Nuance 3

Today is Robbie Burn's Day, and despite my Scottish heritage, I don't really care. I hate haggis, tried it only once in my life and that was one time too many, neither do I care much for Scotch whiskey nor other firewater. Neither do I get any of the fuss made about Robbie Burns, who was himself a drunk, a womanizer and at best a mediocre poet. Even when I was visiting Edinburgh many years ago, despite the historic beauty of that city, the stench of distillery fumes made being there decidedly unpleasant. I was listening to the Ideas progam de jour this morning on the CBC, Canada's national propaganda ministry, since I tend to get up in the small hours, and I was perplexed and troubled by the topic and the title of the broadcast, Water of Life, an unfortunate choice of words, given that Jesus has promised living water to all who come to him, and I don't believe he was thinking of alcohol. The head of Ideas, Paul Kennedy, is behind this particular doc, and it is in praise of Scotch whisky, and all the commentary was by socially and economically priveleged (most likely white) folk praising and extolling the alcoholic beverage as though it were a holy sacrament. Given that all those people are likely atheists, and probaby not a few of them are at least undiagnosed alcoholics, perhaps I should be neither surprised, nor appalled. But surprised and appalled I still am, both. There was absolutely no mention given on this broadcast about the cipher for alcoholism in Scotland ( I'll bet you bagels to donuts that it's pretty damn high, no pun intended, Gentle Reader!) nor that, when you peel away the cultural and class privilege nonsense that festoons every bottle of Scotch, it is really just a drug, and nothing but an addictive, toxic substance that eats away the liver, impairs the function of other vital organs, abets and encourages heart disease and cancer, and is itself a guarantor for winding up in an early grave. Neither is there mention of the hideous waste of grain and other food crops that goes into the manufacture of liquor. There is not in Scotland a lot of arable land, and one would assume that at least some of the grain used in distillery would be imported, but with growing world population, should we be reviewing just what we do with the fertile agricultural lands, what we grow on them, and how much of the product actually ends up in the stomachs of the hungry? There are here a lot of ethical nuances that are very conveniently covered over by the smokescreen of culture, history and privilege. Unravelling this ethical mess is not going to be a cakewalk. The vast majority of people, it would seem, accepts as privilege and taken for granted that alcoholic beverages are going to be available and consumed and enjoyed, and there is in human nature a very wilful and stubborn blindness to any facts that run contrary to what we feel entitled to. But these things need to be addressed, and it is very late in the game for addressing and challenging people's privilege, but this has to happen. The incidence of alcoholism and accidents and other social problems that are the fallout of alcoholism are already well known and taken as facts. But now that we are teetering on the precipice of planetary oblivion, thanks to climate change from global warming caused by us and our stupid shortsighted greed, then I would say that no stone should be unturned for correcting these errors, if we can even delay the inevitable by a year or two. And I would guess that if all the grain that goes into manufacturing hootch were to go to where it rightfully belongs, which is to say into the production of real and nutritious food for people, and if there was a large scale awareness of the importance of fighting alcoholism and other drug addictions, then just maybe we would be more psychologically, spiritually and morally prepared to meet the challenges that are awaiting us, and just maybe we would redivert land that is wasted on cash crops for feeding people, using green technologies and bringing to a halt this devolution towards global oblivion that is threatening us all.