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September 21, 2020 - 7:00am
Ed West’s drunken history of the English people is an eye-opener. Our ancestors were so permanently incapacitated it’s a wonder that we, their descendants, exist.
Still, for a social conservative like me, it’s a useful reminder that the arc of history does not bend towards ever-increasing social liberalism.
Indeed, the ancient right of every freeborn Englishman (and woman and child) to spend their lives in an alcoholic stupor has been progressively curtailed. Though we never went for outright prohibition like the Americans, we’ve gradually tightened the regulatory noose around our drinking culture — for instance, by restricting pub opening hours, imposing sin taxes and enforcing drink-drive limits.
Social pressure has been just as important as government action. The state never legislated against the ‘liquid lunch’ — which, within living memory, was a normal part of the working day. Not any more, though: the inebriated afternoon is now frowned upon in most industries — even journalism.
It’s not just booze. A generation or two ago, you could still smoke at your desk. Now you can’t even smoke in the pub. As for what some people used to do on their desks, #metoo has gone a long way towards de-sexualising the workplace. Not before time, of course — but it’s interesting just how far we’ve rolled back the libertinism of previous decades.
Take the Cuties furore. People aren’t angry because they see it as a sign of generalised decadence, but because Netflix violated a social taboo that has grown in strength in recent years. In the wake of institutional abuse scandals, we’ve become increasingly intolerant of adult creepiness towards the young and we police the boundaries of childhood with greater vigilance. A good thing too — but it does run counter to the ethos of the 60s and 70s.
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SubscribeWe should take great care to differentiate between laws, regulations and social mores that do nothing more than protect us from obvious physical dangers and those that are imposed because of current ideas of a so-called morality.
I may have misread this post, but restricted pub opening times aren’t new. This was the law in my lifetime (“time gentlemen please!”*) until the Blair government abolished it.
*The phrase indicates an age when it was faintly improper for women to go to pubs alone. I tried it when I was 19 and the stares made it too uncomfortable to repeat the experiment.