"When people sit down together in a public place — a place where none of them is sovereign but each of them at home — and when those people pass the evening together, sipping drinks in which the spirit of place is stored and amplified, maybe smoking or taking snuff and in any case willingly exchanging the dubious benefits of longevity for the certain joys of friendship, [italics mine – what a great, funny phrase} they rehearse in their souls the original act of settlement, the act that set our species on the path of civilisation, and which endowed us with the order of neighbourhood and the rule of law.
When, however, people swig drinks without interest in their neighbours, except as equal members of the wild host of hunter-gatherers, when their sole concern is the intoxicating effect and when the drink itself is neither savoured nor understood, then are they rehearsing that time before civilisation, in which life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Passage excerpted from Roger Scruton’s article, “In Vino Veritas," in which he discusses the difference between virtuous and vicious drinking habits, and writes at length about the joy of communal drinking. This piece strikes me as very interesting, very British, and quite wrong in parts. The comments are quite interesting. Several people take Scruton to task for his apparent ignorance about actual Puritans, who enjoyed both alcohol and tobacco, in moderation.
When, however, people swig drinks without interest in their neighbours, except as equal members of the wild host of hunter-gatherers, when their sole concern is the intoxicating effect and when the drink itself is neither savoured nor understood, then are they rehearsing that time before civilisation, in which life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Passage excerpted from Roger Scruton’s article, “In Vino Veritas," in which he discusses the difference between virtuous and vicious drinking habits, and writes at length about the joy of communal drinking. This piece strikes me as very interesting, very British, and quite wrong in parts. The comments are quite interesting. Several people take Scruton to task for his apparent ignorance about actual Puritans, who enjoyed both alcohol and tobacco, in moderation.
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