Throughout recorded history humans have made life bearable by taking intoxicants. And, while societies differ over which intoxicants should be encouraged, which tolerated and which forbidden, there has been a convergence of opinion around one all-important rule: that the result must not threaten public order. The Native American pipe of peace, like the Middle-Eastern hookah, illustrates an ideal of social intoxication, in which good manners, uncomplicated affections and serene thoughts are brought into being by communal intoxication.
The problem case, however, is not cannabis but alcohol, which has an instant effect on physical coordination, on manners, on emotions and on the understanding. That’s why many people run away from it, or prefer prohibitions (although they don’t work). One can understand the reason here. When you see people getting drunk on streets and indulging in violent behaviour, you would never want to be like those people.
Do we need an intoxicant in the first place? Sir Roger Scruton, a philosopher and writer, made a strong case in its favour in his book I Drink Therefore I Am. He suggested that without the aid of intoxicants we risk seeing each other as we are, and that no human society can be built on so frail a foundation. Surely illusions can lead us to dangerous paths, but they can also be beneficial. Where would we be without the belief that humans can face down disaster and swear undying love? Such a belief can only arise out of our imagination, not from evidence.
That’s why we should look to gravitate towards wine.
Why wine, in particular, you might ask? To that, one could simply respond with an assertion: because Plato said so. (His exact quote was: nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man.) But we ought to be more reasonable, especially while we are still sober.
Most intoxicants simply disguise things; wine is not like the most. Wine is one of those rare ones that help you to confront the reality by presenting it in re-imagined and idealised form. With its distinct taste, wine allows you to stay in the moment and savour it. So you don’t quite escape the reality but remain somewhere in between (between the realm of gods and mortals). Wine does not offend, bother, or leads you astray; it comforts. It has always played this role, across cultures and time periods.
Anyone who has had wine would tell you that it is an excellent accompaniment to food. But, one must add that it is even better accompaniment to thought. By having a glass of wine and thinking with it, you can learn not merely to drink in thoughts, but to think in draughts. If you understand what I am speaking of, you’ve been blessed to have a good life.
More importantly, it’s not the contents of wine but the culture and ceremonies around it that make it special. The social drinking of wine, during or after a meal, and in full cognisance of its delicate taste and evocative aura, seldom leads to drunkenness. The drinking problem that we see around us is not so much because of the drink itself but our inability to pay Bacchus (the Greek god of wine) his due. We don’t have to drink to fill the moral vacuum in our lives; we can do a much better job by acknowledging the beauty and wrath of Bacchus.
Drinking wine is an art, which, if pursued with care, brings some charming rewards. A good wine should always be accompanied by a good topic, and the topic should be pursued around the table with the wine. The whole event adds value to our life experience. Some sanctimonious folks might object, and that is all right. Some of them are boring and some do not understand that wine is compatible with virtue. The right way to live life is by enjoying one’s faculties, striving to like and if possible to love one’s fellows, and also to accept that nothing in this life is perfect or ever going to be perfect (or last). Wine does all this. And when drunk at the right time, in the right place and the right company, it is a path to meditation, and a harbinger of peace and happiness. To quote the great Persian poet Hafez, “Piety and moral goodness have naught to do with ecstasy; stain your prayer-rug with wine.”
Reference books:
Kalampedia 