Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation

Drunken misconduct in our society is commonly assumed to be caused by an assault of alcohol upon the brain such that inhibitions are temporarily rendered inoperative. This book uses a wide range of data on drunken comportment to challenge the conventional view and to present a rival theory of why man's conduct so often deviates from normally acceptable social behavior after drinking alcohol. The authors survey evidence provided from many and diverse societies by anthropologists, historians, missionaries, explorers, and other observers. They show that in many parts of the world drinking is followed either by no change in comportment at all or by one or another of a wide variety of changes, and that even the drunken "misconduct" that does take place occurs within socially defined limits. On this basis, they argue that drunken comportment cannot be explained simply as a result of alcohol's effect upon the brain; instead, changes in behavior under the influence of alcohol are to be understood on the basis of social definitions of drunkenness as a state of reduced responsibility, of "time out." The authors argue that excuses are of great importance in all social systems and that drunkenness is one such excuse. Alcohol and its effects is a subject of interest to a broad group of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, students of alcohol and alcoholism, and those in the medical and legal professions, for all of whom this book will be exceptionally useful. Drunken Comportment will also be of interest to a wide range of social scientists as an unusual and original theoretical statement and an empirical demonstration. Preface Contents 1. The Conventional Wisdom 2. “Some People Can Really Hold Their Liquor” 3. “Now-You-See-It-Now-You-Don’t”: The Sway of Time and Circumstances over Drunken Comportment 4. Disinhibition and the Within-Limits Clause: The Problem of Drunken Changes-for-the-Worse 5. Drunkenness as Time Out: An Alternative Solution to the Problem of Drunken Changes-for-the-Worse 6. “Indians Can’t Hold Their Liquor”: A. The Conventional Wisdom and the Puzzles 7. “Indians Can’t Hold Their Liquor”: B. Our Formulation Applied 8. Some Concluding Remarks References Index