Land of the Free

The time has definitely come to cast some substantial criticism on this country I happen to be in at the moment. Much as I am willing to criticise my own prejudices and reconsider my preconceptions, there is one thing that stands out as amazingly backward and hypocritical in everyday life, and it roughly boils down to the (phonetically interesting) fascination with ID.

Back in Belgium, as I'm sure we all know and appreciate, legal drinking age is sixteen, which is young enough for nobody to actually worry about it. I remember having my very first innocuous public house lager at the age of twelve (just one, and no harm done). That is unimaginable in this American culture. Every time I order a drink here, or, in some cases, just want to walk into a bar, there will be someone demanding to see some form of identification (which, for foreigners like myself, means a passport; and I do not like having to carry my passport on me when going out, but what's the alternative, right?)

The discrepancy between American drinking habits (yes, people do drink, and they drink a lot, here) and American drinking policies is, to my simple European mind, overwhelming. You need to be 21 to get a drink, but if you press the natives a bit harder on that matter, they acknowledge that no teenager stays sober till that age and that "most of 'em got fake IDs". To me, that distinctly sounds like legalism taken a few steps too far.

Similarly, it is impossible in this state (NY) to get a simple beer after 1am. Certainly, there are far worse imaginable limits to man's freedom than that, but it is symptomatic of the ambivalence that bothers me. Last night, me and a Swedish fellow ran over to a 24/7 grocery store to get some beers for a bunch of nice people who had gathered in the courtyard of this "dorm" for a chat, and were told off at the counter for wanting to buy alcoholic beverages after 1. You can have beer for breakfast, here, but not as a nightcap. (I am trying to picture the revolution that would sweep across Belgium if beers became impossible after one o'clock, and I'm seeing polticians being drowned in Duvel barrels.)

To lift the general level of this post, let me refer to a conversation with Bruce Robbins (my favourite professor here), during which we agreed that "freedom" has become a totally empty signifier - a "place-holder", "quilting point" or "point de capiton" if you like Lacanian parlance (which I don't, particularly). This corroborated not only my sentiments about alcohol (and other) legislation in the US of A, it also very much affirms my conviction that Big Words like Liberty and - above all - Democracy should be banned from political debates (Belgian politics especially).

Speaking of Belgium: when it becomes possible for right extremists to make "democracy" the rhetorical centre of their discourse, you know that the word doesn't mean anything anymore. When it becomes possible for the christian democrats (whatever that means) in Flanders to win a landslide election victory with a slogan like "goed bestuur" [sth. like "good government"], it signals that the first and foremost political battle to be fought is a battle for meaning and "meaningfulness". It would be very interesting to see what political conservatives might have to say if their safe concepts - or what Hemingway called "the dirty, easy labels" - were blown away. Not much, is my guess. In fact, I may as well anounce it publicly: since the last elections (and being here has certainly reinforced the idea), I have seriously been thinking of joining a particular political party when I get back (I guess most of you know which one that would be). Somehow, it seems like serious political thought needs all the help it can get. I'll never be a politician, but (being in this very political seminar, here), it feels more and more unfair or untenable to stand in the meadow and, like a cow, watch the trains go by. In terms of beer and politics, I definitely prefer ideas to IDs.