An Analysis Of The Battle Of The Binge Essay Sample

Summary:

Jack Hitt relates his college experiences with alcohol in the 1970’s comparing it with what he describes as a binge drinking epidemic today. He is dedicated to the idea that the way in which he was taught to drink socially, by professors and other responsible adults in his educational environment, taught him how to drink with dignity, and without getting drunk. There was an understanding that you had one or two, and then stopped, and that was that. No one got lambasted, because everyone knew it was socially unacceptable.
Today, that is not the case. He describes the drinking scene on campuses as the result of a “mini-prohibition,” which has resulted in students drinking wildly in private rather than drinking responsibly in public. His argument is that the fact that binge drinking is not deescalating with the increasingly stricter alcohol regulations on campuses is proof that the new method of un-education becoming adults in the skill of drinking publically is failing America’s youth.

Response:

Hitt’s exploration of the changing drinking environment seems to ignore a multitude of factors. Largely because he is comparing apples to oranges. He talks solely about binge drinking in the current college community, but does not address the binge drinking that was happening, perhaps outside his social circle, during the 70s. While he provides statistical evidence of the current generation’s responsibility with regard to alcohol, his comparison of the current environment when compared to the 70s is based not on facts, but purely on his own recollection. This makes his conclusion purely subjective. It would have been more convincing had he provided some analytical or statistical evidence from both eras to support his conclusion that social drinking is a controllable and educable skill, when handled correctly.