my senior year of high school, I experienced a culture where drinking as a teenager was accepted. Since the teens were exposed to alcohol from an early age, they did not feel the need to abuse it. In fact, when out at night they scoffed at the Americans who were downing alcohol while they leisurely sipped their drinks. Drinking is equally as large a part of Spanish culture as it is in ours, yet binge drinking is not. I am convinced that this is because alcohol was available to the young adults at an earlier age so they did not feel the pressure to hide their experimentation. In turn, it did not turn into an enjoyable form of rebellion - and consequently the young Spanish adults were not abusing drinking in the same fashion as American young adults. I can attest from my own high school experience that my binge drinking was solely based on the fact that I had to drink quickly and in secrecy to make sure that I would not get caught. Obviously, I am not claiming that lowering the drinking age would cut out binge drinking from our culture completely, but I do believe it would minimize the problem since more young adults would be conscious about their drinking. If we are trained from a young age to drink responsibly - perhaps under the guidance of adults - then binge drinking would not be an issue. Unfortunately, we were raised in a culture where punishments are high for underage drinking. Thus, many of us have to sneak around for the majority of our high school and college careers forcing us to make rash decisions. Ultimately, I believe that lowering the drinking age and therefore, encouraging responsibility, is the only way that the high levels of binge drinking have a change of being lowered.
"The 21-year-old floor is not the problem. It is the culture of drinking at school"(quote from The Daily Cardinal, Sept. 16, 2008 editorial "Colleges and Binge Drinking" on the website listed above). I believe in contradiction to Nam that this is a valid argument. If the premises of this argument were in fact to be true and lowering the drinking age promoted less excessive drinking, then the act of enforcing it, by law of validity, would mean binge drinking would subside. Therefore, this is a valid argument. However, Nam is right when he concludes that several ways are needed to stop binge drinking and the campus atmosphere is not the only catalyst. So, as far as an argument goes, this could be classified as unsound. Now, because this is a valid argument, what needs to happen to clarify why lowering the drinking age will not solve the problem, what exactly would, and do the ones participating in the drinking even care?
Understandably, college in general is a land of undetermined freedoms. No parents, no restrictions, and no reasons not to: the very ingredient for an uncontrolled environment. But is it so much that young adults smart enough and responsible enough in the first place to get to college can't control? I beg to think not. Even adolescents, who may fall victim to peer pressure more so than those 21 years of age and older, have a mind capable of setting their limits. So is the sight of a beer pong table, a two-story beer bong, or a shot-ski really that irresistible that it causes binge drinking. Right, of course not, so what are the other factors?
21 years of age or not, People make decisions for themselves. What law can really stop anyone from doing anything if they truly have the desire to do it? I can say confidently that our generation has been encouraged to live with "No rules". I can say confidently that if the statement "you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it" applies to positive choices, it can also apply to negative ones. The people on campus are the solution, the drinker has the choice, and the law only has the hope that they listen.
So my argument falls on the individual, the drinker him/herself. The argument that a lowered drinking age policy could stop binge drinking- valid. The fact that it probably won't fix the binge drinking problem- I agree. The paradigm of college being too uncontrolled that drinking is irresistible: I don't buy it. What I think is that if person truly wants to drink and drink hard, they will, and they are the solution to stop binge drinking. Do they even care? That’s a good question. Another one would be: What is sacrificed in order to spend time after time to drink, and what's really gained from it?
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