It may be too late for temperance. It is, at the very least, much too late for temperance as we have long advertised it.
We weaponize our understanding of temperance in American society, particularly against the poor. Imperialism and Protestantism, doused with the gasoline of white supremacy and set ablaze by capitalism, centuries ago hammered American notions of “temperance” into cultural tools for extracting more labor and more self-blame from the ranks of poor and working-class people. An internalized narrative of self-sufficiency and sober self-denial at all costs—regardless of economic hardship, regardless of political abuses at the highest levels—stoutly furthers the American capitalist project. The “temperance movement” itself was one small but crystalline example of this. Are you suffering, traumatized, and ill-adjusted to the sick society that surrounds you? Must be all the booze—pay no mind to the industrialization, poverty, the deeply patriarchal social order.
Read more: https://syndicate.network/symposia/theology/sins-virtues-in-american-public-life/#scott
