Observations on Americans, Part ... 4?

[tealin]

Americans cannot hold their liquor.

Going out for drinks and having a selection of alcoholic drinks available at social gatherings is a standard part of life in Canada, so I thought I was familiar with its effect on people. But HOLY CRAP. I went to a party last night and was one of the first people there, so I got to see most everyone come in, and they went from jolly sober to smashed drunk in about fifteen minutes, apparently on wimpy American beer.* I am used to comrades downing six or seven pints and a couple of shooters still being able to walk straight and hold a decent conversation, but after what could only have been two or three bottles these people were finding stairs a challenge. There were some people who by the end of the evening had the cognitive powers of a slow five-year-old. How can this be? Is it because the higher drinking age prevents gaining a tolerance of the stuff in developing years? Do you seriously expect me to believe none of these people drank before they were 21?

And then this morning I was auditory witness to one of our new downstairs neighbours making comically exaggerated offerings to the porcelain throne. Lovely.

At any rate, I can understand, now, the attitudes towards alcohol of some of my more puritanical acquaintances, if this is the sort of context they have.

*American beer is 4% alcohol, as opposed to 7% in Canada and, what, 73% in Europe?

Comments

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I remember being irritated at the country's collective behaviour when I was still living in it under the previous administration. Maybe it's leftover cockiness from winning the Cold War and smugly watching the British Empire dissolve?

Assumptions are irritating, but they are made with the evidence at hand, and there's an awful lot of evidence to justify being annoyed at the States as a whole.

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

They're still assumptions and prejudices. I could be very, very nasty at British people for the overwhelming pile of evidence of things they've done to deserve it. Same with blond people. And spiders. But I don't. Evidence doesn't justify any kind of prejudice against a group.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Okay, I appreciate your point, but: 1. I do not apply these generalizations to individuals; a lifelong diet of NPR is equally influential in knowing there are educated, insightful Americans out there.* 2. I fail to see how an outsider's observation of alcoholic habits in a (for the sake of argument) foreign culture is a 'prejudice.' As for conclusions about the national culture based on the activity of the country as a being in itself, my feelings are best summed up in this: 'You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.' My judgements are of the huge raving maniac.

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

I see your points. However, I choose to see the silver lining, possibly because if we don't, then we'll never try to make things better. Observing people for a lifetime, eavesdropping, &c., has taught me that at any one time, there are actually a lot of different sorts in a location at any one time. Also, I subscribe to the idea that people are basically decent, really. Misguided, but really, we don't get a handbook for being grown-up, so I forgive them.