Amid all the furor and hard feelings over The Gustavian Weekly’s coverage of Case Day, I think the widespread anger would be better focused on the existence of Case Day and ways we can change it. Many letters ask us as a newspaper to examine the causes of Case Day. Indeed, what are they? What is it about the Gustavian, collegiate and nationwide culture that allows something like Case Day to occur? Case Day is symptomatic of American drinking culture, which has been informed by our history and consumptive tendencies. I think analyzing how we got to this point might provide the answers that concerned Gusties seek and provide paths towards helping change the problem of collegiate drinking.

I think the main problem comes from viewing drinking as a singular activity. This attitude comes from not respecting beer despite its history and taste in favor of the fact that drinking several could get you drunk. It comes from not knowing how to enjoy a beer responsibly. It also comes from never having had the chance to learn any of these things before being let loose in an environment of inexperience and irresponsibility. It comes from never having the chance to incorporate drinking with other activities because of our dichotomous existence between being a strongly prohibitive nation and simultaneously having societal alcoholic tendencies.

The intention of drinking a beverage of any sort, in my mind, would (or should) be to enjoy it in conjunction with something else. While I don’t doubt that many Gusties and Americans do drink responsibly while doing things, whether it is eating, relaxing or socializing, I think there is a tendency here and elsewhere to view drinking as an activity in itself. The conversation has been repeated a thousand times on campus. “What are you doing this weekend?” “Drinking,” comes the reply. This is an acceptable plan of events for an entire evening.

You wouldn’t plan an evening around drinking Mountain Dew. But somehow immense consumption of a beverage has become the focal point of people’s weekends and evenings. While some beers that people drink at Gustavus do bear a striking resemblance to soda (Bud Light Lime, I’m looking at you … ) I think this is a strange outcome. Viewing drinking as an activity in itself is one cause for our Case Day problem and collegiate drinking in general. But why 24 beers? Why is this level of consumption acceptable? The answer comes from Americans’ penchant for excess and cheap beer available in large quantities. These issues inform American college culture, embedded in our cultural fabric.

Also, this situation has arisen partially because of the drinking history of America. Before Prohibition, 1,400 breweries existed, brewing regionally distinct and diverse brews on smaller scales than what we conceive of now. Prohibition stamped these companies out, and what was left afterward was what beer snobs/geeks call “BMC,” Bud/Miller/Coors, the big three of American brewing. Able to weather the thirteen years of Prohibition, these companies emerged in the post-war America offering a homogenized, watered down beverage to the newly homogenized consumer public of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The diversity of the past departed in favor of light, drinkable (I might be inclined to say water-like) beer available in large quantities. Taste tests indicate that even self-identified loyalists of one company or another cannot taste the difference between their “favorite” and a rival company’s. Combine this with the massive output of these companies, which results in high availability, low price and immense quantities, and you get a nationwide drinking problem.

So we know that Americans drink a lot. But how did the problem become localized on college campuses? Besides our penchant for excess, Americans and the American government have also exercised their penchant for excessive rulemaking despite the logic. Where the prohibition of the 1930s merely promoted unsafe moonshineries and allowed gangster cartels to rise to prominence, a similar division and prohibition is taking place: the prohibition of responsible drinking and discussion of drinking for those under 21.

Just as abstinence-only sex-education causes unsafe attitudes about sex, and subsequently unsafe sex, ageist discrimination of drinking prevents learning and discussion of drinking for those under 21 and causes unsafe attitudes about drinking and then unsafe drinking.

Given a chance to make their own decisions upon arrival at school, college students obviously choose to exercise their newfound freedoms. While many drank throughout high school, the drinking age being at 21 enshrines drinking as a definitely collegiate activity.

I think an attitude shift needs to happen. A shift of respect toward beer, an attitude shift of when and how it is acceptable to drink and an attitude shift of when and how it is acceptable to talk and educate about drinking. Parents shouldn’t be shy about talking about responsible drinking with their children, and people need to rethink beer as not something to guzzle while watching the football game, but something to consider and enjoy—you could even enjoy the football game while doing so. Modesty and conservation- watchwords useful in life—could also play a role here. Beer can be artisanal and delicious. There is a whole world of beer artistry out there. Since 1970, craft breweries have made a resurgence, with breweries like Sierra Nevada, Rogue and Minnesota’s own Surly emphasizing quality over quantity. Consider this—the 5 bucks one spends on a cheap six-pack of awful beer could be spent on a 22 oz bottle of very nice, artisan craft beer that would probably take the same amount of time to drink and probably be more enjoyable.

We need to stop applying our fast-food mentality to drinking and promote healthy discussion on healthy drinking for people of all ages. I think respect is the key word here—respect toward drinking, respect for the intelligence of young people to be able to learn about responsibility, but most importantly respect toward oneself when hazily reaching down to drink beer number 20 out of 24. Perhaps if this respect had been instilled earlier, our student would be reaching for craft beer number three of six. Or not drinking at all … ?