Jared's distinctions help me clarify my thinking or at least let me see
more clearly about what I am ignorant.  May I extend his analysis? What
about legal drugs (caffeine, nicotine) and the complicated range of other
drugs that are illegal where I live?  I am puzzled, for instance, that my
sisters smoked cigarettes since college, while I never took up the
habit.  I tried a half-dozen cigarettes and cigars but never could find out
why I should enjoy smoking them (ditto for drinking soft drinks which
always have bored me).

David Fahey

At 07:47 AM 3/29/2005, you wrote:
>The shade of Thorstein Veblen hovers, waiting for an economic sociologist
>to extend The Theory of the Leisure Class into this discussion (as David
>has already done, implicitly).  And while I have the floor, briefly, a
>note on the earlier question of why people drink: shouldn't we distinguish
>three forms of the question -- (1) why human beings in general make use of
>the particular forms of intoxicants we call alcoholic and fermented malt
>beverages (etc.) -- meaning, essentially, what are the origins of
>"drinking"? (2) why peoples/ cultures/societies drink (see Heath's
>DRINKING OCCASIONS or examples in MacAndrew and Edgerton DRUNKEN
>COMPORTMENT 1969)?  (3) why particular individuals drink (as, e.g.,
>"alcoholics" because they are "alcoholic")?  When we ask the question,
>which question are we asking? -- Jared Lobdell