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Little, Brown Spark (2021), 384 pages
Description
A look at how alcohol and other intoxicants helped spark the rise of the first large-scale societies by enhancing creativity, alleviating stress and building trust among conflicting tribes to allow them to cooperate with each other. Drunk cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication. From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows, Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence--one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
A book extolling the virtues of drunkenness in 2021 had better be unimpeachable. As Edward Slingerland acknowledges, society has turned its back on alcohol, becoming an intolerant prurient shadow of the thousands of years since alcohol was tamed and made part of civil society. His book, Drunk,
The active chemical in alcohol is ethanol, and the yeast in plants makes ethanol to fend off bacteria that compete for the nutritive value of many fruits and vegetables. Man has stretched the limits of fermentation, trying, and succeeding to greater or lesser extents, with everything from grass to potatoes and cactus. If it has green, it can be grog.
Alcohol found its way into human lives even before we adopted agriculture. It was, it seems, a higher priority than even bread, usually thought of as the end of hunting/gathering. Every civilization figured out early how to ferment fruits and vegetables, and drink whatever disgusting fluid resulted, purely for its intoxicating effects. More recently, we have learned to multiply those intoxicating effects through distillation: layering more and more alcohol into brandies, vodkas and such. This has created a selection of alcohol so powerful our ancestors wouldn’t know how to cope with it, and to an unfortunate extent, neither do we.
Alcohol has swung back and forth between sacred and damned, with damned the current fashion. The very word alcohol comes from the Arabic. These days Muslims wouldn’t touch the stuff in accordance with their religion. But even that is a recent change. The Middle East used to do business over alcohol much as everyone else did, with sometimes elaborate rituals, structured events, and mandatory trials before trust and negotiation could take place.
It used to be that everyone drank. For one thing, water was so filthy, it was far safer to drink beer and wine if you had any hope of making it to adulthood. Today, it is just the opposite. No alcohol until well into adulthood because it could kill you (or you could kill someone else).
Religions are full of references to alcohol, and most require it in various ceremonies from the blood of Christ to a glass of wine for Elijah. Jesus’ very first miracle was turning water into wine. Nobody complained.
Slingerland’s longest and best arguments are over bonding and creativity. Strangers bonded over drinks at the local, which does not even exist in North American society any more. If someone stopped drinking, they became suspect, and people guarded what they said around him or her. Drinking beer allowed the locals to speak freely, lower barriers between them, get secrets out in the open where they would do no more harm, and promote agreement.
It was a major de-stressor over ages when there were no other regular distractions. It was both social and therapeutic.
On the creative side, drink produces ideas and collaboration. Slingerland says when a pub finally opened near the campus of his university, the resulting socializing among professors and students led to all kinds of new projects, awards, grants, and recognition. None of it would have happened in the office, the conference room or the hallways.
Much as psychedelics cut off the barriers to connection in the brain, alcohol numbs the prefrontal cortex into submission for a period of time. The prefrontal cortex consists of the frontal lobes above the eyes, the biggest and newest part of the brain. They develop late, in fact last, not fully formed until the age of 21. They then start taking over, organizing thoughts and priorities, restricting connections that are not focused and goal-oriented, and generally killing the child in each of us. Taking temporary control away from the straitlaced grip of the prefrontal cortex is the magic and attraction of alcohol, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD. Wonderfully, the effect is temporary, produces no damage, lasting or otherwise, and has been a blessed relief for all mankind from the very beginning.
Slingerland calls the sum of these factors creative, cultural and communal, and they are present worldwide, fueled by alcohol everywhere. They are the key to differentiating humans from other primates, as well as the key to our success.
Back inside the brain, teenage drunks are the wildest, because they don’t have the regulation provided by a fully developed prefrontal cortex. Nor do they know when to stop. The result is often ugly and sometimes fatal, even if just to the drinker alone. Some societies get this more than others, as age restrictions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The book examines the rituals, processes and effects in numerous societies throughout history. The Japanese salary-man is probably the biggest proponent today, getting massively drunk many nights after work, barely making it in the next day. It supposedly builds lifelong friendships and appreciation for who others in the group really are.
Historically, the Vikings seem to be world champions, getting so overwhelmingly drunk they could lose battles. The glorious Beowulf was famous in his own time because he could get stinking drunk without killing any of his friends. This was a unique and miraculous accomplishment for a Viking, never mind a king.
Alcohol consumption today is mutating, and not necessarily for the better. It used to require a trip to a place. Now homes are stocked with vast quantities and varieties, totally unknown in past civilizations. No one drank at home; it was a social lubricator. No one drank alone; it was a community facilitator. No one simply imbibed alcohol. It was an accompaniment to food. The key to drinking in the famously alcoholic countries of southern Europe is that the wine went with the food and not an evening boozing. Getting drunk at home, alone without a great meal would make no sense to most throughout history. Today it is the norm.
And the alcohol is far more powerful now. Man has learned to up the alcohol content of beer to 6% and wine to 15%, when throughout history they were high if they were in the two range. Hard liquor is off the charts.
Slingerland saves the downside to nearly the end. He rushes though the horrors of addictive alcoholism, the killings from drunk driving, and the early deaths from liver damage, and lands on the discrimination. Those who do not drink are not so welcomed into drinking circles. They don’t get the creative, cultural and communal benefits. They are not a part of the in crowd. Can people who don’t drink even be trusted? How much has our civilization lost because these others were excluded when ideas took real shape? To this extent alcohol is not a uniter but a divider.
This may not be a fatal downside to drinking, but it is a factor few talk about. Inequality in boozing holds us back.
Slingerland pleads for more acceptance of alcohol. The evidence he provides is irrefutable. Drink seems irreplaceable. Whether it outweighs the negatives is for society to decide. For Slingerland, “We could not have civilization without intoxication.”
David Wineberg
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travels the globe and plumbs history in a multitude of societies to prove its worthiness of our consideration. If not for all the negatives we’ve had drummed into us, it seems it would be an easy case to make. In this upbeat, chatty book, it is our big differentiator and critical to our survival.The active chemical in alcohol is ethanol, and the yeast in plants makes ethanol to fend off bacteria that compete for the nutritive value of many fruits and vegetables. Man has stretched the limits of fermentation, trying, and succeeding to greater or lesser extents, with everything from grass to potatoes and cactus. If it has green, it can be grog.
Alcohol found its way into human lives even before we adopted agriculture. It was, it seems, a higher priority than even bread, usually thought of as the end of hunting/gathering. Every civilization figured out early how to ferment fruits and vegetables, and drink whatever disgusting fluid resulted, purely for its intoxicating effects. More recently, we have learned to multiply those intoxicating effects through distillation: layering more and more alcohol into brandies, vodkas and such. This has created a selection of alcohol so powerful our ancestors wouldn’t know how to cope with it, and to an unfortunate extent, neither do we.
Alcohol has swung back and forth between sacred and damned, with damned the current fashion. The very word alcohol comes from the Arabic. These days Muslims wouldn’t touch the stuff in accordance with their religion. But even that is a recent change. The Middle East used to do business over alcohol much as everyone else did, with sometimes elaborate rituals, structured events, and mandatory trials before trust and negotiation could take place.
It used to be that everyone drank. For one thing, water was so filthy, it was far safer to drink beer and wine if you had any hope of making it to adulthood. Today, it is just the opposite. No alcohol until well into adulthood because it could kill you (or you could kill someone else).
Religions are full of references to alcohol, and most require it in various ceremonies from the blood of Christ to a glass of wine for Elijah. Jesus’ very first miracle was turning water into wine. Nobody complained.
Slingerland’s longest and best arguments are over bonding and creativity. Strangers bonded over drinks at the local, which does not even exist in North American society any more. If someone stopped drinking, they became suspect, and people guarded what they said around him or her. Drinking beer allowed the locals to speak freely, lower barriers between them, get secrets out in the open where they would do no more harm, and promote agreement.
It was a major de-stressor over ages when there were no other regular distractions. It was both social and therapeutic.
On the creative side, drink produces ideas and collaboration. Slingerland says when a pub finally opened near the campus of his university, the resulting socializing among professors and students led to all kinds of new projects, awards, grants, and recognition. None of it would have happened in the office, the conference room or the hallways.
Much as psychedelics cut off the barriers to connection in the brain, alcohol numbs the prefrontal cortex into submission for a period of time. The prefrontal cortex consists of the frontal lobes above the eyes, the biggest and newest part of the brain. They develop late, in fact last, not fully formed until the age of 21. They then start taking over, organizing thoughts and priorities, restricting connections that are not focused and goal-oriented, and generally killing the child in each of us. Taking temporary control away from the straitlaced grip of the prefrontal cortex is the magic and attraction of alcohol, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD. Wonderfully, the effect is temporary, produces no damage, lasting or otherwise, and has been a blessed relief for all mankind from the very beginning.
Slingerland calls the sum of these factors creative, cultural and communal, and they are present worldwide, fueled by alcohol everywhere. They are the key to differentiating humans from other primates, as well as the key to our success.
Back inside the brain, teenage drunks are the wildest, because they don’t have the regulation provided by a fully developed prefrontal cortex. Nor do they know when to stop. The result is often ugly and sometimes fatal, even if just to the drinker alone. Some societies get this more than others, as age restrictions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The book examines the rituals, processes and effects in numerous societies throughout history. The Japanese salary-man is probably the biggest proponent today, getting massively drunk many nights after work, barely making it in the next day. It supposedly builds lifelong friendships and appreciation for who others in the group really are.
Historically, the Vikings seem to be world champions, getting so overwhelmingly drunk they could lose battles. The glorious Beowulf was famous in his own time because he could get stinking drunk without killing any of his friends. This was a unique and miraculous accomplishment for a Viking, never mind a king.
Alcohol consumption today is mutating, and not necessarily for the better. It used to require a trip to a place. Now homes are stocked with vast quantities and varieties, totally unknown in past civilizations. No one drank at home; it was a social lubricator. No one drank alone; it was a community facilitator. No one simply imbibed alcohol. It was an accompaniment to food. The key to drinking in the famously alcoholic countries of southern Europe is that the wine went with the food and not an evening boozing. Getting drunk at home, alone without a great meal would make no sense to most throughout history. Today it is the norm.
And the alcohol is far more powerful now. Man has learned to up the alcohol content of beer to 6% and wine to 15%, when throughout history they were high if they were in the two range. Hard liquor is off the charts.
Slingerland saves the downside to nearly the end. He rushes though the horrors of addictive alcoholism, the killings from drunk driving, and the early deaths from liver damage, and lands on the discrimination. Those who do not drink are not so welcomed into drinking circles. They don’t get the creative, cultural and communal benefits. They are not a part of the in crowd. Can people who don’t drink even be trusted? How much has our civilization lost because these others were excluded when ideas took real shape? To this extent alcohol is not a uniter but a divider.
This may not be a fatal downside to drinking, but it is a factor few talk about. Inequality in boozing holds us back.
Slingerland pleads for more acceptance of alcohol. The evidence he provides is irrefutable. Drink seems irreplaceable. Whether it outweighs the negatives is for society to decide. For Slingerland, “We could not have civilization without intoxication.”
David Wineberg
Show Less
LibraryThing member wester
Mildly interesting. The main point is that our taste for alcohol is too persistent to be an evolutionary mistake, and alcohol use has definite advantages to compensate for the undeniable disadvantages. Not bad, but quite disappointing coming from this author.
LibraryThing member neurodrew
I was intrigued immediately by the subtitle, and found the book to be as irreverent in its prose as the subtitle suggests, but full of information about neuroscience, history, and cultural rituals. The main thesis is that alcohol and other intoxicants serve to make humans trust each other in social
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settings, and aid in the creative lateral thinking to come up with new ideas. The main danger is drinking alone. Show Less
LibraryThing member caimanjosh
Drunk is the most comprehensive volume on alcohol that I've yet seen. The author brings together various approaches to analyzing it that include neuroscience, anthropology, history, and public health. I liked the wide-range view on offer, as well as the occasional laugh-out-loud moments
The author's love of alcohol is apparent, and was admittedly an aspect of the book that I enjoyed, but I'm sure it will leave the (tavern) door open to accusations of pro-alcohol bias.
With all that said, if you enjoy a drink or two and are interested in *why* most of us do, this is definitely worth taking a look at. Highly recommended for this audience.
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(particularly towards the beginning of the book). It did feel like it bogged down somewhat in the middle of the book, where there were long stretches devoted to analysis of human evolution and culture and no mention of alcohol. (It was in fact building towards that, but I must confess this section lost my interest.)The author's love of alcohol is apparent, and was admittedly an aspect of the book that I enjoyed, but I'm sure it will leave the (tavern) door open to accusations of pro-alcohol bias.
With all that said, if you enjoy a drink or two and are interested in *why* most of us do, this is definitely worth taking a look at. Highly recommended for this audience.
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LibraryThing member Whiskey3pa
Mediocre in content and writing. Had high hopes for this and it did not deliver.
LibraryThing member deusvitae
American culture remains quite bipolar about alcohol, with most trending either toward teetotaling abstinence or freewheeling excess. But however much one does or does not drink, very strong feelings and opinions abound regarding alcoholic beverages and their consumption.
Yet whether one abstains or
The author began the work with this question and conundrum. He explored the archaeological, historical, and scientific evidence: it would seem beer consumption preceded agriculture, and therefore it remains quite plausible that humans began the agricultural life in the pursuit of beer and wine. Other cultures in other places figured out how to concoct alcoholic beverages from some kind of accessible native plant.
But why? Slingerland approached the question from an evolutionary/scientific point of view. He delved into the science and research behind the effects of alcohol and what might lead people to want to enjoy such effects. He focuses on the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in our functioning: it develops over time and has an important organizing and disciplining effect, but comes at the cost of out of the box and creative thinking, social coherence, greater guardedness, and some other consequences.
There are various ways one can turn down the PFC, but few have proven more effective and efficient than the consumption of alcohol. And so the author suggests the consumption of alcohol would help inspire creativity and serve as a social lubricant, facilitating greater communication in a group setting. And this has proven the case historically: cultures throughout time and place have used consumption of alcohol in various rituals and events to foster creativity and group cohesion. It allowed natural skepticism and suspicion to be sufficiently allayed between rivals and rival groups to facilitate treaties or other forms of joint participation. It provided a bit more confidence in trying to foster a relationship.
And so the author ultimately attempts to make his case for drinking, independent of the standard scientific matters of health, but in terms of fostering group creativity and cohesion.
Yet the author is able to soberly assess many of the challenges which attend to the consumption of alcohol. He recognizes the addiction tendency in a proportion of the population, and would want to respect their abstinence. He maintains great concern regarding distilled spirits: they have only been around for a few hundred years, prove quite potent, and often short-circuits whatever social benefits might come from shared alcoholic consumption and leads to sheer drunkenness. He also maintains concern regarding drinking alone and the tendency toward isolation in drinking in modern society, pointing out how drinking was a social construct and worked best as a social construct but proves dangerous when done alone as a coping mechanism and/or an addiction, and all the more so when it involves distilled spirits. The author recognizes the challenge of prejudice and discrimination: what do you do with those who decide not to drink in environments where drinking is serving as a social lubricant and catalyst for creativity? Or, for that matter, the exclusion which would attend to those who have other responsibilities and cannot drop in to the pub after class or work?
I definitely appreciated the concerns about distilled spirits and isolation, and can recognize the merits of his arguments in anthropological and historical frameworks. Those who lived in the worlds of the Old and New Testaments consumed at least wine if not beer and/or cider. Abstinence was not condemned, but drunkenness consistently was condemned, with plenty of examples of the problems involved set forth.
This is definitely an interesting historical and scientific exploration into human consumption of alcohol, and has important information for us to consider in terms of how societies function. Yet one’s decisions regarding alcoholic consumption should not be informed merely by historical or scientific analysis, and drunkenness should never be commended. But it does help to understand what alcohol is doing in the body, and why people in societies have found at least some virtue in what can also quite quickly become a vice.
Yet whether one abstains or
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partakes, the question which Edward Slingerland raises in Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization remains relevant: why is it that almost every human culture has put a lot of effort into developing and consuming alcoholic beverages when they represent a poison to the body? The author began the work with this question and conundrum. He explored the archaeological, historical, and scientific evidence: it would seem beer consumption preceded agriculture, and therefore it remains quite plausible that humans began the agricultural life in the pursuit of beer and wine. Other cultures in other places figured out how to concoct alcoholic beverages from some kind of accessible native plant.
But why? Slingerland approached the question from an evolutionary/scientific point of view. He delved into the science and research behind the effects of alcohol and what might lead people to want to enjoy such effects. He focuses on the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in our functioning: it develops over time and has an important organizing and disciplining effect, but comes at the cost of out of the box and creative thinking, social coherence, greater guardedness, and some other consequences.
There are various ways one can turn down the PFC, but few have proven more effective and efficient than the consumption of alcohol. And so the author suggests the consumption of alcohol would help inspire creativity and serve as a social lubricant, facilitating greater communication in a group setting. And this has proven the case historically: cultures throughout time and place have used consumption of alcohol in various rituals and events to foster creativity and group cohesion. It allowed natural skepticism and suspicion to be sufficiently allayed between rivals and rival groups to facilitate treaties or other forms of joint participation. It provided a bit more confidence in trying to foster a relationship.
And so the author ultimately attempts to make his case for drinking, independent of the standard scientific matters of health, but in terms of fostering group creativity and cohesion.
Yet the author is able to soberly assess many of the challenges which attend to the consumption of alcohol. He recognizes the addiction tendency in a proportion of the population, and would want to respect their abstinence. He maintains great concern regarding distilled spirits: they have only been around for a few hundred years, prove quite potent, and often short-circuits whatever social benefits might come from shared alcoholic consumption and leads to sheer drunkenness. He also maintains concern regarding drinking alone and the tendency toward isolation in drinking in modern society, pointing out how drinking was a social construct and worked best as a social construct but proves dangerous when done alone as a coping mechanism and/or an addiction, and all the more so when it involves distilled spirits. The author recognizes the challenge of prejudice and discrimination: what do you do with those who decide not to drink in environments where drinking is serving as a social lubricant and catalyst for creativity? Or, for that matter, the exclusion which would attend to those who have other responsibilities and cannot drop in to the pub after class or work?
I definitely appreciated the concerns about distilled spirits and isolation, and can recognize the merits of his arguments in anthropological and historical frameworks. Those who lived in the worlds of the Old and New Testaments consumed at least wine if not beer and/or cider. Abstinence was not condemned, but drunkenness consistently was condemned, with plenty of examples of the problems involved set forth.
This is definitely an interesting historical and scientific exploration into human consumption of alcohol, and has important information for us to consider in terms of how societies function. Yet one’s decisions regarding alcoholic consumption should not be informed merely by historical or scientific analysis, and drunkenness should never be commended. But it does help to understand what alcohol is doing in the body, and why people in societies have found at least some virtue in what can also quite quickly become a vice.
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Language
Original language
English
Physical description
384 p.; 9.55 inches
ISBN
0316453382 / 9780316453387