"Son, never trust a man who doesn’t drink because he’s probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They’re the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They’re usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they’re a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can’t trust a man who’s afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It’s damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he’s heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.”
I really don't like this quote: it reinforces this weird idea of what a "real man" is and that a real man should get drunk from time to time.
If someone doesn't want to drink or get drunk, so be it: don't lord it over them like they haven't performed some rite of passage, and it's especially disrespectful towards people who have had bad experiences with alcohol.
It reinforces the idea that drinking is 'normal' and 'fun'. It suggests that people who do not drink must have reasons not to do such an "obviously good" (scare quotes) thing.
Those aren't good things. But I don't think it says much horrible about what a 'real man' is. Ignoring alcohol, it says don't be too righteous, and people who don't trust themselves aren't trustworthy. And those two messages, I kinda like.
Whilst I don't like the message "people who don't drink are too righteous". I do like really the message "People who are (too) righteous are bad".
It encourages a chauvinistic, macho culture. Those who don’t fit into that should not be trusted, that is, excluded (e.g. women, Muslims, etc.). That’s actively harmful.
Can partially agree with Crumley's sentiment but only for a time limited period during early adulthood - it's simply neither socially, nor health-wise, a good idea to foster adult culture that values drunkenness as a truth indicator.
Rather I would like to trust that truthfulness must gradually come to be valued, developed and followingly more easily recognised as a core function of humanity, simply because it is VITAL for the continued evolution and improvement (and potentially survival) of our culture.
Tangent: if we BS ourselves by fostering a culture that believes group sentiments simply because it is popular it may well prove fatal on a civilisation level. This problem is pretty much embodied by the current replication crisis in the sciences where publishing to further ones career comes before validating that what is published is actually, verifiably, true. The latter step is extremely hard and as an individual one may not see much gain from adhering to truth whereas as a society we are critically dependent on it for things to not, literally, fall apart.
That is one of the stupidest things I’ve read. Imagine reading that as a person who suffered a loss from the actions of a drunk person. Why would you want people to lose control of themselves?
Please explain exactly what it is about causing harm to your organs and increasing the probability of harm to others that makes you trust someone more than someone who does not increase the probability of harm to themselves and others?
People who drink but don't want to get drunk are trying to have their cake and eat it. They have an advantage over other people that is only OK if everyone already trusts everyone else in the group. If you don't want to get drunk for health reasons then leave early because hanging around and not drinking is suspicious.
What they're afraid of might be depression. Therapy really only teaches you conscious, rational self-regulation strategies. When you lose the ability to apply those, you might not be fun to hang out with anymore.
Personally I think self-control is what makes a person trustworthy.
