Team of Rivals

First, since it is still February, let me say that the first few pages of John Barleycorn were great. With such a short book, I should have been able to make it through the whole thing, but the previous posts with regards to the book persuaded me that it wasn't necessary. However, I enjoyed the first few anecdotes, and it led to a couple of fun games I like to play.

The "At Least I'm Not" Game is always good to try when you're having a bad day. Whatever other faults I may have, it's nice to read something like Barleycorn and say, "Well, at least I'm not a drunk." And believe me, if I hadn't been born a Mormon, I'm quite sure I'd be a binge drinker. This leads me to other hypothetical, what-if games where I try to imagine what kind of drunk I would be, the angry drunk, the happy, outgoing drunk, etc. Some days I think I know all about what it's like to be drunk, like I know what it's like to be pregnant, but other days I realize that no matter how many books I read, I'll never have a clue about either one. Thank goodness.

So in all that time I wasn't reading John Barleycorn, I was listening to Team of Rivals. If you haven't heard it about yet, it's the recent book about Lincoln's political savvy, which has been not so sublty pushed to be an analogy for what President Obama is trying to do. Because of the desired connections between Lincoln and Obama, I am hoping to stir up some conversation on this blog about the two and about our President's first few days in office. Regardless of your views on Obama, the book is enjoyable, and I left with an increased admiration and gratitude for Mr. Abraham.

I've always had a perception of Lincoln as a good and wise President. This book only confirmed that. The angle of Team of Rivals was that Lincoln was also a political genius, very smart in the way he handled people with big egos without offending them, yet always leading and not letting these powerful men take control. In regards to his political savvy, I believe Obama is every bit as savvy as Lincoln was. Of course, Obama's political machinations (at least the ones that I am privy to) are often through the media, whereas the moves made by Lincoln were more personal, but still, I think those comparisons are reasonable.

The big difference was that Lincoln was a humble, honest, thoroughly good person that also happened to be quite politically savvy. Obama may or may not possess all of these great human characteristics, but they are not the ones that are the most outwardly visible or that first come to mind. Maybe in 200 years a historian will have insight into how honest and humble he was. Personally, I see Obama much like I see a lot of the 'popular' people I've known, very likeable but a bit condescending.

As for Obama's cabinet, he has certainly tried to put together a "Team of Rivals", with varying degrees of success. It should be noted that even Lincoln made some shortsighted appointments that he had to change in his first term.

Both presidents have/had big problems to deal with, which had been brewing for a long time but that came to a head as soon as they were in office. Lincoln did not have a lot of personal war experience, though that was the main charge that was thrown upon him as president. He had a better innate sense of war strategy than many of his generals, but he didn't do a particularly good job of choosing generals at the beginning of the war. Obama doesn't have a lot of economic experience, and I worry that he may be listening to the wrong economic advisors. I just hope we don't have to suffer through Civil War level losses before Obama finds his Ulysses S. Grant. And I hope Obama's goal really is to preserve the Union, not just to use a good crisis to push his agenda. We'll see.

John Barleycorn - It's Not MY Fault

To start: while I found the story itself interesting, I found the writing surprisingly tedious. Surprising because London's adventure writing (White Fang, Sea Wolf, To Build a Fire, etc.) is so riveting. I think the tediousness came largely as a result of him saying the same things over and over: not just the language ("purple passages," "nicely jingled," "chesty men," "white noise"), but the experiences themselves were repetitive. Perhaps that was part of the point; certainly he tried to point out in the section about his time on the sealer that all his travels ended in saloons, and he missed the bigger set of experiences. But literary ploy or not, it made for a fairly boring book (from a writing/narrative perspective).

Now for the philosophy: my biggest problem with London's perspective on the question of alcoholism is his complete lack of ownership over his own choices. Again and again, he makes the point that his alcoholism was inevitable. Anywhere he wanted to go, he simply HAD to drink. It was just the way. How unfair! Someone should do something about that. Utter rubbish.

In a way, he is like the anti-Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, the one who never comes to the understanding that true manhood lies in accepting responsibility for one's own actions. Interestingly, I remember being shocked at how much drinking Tom did in that book initially; but it tapered off as he began to accept responsibility for his decisions. Here, London never comes to that conclusion. He's like a child crying that it's not his fault he's a drunk; it's society's.

Consider the following passage: "heaven forefend me from the most of the average run of male humans who are not good fellows -- the ones cold of heart and cold of head who don't smoke, drink, nor swear, nor do much of anything else that is brave, and resentful, and stinging, because in their feeble fibers there has never been the stir and prod of life to well over its boundaries and be devilish and daring. One doesn't meet these in saloons, nor rallying to lost causes, nor flaming on the adventure-paths, nor loving as God's own made lovers. They are too busy keeping their feet dry, conserving their heart-beats, and making unlovely life-successes of theier spirit-mediocrity."

Now I'm a bit stung by this, perhaps, and perhaps that puts me in an uncharitable mood. But I would say that these are the great men; the ones who, despite the lure and temptation of the carnal life, resist for the good of themselves, their families, and their communities. They are men, and London is a child.

Consider further his accounts of public mayhem that he and his friends brought about while drunk. Never is it their fault; it's all due to John Barleycorn. And furthermore, never is there a word for those whose property had been destroyed. The Japanese restaurant owners whose establishment was destroyed by drunken Americans. No sign of regret or remorse on their behalf; only that London himself didn't get to see more of the wild Japanese town. The town that the "fire brigade" destroyed; never a thought, never a word. Just "how scary! I almost went into a whiskey-induced coma on the train! How unfair the world is to me!"

So I pity London (or at least his persona in this novel); not for his drunkenness, but for his utter inability to recognize the first and only lesson of manhood: responsibility. I think I quoted Lars and the Real Girl in an earlier post, but there's a great exchange that relates to this. Lars asks his older brother when he knew he was a man. This makes his brother evidently uncomfortable, but eventually he answers: "Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts... Like, you know, like, you don't jerk people around, you know, and you don't cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you're wrong, or you try to, anyways. That's all I can think of, you know - it sound like it's easy and for some reason it's not." When I think of "good fellows," it's men like these; they are the ones that I want to be around. Not the immature, whining, drunken man-childs that London so admires.

What do you do with a Drunken Sailor

This is the first book clubber that I listened to instead of read. I'm glad I did, because the librivox reader was so terrible that I had to go back over and over chapters that reading I would have glossed over.

My Friend John Barleycorn

I agree that alcohol takes down social inhibitions, and can understand the camaraderie in drink. I imagine football games and Christmas Parties would have poorer attendance if there weren't any beer. The smell of most alcohol nauseates me personally, and while I find drunk people amusing for moments, I dislike spending very much time with people when they drink, not because I'm uncomfortable being a non-drinker, but because I prefer being with sober people.

Prohibition

I don't know how honest London was, but I think I agree with prohibition in the US. I think agency is a sacred thing, but I don't think alcohol should be legal. I know that when president Hinckley mentioned the repealing of the amendment he wasn't referring to prohibition, but to following our leaders. However, President Grant called Prohibition “the greatest financial and moral blessing that has ever come to humanity"; when the church ignored his council and voted to repeal the amendment, he said that some members who sang “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet” seemed to add the words, “provided he keeps his mouth shut politically." I think this has implications today on other issues.

I believe that we should strive to make illegal things that the Lord has forbidden. While I find London's approach (summed up crudely: votes for women--they'll fix us right sober) a weak and infeasible approach, and while I think some of the results of prohibition were terrible, I believe in government with laws and consequences. I know, there are eternal consequences for disobeying the commandments, but it doesn't seem incongruous to me to have similar, but more universally enforceable laws on earth.

Great listen. For the next while, I'll have the Librivox reader's "John Barleycorn" ringing in my ears.

"Get Drunk," in elders quorum today

• Bob, I appreciated your comments. It brought to my mind memories of watching colleagues getting themselves humiliatingly drunk, of a classmate stepping in and saving me from having to decline an alcoholic beverage by simply saying, "No, Glenn doesn't drink," of tasting some apple cider that my wife's ancient grandmother had left on the porch more than a bit too long.

• why this book

⁃ When I returned from Utah this past Christmas, I found that one of my friends had slipped into the depths and pains of alcoholism. He has been fighting depression and addiction to cigarettes for a while too, so his situation fits unfortunately well with this Reuters report .
⁃ I want so much to help him, offering myself as a lifeline to call whenever he gets a bad craving. But despite my desire and willingness to be there for him and my attempts at empathy, he knows that I just don't understand and there's only so much I can do. But he also knows that I really care, and that no matter what, even if he continues to fail, I will truly and always care.
⁃ A day or two after finding out about my friend's new vice, I stumbled across this book as I was searching Librivox.org for a new audiobook to listen to. And while I still don't understand what it fells like to be drunk and to lose my inhibitions (a different friend in vet school said that was his favorite part of alcohol), I believe I understand a little better how someone could find himself in the company of John Barleycorn.

• a little bit of insight into what drives people to alcohol

⁃ I wonder how many other chapters, besides the ones about the "white logic" were written while "jingled"
⁃ this book highlights the power of peer pressure, and how so many people drink, or at least start out drinking because of social expectation, not because it "tastes great" or is "less filling." Jack London claims to drink not because he craves it, but just because it's there: "John Barleycorn is with me because in all the unwitting days of my youth John Barleycorn was accessible, calling to me and inviting me on every corner and on every street between the corners." I think that is a lame excuse. It was accessible to everone else during his time, I would assume, yet not everyone else became blinded by the white logic.

• He says that he could quit whenever he wants, that he is a social drinker and that he is not one that is physiologically addicted to alcohol.

⁃ "On this long, five-months' voyage, I found that among all my bodily pneeds not the slightest shred of a bodily need for alcohol existed. But this I did find: my need was mental and social. When I thought of alcohol, the connotation was fellowship. When I thought of fellowship, the connotation was alcohol. Fellowship and alcohol were Siamese twins. They always occurred linked together."
⁃ I think he is telling us the truth, but he is not telling himself the truth. In other words, he has convinced himself that he is the master of John Barleycorn and he is telling us honestly what he himself believes. But in reality he has gained a great dependence on alcohol. He even says that he cannot enjoy life without it. "I should not care to revisit all these fair places of the world except in the fashion I visited them before. GLASS IN HAND!"

• what are your thoughts about prohibition?

⁃ "The way to stop drinking is to stop it. The way China stopped the general use of opium was by stopping the cultivation and importation of opium. The philosophers, priests, and doctors of China could have preached themselves breathless against opium for a thousand years, and the use of opium, so long as opium was ever accessible and obtainable, therefore the vote for women's sufferage."

• In elders quorum today, the instructor read a poem entitled "Get Drunk" that talked about being passionate about like. And while I agree that it can be refreshing, and even empowering to drink deeply from any number of good things (work, music, literature, nature), one doesn't want to drink so much that one becomes a workaholic, or any other kind of -aholic. It seems evident that Jack London had an intense personality. He didn't do anything in a small way; consider how he drank and how he threw himself into his studies.

• One last thing, the Church has its own 12-step program that it has modeled off of AA and other addiction recovery programs. I went with my friend to a class and learned quite a bit. During step 3 we talked about agency. My thought during that discussion was how Satan does whatever he can from keeping us from turning our will over to Heavenly Father. By getting us addicted to any of a number of things, he takes away ones ability to choose, thereby preventing the individual from yielding his/her heart to God. My friend is continuing to attend the Church's addition recovery class and is making progress. I have thought that I might benefit from continuing to attend the class also. A family member of mine that went through this program said that she learned so much about the atonement from it. In a way, any repeated sin might be considered addiction.
  

Bob on Barleycorn

I just finished reading Jack London's autobiographical alcoholic memoir entitled "John Barleycorn". Although I've never indulged in the adventures of alcohol I found myself rather enjoying London's perspective and his style of writing. His memoir took me to the forbidden world of alcohol that I will never truly know, with all of its hearty laughter, depressions, self-justifications, poisoned states of mind, chesty man behaviors, and hail fellows well met. Surprisingly, I felt I could superficially relate...or at least I allowed myself to get into his mind.

I have observed the brotherhood of John Barleycorn in those with whom I have worked. I have witnessed the uniting power of the drink and the business accomplished under its auspices. Unlike Jack London, my current boss has loved the taste that bitter brew since he was a five year old stealing sips from his fathers glass. He proudly boasts of sneaking tall cans of beer out of the ranch supply house with a wink and a nod from the grisly ranch hands who welcomed the boys into the world of men. He now considers himself a connoisseur of lagers, whiskeys and ales. The darker and thicker the beer, the better he tells me. I have discovered that when I attend the infrequent happy-hour with co-workers that my abstinence and utter refusal to drink actually becomes endearing to those that have already tossed back a few. My non-judgemental fascination with the varieties and complexities of the various spirits and my incessant questions about them also amuse them. This always leads to jovial feigned attempts to get me to just try it out. They will often rejoice when I finish off bottle of Henry Weinhard's Rootbeer and order me up another as if I were a part of the true order of the drinking fraternity, yet I know I am a fraud and hypocrite as I am so unwilling to pledge. I'm sure I have emasculated myself in their eyes by not returning the favor of purchasing them a drink in turn.

My own life changing experience with ingesting an alcoholic beverage was when I was five our six years old. My father was remodeling a man's home in which every flat surface was cluttered and covered with beer bottles. My father explained that the man was hopelessly lost in the lies and warm embrace of John Barleycorn. My brother Carl and I began to clown around with the empty bottles doing our best impressions of drunkards. As I held one bottle over my tilted-back head pretending to guzzle it down, a couple ounces of beer that remained in the bottled seared right down my gullet. The taste was horrible and I vomited it out immediately. A green garden hose was connected the hose spigot on the front porch of the house which I used to repeatedly fill my stomach with water and spewed it up again to exorcise that demon rum from my belly. At the moment I swore to never have another drink and that is one commitment I am honored to still be keeping.

Another day, while still a young boy working on a construction site with my father and uncle, we were invited to Buster's Bar & Grill by a group of suppliers and subcontractors. My father and I were the only ones not to drink from brown long-necked bottles. As the men drank, they become extremely jolly and rather funny. I was amused and caught up in the raucous behavior, but very much aware of the effects of alcohol leading them to this happy state. The waitresses were provocatively dressed in tight fitting white t-shirts and bottom revealing denim mini-skirts. I remember one of them sat on my uncle's lap and they flirted away. I was self-righteously disgusted while at the same time secretly and prepubescently intrigued.

One final personal faith-promoting anecdote. During my construction management internship in Las Vegas there was an All-Hands Meeting held in the construction trailer every other Friday afternoon at three. The area manager brought a couple cases of beer and they were joyously passed around to quench the thirst on those sweltering hot summer afternoons. There were two or three of us Mormon party-poopers that were forced to endure the chesty men's abuses because of our teetotalism. To make it worse, no water was available for us to drink, so we sat through the meeting with parched mouths as the men around us become loose and foul. In a moment of clarity and inspiration I made my own plans for the next meeting. I would bring my own delicious beverage...oh that sweet nectar of the gods...Rootbeer. Unabashedly I plopped down a 24-pack of A&W Rootbeer on the center table and to my complete astonishment almost everybody ignored the case of beer and took to my rootbeers like vultures to carrion. As I left the meeting many thanked me for providing an alternative beverage and I noticed that the case of beer was largely untouched. Prior to my graduation from the BYU CM program, a recently returned intern from the same company related that the rootbeer had become a tradition for the Friday All-Hands Meeting. Sweet sweet triumph over John Barleycorn!

Back to the book...

London was extremely honest with himself in his memoir and it has led me down a path of deep introspection. I've been taken to the darker corners of my soul and it is actually helping me realign my priorities and to rediscover my standing before God. As far as the brotherhood that Jack could only find arm in arm with John Barleycorn, I have found a much deeper bond with the brethren I serve and serve with in building up God's kingdom.