A good book can take you to some unexpected places. The whiskey room at a giant tech company furnished with colorful beanbags and foosball tables is one. When coders at Google hit a creative wall, they can apparently, pop into this room on campus for some liquid inspiration — it is not a place to get drunk alone. In his fascinating new book Drunk, Edward Slingerland writes that such spaces that allow for both face-to-face communication – and easy access to alcohol – can act as incubators for collective creativity.
The boost that alcohol provides to individual creativity, Slingerland says, is enhanced when people get drunk in groups. For millennia, the world over, people have used alcohol and other mind-altering substances to get high. Some archaeologists suggest that the first farmers were driven by a desire for beer, not bread.
If intoxicants were merely hijacking pleasure centers in the brain, or if they gave humans an evolutionary edge once, but are purely vices now, then evolution would have put the kibosh on our taste for these chemicals, the author points out. So, why does Mother Nature turn a blind eye to our fondness for the tipple, given alcohol’s deleterious side-effects?
Slingerland, professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, gives us this thought-provoking thesis: “by causing humans to become, at least temporarily, more creative, cultural, and communal – to live like social insects despite our ape nature – intoxicants provided the spark that allowed us to form truly large-scale groups.” In short, civilization might not have been possible without intoxication.
This may seem like an audacious claim to make but Slingerland draws on history, anthropology, cognitive science, social psychology, genetics, and works of literature, including alcohol-fueled classical poetry, for evidence. Slingerland is an entertaining writer, who takes this wide-ranging array of studies, and weaves the information together deftly to make a convincing case.
Without a science-based understanding of intoxicants we cannot decide what role they can, and should, play in modern societies, Singer reasonably points out. In small doses, alcohol can make us happy and more sociable, he says. Still, consuming any amount of intoxicant does seem stupid, Slingerland concedes, because the chemical immediately targets the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
This late-maturing region of the brain is the seat of abstract reasoning, which also governs our behavior, and our ability to remain on task. All the data suggests that small children are more creative because their PFCs are barely developed, he writes. A childlike state of mind in an adult is the key to cultural innovation. And intoxicants, he says, allow us to access that state efficiently by temporarily taking the PFC offline.
OK, drinking once made humans thrive as a species, but is it still a good thing in the modern world ?
Slingerland cites research which uses a natural experiment to test the idea that the communal consumption of alcohol can be a driver of innovation. American Prohibition, which was imposed a hundred years ago in the U.S., saw a decline in the percentage of patents, in counties that were previously “wet,” as communal drinking centers closed.
The book also considers modern alternatives to alcohol without the hangovers, the danger of liver damage or addiction. In centers of innovation, microdosing, or taking tiny doses of purified psychedelics, is growing in popularity. It also discusses non-chemical ways of achieving the same end but concludes that alcohol is a very low-tech, efficient way of temporarily taking the PFC offline.
After exploring the stress busting, creativity-boosting, trust-building, pleasure-inducing aspects of alcohol, the final chapter of this book dwells on the dark side ranging from drunk-driving to alcohol-induced violence. The chapter includes practical takeaways to make non-drinkers feel included in professional settings where alcohol is already integrated.
The book is not prescriptive in telling you how, and when, to consume alcohol to enjoy only its benefits. It does, however, tell you not to drink too many distilled spirits (wine or beer is better), and if possible, never, to drink alone.
Ultimately, this heady book is an ode to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It does us all — drinkers and open-minded non-drinkers alike — a favor by talking a hard look at the merits of drinking, minus any squeamishness.
And feedback: From Bryn Glover, Kirkby Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK *Letters to the Editor in New Scientist* Vijaysree Venkatraman’s review of Edward Slingerland’s book Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilization got me wondering whether an analysis of recording devices placed in the bars of Magaluf in midsummer might prove useful for the future of humanity (5 June, p 30).
