The end of a year is a time of hope and optimism, a time to farewell the old and embrace the new.
So it’s sad when the New Year starts out exactly like the old one; with appalling displays of senseless violence. Every year we search for a single cause of the problem… which is why we never solve it.
Because, like most problems, this one is multi-causal.
Most people are pent-up with all sorts of frustrations, fears and furies; crowd together a few hundred strangers (most of whom are only there because they weren’t invited anywhere else) and wait for their inner demons to rear their ugly heads.
Hype the crowd up with bright lights, loud noises and mood-altering chemicals, then marinate them with alcohol, (disabling the one part of their brains that normally inhibits their darkest impulses) and a few people are bound to turn nasty.
Problems with multiple causes need multiple solutions. That’s why just limiting the flow of drugs and alcohol isn’t enough; we also need to lower the intensity of the sound and lightshow and improve access to facilities and reduce the density of crowds – why have a great big party with strangers when we can have lots of small parties with friends?
And while we’re at it, let’s think of more reliable, productive outlets for angry and frustrated people so there aren’t so many of them looking for fights at parties.
Only once we tackle all the causes will we finally beat the problem.
Then we’ll have a Really New Year.
dave isles
agree in principle Jason, but the ready and cheap access to acohol and cultural exceptance of drunken behaviour is a core problem in Australian society. just like the vic govt said enough-is-enough and made seat beats enforcibly compulsory, and lead the world to lower road tolls (amazing results, esp this year).. we have the means to change behavoiur on alcohol consumption.
drink driving is on the decline, i think because people have been made aware of the potentially dreadful consequences… as well as doing without their cars for 6 months or so! i’d propose ‘re-inventing’ the drunk and disorderly charge.. a court appearance and a conviction against one’s name should be sufficient to make most think twice before going over the top with drink.
the other factors you cite are important, but i think if, as a society, we ceased to accept drunkeness as a ‘fun’ part of our culture we would be on the road to having better quality fun!
cheers and happy new year! Dave I
Jason
I’d still favour a multi-factoral approach; battle the entire Kraken than just target one of its more familiar tentacles. Interesting that you bring up behaviour change among drivers, I wonder if the education, training, testing and licensing of drivers might offer us some clues about how to tackle the alcohol aspect of the problem: instead of aiming for fewer drinkers, how about we try for better ones? What if drinking was something you needed a license to do? Young adults would have to undergo education and training to learn the rules of drinking (which we’ll need to write) before a series of written and practical tests to see whether they can be trusted to drink responsibly. Alcohol could not be sold to anyone without a license (which would be swiped at point of sale, thereby generating an electronic record of who has bought – and presumably consumed – what) and these licenses would be gradated (Learner, Probationary etc.) and merit/demerit points could be added/deducted to provide both incentive and penalty. People who have enjoyed alcohol gracefully for decades would have no trouble buying whatever they wished (and might enjoy additional benefits such as cheaper health insurance) whereas serial abusers would be immediately identifiable the moment they tried to buy a drink. Unorthodox approach, I know but that’s usually the kind you need when all the obvious approaches have failed, don’t you think?
dave isles
on the right track, i think Jason… it would appear draconian in the form you put, but perhaps there is a way of dressing it up to appear new-age, ‘positive’ rather than punitive, etc.. country-wide, it could cause a step change (for the better) in our social fabric… this sort of thing has been imposed on indigenous communities in the past, and has been rightly seen as discrimination.. lets find a way to make it the same type of change that occurred when the Vics made seatbelts compulsory!
(i was a ‘victim’ then!! )… cheers, Dave I
Jason
I think the trick is to ‘give’ as much as we take away; an idea like the drinker’s license can be an empowering rite-of-passage kind of thing, especially if we added a few economic incentives like loyalty points or discount prices. As you say, it’s all in the delivery – the handling of the indigenous issue was particularly heavy-handed and patriarchal. An awkward attempt isn’t necessarily evidence of a bad idea.
dave isles
your last sentence is telling, Jason.. most would cry ‘experiment failed’.. and pretty much give up..
the idea of a drinker’s licence would upset many, and be a vote repellant!
its time in the sun would be when we have a redneck, wowser govt controlling both houses….
hmmm… we’re not too far away..
i cant help harking back to the implementation of compulsory seat belts.. maybe you are not old enough to remember ‘declare war on 1024’.. it bloody well worked!
and the Aus leadership of the battle against tobacco.. we can do it.. the lessons from those successes need to be revisited..
maybe getting Phillip Adams +/- john Singleton to come up with a catchy slogan and jingle??
more thinking definitely worthwhile!
cheers, Dave I
Jason
I remember the seatbelt campaign, which as you say did the trick (although I’m sure the new laws really drove the message home). And I suspect that changes to the pricing and marketing of tobacco probably helped the shift in social attitude to smoking. But I also remember the abject failure of dozens of similarly expensive and catchy campaigns; the TAC got some early wins with easy demographics (older drivers) but have spectacularly failed to reach young drivers. Slip Slop Slap, Life Be In It are so catchy we remember them decades after they failed to shift our behaviours and so far, even the completely infectious Dumb Ways To Die (a massive viral hit) has yet to demonstrate a real change in train safety. Some of these approaches work but the vast majority fail because the problems they claim to solve are too deep for a jingle… which might be why governments with no new ideas reach for an expensive campaign; because if something that costly fails, well… you can’t say they didn’t try.
dave isles
i’d give a tick to slip,slop,slap.. if i compare behaviour in my youth to today, and life, be in it? without Norm i reckon we would have even more Michelin men? suggest the prob is the power of the kfc ad vs poor old Norm.. Norm doesnt pay as much as the Colonel.
hmm, back to getting the youth of today to use alchol more resposibly than we (royal) did when we were their age… i cant get past ready availability of grog through to the wee small hrs and cultural acceptance of drunken behaviour as the points that need to change…
i worked in Oman for a while.. they have a licencing system that works pretty well.. combined with a cultural rejection of drunkenness..
maybe liberal Islam is something we could learn from?
no bright light bulbs here.. just more thinking.
cheers for now.