Let’s Really Talk about Drinking
By Reuben Goldstein
This is in response to Dan Miller’s Article, “Drinking culture poisons our Earlham community.”
I believe that his perception of Earlham and its drinking culture is partially correct; it does exist and can put people in uncomfortable situations.
Nevertheless, I disagree that drinking poisons Earlham culture; I believe that alcohol consumption has a place on campus.
The issue that needs to be addressed is not the consumption itself but the taboo that Earlham puts on the topic of alcohol. This taboo leads to social tensions and anger towards the school from both sides of the argument.
For example, Miller argues that there is a problem with community at Earlham that is exacerbated by alcohol consumption: “Instead of working to improve the situation [lack of community], students seemed hell bent on making it worse.” Miller is entitled to his opinion, but I take issue with his conclusions about alcohol’s negative effect on Earlham’s community.
First, I don’t think that Earlham should strive for a student body where everyone believes the same thing. To have a campus of non-drinkers would mean that the school would have to go out of its way to have a student body with only one perspective. This lack of diverse viewpoints would make me not want to go to Earlham. If Earlham were to truly enforce the alcohol policy, it would see its retention rate drop significantly
The second issue I have with that argument is that I believe that the students at Earlham are terrific at creating community, and considering that Earlham is an isolated community where we have to make our own fun, I think we do an even better job. It is not that people drink that is the issue, but the way that people drink.
It is reasonable to believe that there are a few people who drink and in doing so disrespect you. To use that bias sweepingly is attacking an entire campus of people who drink, have fun doing so but are also responsible and respectful.
Earlham students are not hell bent on destroying this community. My friends and I all enjoy a drink, especially on the weekends, and I believe that there is a place for alcohol in social situations.
I wish that the issue of alcohol consumption did not have such a polarizing effect on the student body. I think this polarizing effect stems from the dry campus policy. This policy, I would argue, is problematic in the way that it is implemented because it fosters distrust and a lack of communication between the administration and the student body about alcohol. The school needs to acknowledge that people are going to be consuming alcohol; as long as alcohol is legal this will always be an issue.
Now, however, the issue is the elephant in the room; no one talks about it but everyone knows that it is there. Earlham needs to turn this issue into one that is open for conversation or this divide between drinkers and non-drinkers will always be there.
People come to Earlham having no real idea what effects alcohol will have on them, so they take shots all night and then end up breaking stuff and throwing up all over the place. In the morning they believe that they had the coolest night. Yet because of our alcohol policy, Earlham does very little to address this issue up front and turns it into a non-issue.
Instead, when enough people complain about the drinking issue, the authorities show up at parties where people are having a good time, and they look like jerks who are trying to put an issue they have let out of the bag back in, effectively offending everyone at the party and making a lame-duck attempt to address this issue.
The topic of alcohol needs to be brought into the open, where there is a place for discussion. Otherwise drinking at Earlham will be a perpetual issue that just puts everyone in an uncomfortable situation.
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