“Be wary of strong drink.
It can make you shoot at tax
collectors… and miss.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
Recent discussions of the honor code have, in my opinion, failed to discuss the fly in the ointment. That fly is a drunken fly, buzzing feebly, stuck in the ointment, making a mockery of the high-minded discourse surrounding our Honor Code. I seek now to pluck this fly from the ointment, and place the blame for its odious presence upon an unexpected foe.
Our honor code currently obliges students to comply with one law in particular with which they do not agree. Should persons under the age of 21 be allowed to drink? Clearly, yes. Why? You will let us vote for our leaders, you will let us die for our country, why will you not let us consume alcohol? Is it so devilish a thing, and why then do we consider it so wonderful? And if you persist in calling it devilish, then who are you to judge us for what we think of this Dionysian tonic? Are you not flesh and blood as we are? Get off your soap box.
When one law becomes a farce, all law becomes a farce. People today roll their eyes at lawyers and courts and tort suits, because they are spurious, asinine, and wasteful. So why do we have laws that beget such mockeries of justice? The simple answer is the tyranny of the majority. The other answer is that people have so thoroughly given up on holding their representatives accountable, of passing laws worth obeying, that no such representatives remain in power. Thus, our laws have become farcical. How is this serving our democracy? How is this null law protecting or serving humanity?
It is refreshing when someone comes forward with a protest to such tragedies. The Get REAL campaign is a petition to make liquor laws that make sense. It is being signed by student government associations across the nation.
Forcing college students to hide their drinking makes their drinking dangerous. Students passed out in dorm rooms are the ones who die, not the ones drinking at keg parties. While our administration takes a lot of heat for not allowing kegs anymore, the real culprit is the state of Connecticut.
Which brings me back to the Honor Code. Honor is a word charged with a past of racism and misogyny reaching back to a societal elite. But the cream rises to the top, along with the scum, and so honor also persists also as an august and beneficent ideal. I believe in our Honor Code. I believe it can bind us together as no other creed can. I believe that it can direct and focus our efforts here to benefit humanity. But our discussions of the Honor Code always seem slightly hollow to me. Why is this?
The dilemma posed by the Honor Code is that it is legally constrained to conform to a law that we do not agree with: namely, the consumption of alcohol. How can a code of honor, a code of honesty in a sense, remain valid when we violate it in good conscience? Why should our Honor Code be forced to comply with laws that are, in our opinion, inappropriate to our circumstances as intelligent, responsible adults?
In this debate, we must realize that our fight lies not with the administration, nor with the students of the Judicial Board, but with a government that has exceeded its mandate.
Why should the state of Connecticut regulate alcohol consumption for college students?
I have found in recent times that much of what we seek to do in bettering the world is thwarted by uncaring bureaucracy, the monolithic “establishment.” The establishment seems bent on controlling every part of our lives, always on the pretense of protecting us, of bettering us. I too find such patronizing intentions insulting. I think their result is such destructive legislation as the current liquor laws, which lead to promising young lives being lost in the solitude of dorm rooms because their drinking was illegal. Would it not be better to let them get drunk in public, if it meant they did not die in private?
I once thought the school administration was the culprit in denying us our rights, not to alcohol in particular but to many other rights. I have since realized that the school’s hands are in many respects tied by liability that it should not bear. Why should our school be responsible for our actions? Are we not adults? Can we not make these decisions for ourselves? Why can’t we drink? Why must this be a violation of our honor?
In closing, I will salute my progressive fellow liberals who consider imbibing to be our natural right, and encourage them again with the words of Lieutenant Robert A. Heinlein: “Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.”
This article was written while under the influence. And the author will awake to maintain that it is only better for it.
