When I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia 1969-1975, the undergraduate college had a deserved reputation as a party school. Easters, which had begun as a series of genteel dances, had degenerated into a mammoth drunken orgy that attracted debauchees from across the country, until it was finally suppressed. Every year one or two students would die of an alcohol related accident or alcohol poisoning.
My dissertation director, Robert Kellogg, devoted his career there to trying to tone down the drinking culture. He helped found a residential college that provided an alternative atmosphere to the fraternities.
But thinks just got worse and worse, until UVA lacrosse player George Huguely V assaulted his former girl friend, Yeardley Love, and she died. He is on trial for first degree murder. \
Tricia Bishop has a long article in the Baltimore Sun about the drinking culture at colleges. Why student think it cool to drink until they pass out is beyond me.
The remarks of Webster, a professor at johns Hopkins Public Health, bear some analysis.
Webster has studied assaults among lovers, particularly lethal violence, and said alcohol is a frequent factor, and a potential, if partial, cause of it — a debated belief in the medical community.
“We know that alcohol abuse impairs judgment, it makes it harder to control one’s impulses in certain circumstances,” Webster said. “So I think it does play a causal role.”
He also believes that alcohol treatment could reduce violent incidents, but adds that he’s part of a minority who thinks that way. It took a long time for such attacks, typically man on woman, to be considered crimes, and women’s rights advocates are reluctant to link abuse to a disease like alcoholism, Webster said.
“When we start to think about diseased people, people with an illness, some of us want to cut them some slack. how can you hold somebody accountable for their disease?” he said. “But I don’t think it’s an either-or scenario. I think you can hold people accountable for their behavior.”
The jury in Huguely’s trial, which will begin deliberation in the case next week, is expected to consider Huguely’s alcohol use when determining whether he intended to kill her. They could find that the alcohol impaired his judgment so much, that he was incapable of the premeditated murder he’s charged with.
He had been drinking almost nonstop the Sunday he went to Love’s apartment, where she too was intoxicated.
Alcoholism, like pedophilia, is regarded as a “disease,” and somehow mitigates or removes responsibility for criminal actions. I dislike the word “disease.” It sounds too much like an infection caused by a pathogen, There are almost certainly physical components and involuntary psychological quirks in both alcoholism and pedophilia, but it think it better to regard them as disorders. It is a disorder to want to drink more alcohol the more one consumes alcohol; it is a disorder to desire to have sex with children.
But a person is responsible for acting on his desires: his desires do not compel him to drink or to have sex with children. They make him want to do these things, but he is not under any compulsion to do so. It is not a tick, like La Tourette’s syndrome.
Does a disordered diminish legal responsibility? I do not see why it should. Almost everyone has a desire to do something he shouldn’t do, whether it is speeding or not paying taxes, but we chose whether to act on our desires.
Thank you Leon, very well said. May God save us from ever living in a full fledged Therapeutic State” where all crime is treated as illness and no one is held accountable for their actions.
I spent my freshman year of college (1974-75) at a European university. A group of friends and I were out just about every night walking from bar to bar, drinking and eating and having great fun. We were never drunk and we all never really dated, but the guys and girls were very close and very comfortable talking together about any and every issue of the day. We spent every afternoon after lunch playing the guitar with each other, singing and dancing.
When I returned to the US my sophomore year I went through a major culture shock – Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights entailed going to bars and frat houses starting around 11 and standing in beer and/or urine with music so loud you couldn’t hear the person next to you. All my girl friends spent every evening hooking up and making out with very drunk guys. This was what my friends did for the three years I was in college. I was actually punched in the face at a Hopkins cafe when a drunk guy missed somebody who ducked and caught my face instead. His dad got him out of trouble with the dean – no punishment.
In Europe, adolescents are allowed to drink at the dinner table – when they hit college, they know how to deal with drinking.
The boys are were socialized (even in the 70s) to be able to relate to girls as human beings, and they could carry on complex conversations with us about just about everything. Not so with the college guys in Baltimore in the 70s. I have to think they are better socialized now but if this lacrosse player is any indication…
Amen!
If alcoholism is a ‘disease’, it’s one where one deliberately buys the substance that causes intoxication, the same is taxed by the government, and the so-called ‘sick’ person can get medical help for his illness at government expense, while his victims have to pay their own way. Treatment programs are a waste of time and money, for they have been shown up time and time again as being highly ineffective to treat this so-called disease.
Disorder is a good word. Alcoholism has hereditary and physical components, and the alcohol itself ends up causing disease, so we should realize that the disorder, if we call it that, is deep-seated. And lost in the “disease” discussion of alcoholism is the distinction between the alcoholism brought about by habitual overuse, and the alcoholism that comes with the first reaction to the first drink.
It is disturbing to consider alcholism, a genetic addiction, in the same discussion as pedophilia.
Recovering alcholics, those who follow the Twelve Steps, are among the finest souls we have on earth, having turned their lives over to a Higher Power.
Men who rape children do not have an addiction, unless that addiction is to cruelty. They are not sexually attracted to the children, anymore than rapists are “attracted” to their victims. It is a crime of domination.
And of course the young man is criminally responsible for killing his girlfriend.
AW
CM, would you say that, based on your own experience, that European parents spend a greater time instilling a sense of personal responsibility in their children than American parents do? I know that’s a broad generalization that you might not be qualified to answer, but I want to pose the question, anyway.
When I went to college in the U.S., I had absolutely no interest in frat parties, getting drunk and hooking up. I’m sure a lot of American college students feel the same way, today, but feel that they must “conform” to peer pressure.
Pedophillia is a horrible disorder; as is alcoholism. That does not mean they don’t have to be held responsible for their actions. I don’t blame someone for being a pedophile- often it is the result of a lot of abuse and mental disorder in themselves- but what they must be held accountable for is not taking precautions to protect others from their disorder. If they fail to do that they should be justly prosecuted and given a just punishment along with humane treatment to help them find some order within themselves.
Since 1982 I have worked with recovering alcoholics in A.A. and with Al-Anon (families and friends) of alcoholics. These programs produce marvelous effects, and John Paul II was right in saying that A.A. is one of the greatest miracles of the 20th century.
At the risk of making myself extremely unpopular, I will address this topic.
Many young adults are not mature enough to live without supervision. It takes a very wise and attentive parent to make this kind of judgment. Many years ago my mother asked her father’s permission to go to nursing school. He was a deputy sheriff and used to dealing with the dangerous aspects of society. He considered her request and said no. At that time children honored their parent’s decisions, and my mother never held a grudge about it.
In effect my mother had the protection of home and family until she was married and left home. A close look at the relationship between these two students shows how immature they really were. I am no expert on alcohol, but the young woman probably had enough of it in her system to be impaired.
According to a comment in our local newspaper blog, the girl sent the boy an e-mail which was both vulgar and insulting. She obviously did not care about his feelings or was so alcohol impaired that her sense of decency was gone. Since she was living alone, there was no one to make an intervention when her door was kicked in.
The girl’s mother has described her as an angel. My mother never called me an angel, and certainly if I had ever made such a comment to anyone I was dating, she would not have considered me to be a servant of God.
Everyone needs protection, especially young adults who are really just learning self control with regard to romantic relationships.
Joseph, my experience was years ago, but recently I did visit Europe and spent some time with students. They just seem more integrated and mature than American young people I know, even older than they are. I had intelligent conversations on deep subjects with both males and females.
I spent some years on an American campus recently. To the male students I was by and large invisible or dismissed quickly before a conversation got started. Physically, the male students did not come very close to talk but kept a kind of bubble around themselves. The seminarians were the worst, not looking at me when they passed in the hall. The international seminarians were delightful though.
Dutch kids definitely seem smarter than their North American counterparts. They are multi-lingual and have a better grasp of world events. Young cousins amazed me on my first visit many years ago. I find Irish kids lag behind the Dutch but are still ahead of our young folks. What is it about North American youth and education(English speaking that is -I can’t comment on those in Quebec)