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How Alcohol Fuels Civilization
Gonna pick me up a six-pack of art this evening
Marshall McLuhan made himself a household name, writing about media. Media are tools, things that extend ourselves: a hammer extends our fist, flashlights extend our eyes, etc.
I’m not sure he ever considered whether alcohol might be a medium. That’s the theory behind Edward Slingerland’s (not Scissorhand), Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilization.
The basic premise: Our prefrontal cortex does the reasoning, thinking, and analysis. It, in other words, is the boring part of the brain. When it swells, like it does when we’re concentrating on making a living, it stifles the creative and fun part of the brain. In order to increase creativity and fun, we need to shrink it. Alcohol is a tool that allows us to shrink it.
Slingerland, a philosopher at the University of British Columbia in Canada, has a novel thesis, arguing that by causing humans “become, at least temporarily, more creative, cultural, and communal” intoxicants provided the spark that allowed us to form truly large-scale groups”. In short, without them, civilisation might not have been possible.
This may seem an audacious claim, but Slingerland draws on history, anthropology, cognitive science, social psychology, genetics and…
