 Hello there, it's Thursday at noon. I know it is Do you remember our arrangement Thursdays at noon on CFUV Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called first-person plural You make it sound excessively attractive That's what I have in mind Any of us between the ages of 30 and 50 Spent the 1980s watching the American situation comedy Cheers and Wishing that we had a place where everybody knew our name The consumption of alcohol and social settings has been a part of Western society At least since the time of the Roman Empire and remains a part of many cultures throughout the world The history of the consumption of alcohol Including the history of establishments where alcohol is served and consumed Is a history of social struggle social control and respite from social alienation Today on first-person plural we talk with history professor Sean Kaffer key About the history of drink and drinking establishments in Canada Join us as we examine the social history of social drink in an episode. We call community spirits You're listening to first-person plural on CFUV 101.9 FM Victoria has more complexity than one thinks at first To be sure pubs lounges bars sports bars wine bars drinking clubs taverns and saloons Offer various forms of entertainment along with the alcohol darts billiards bedding trivia games jukeboxes live music sing-alongs karaoke comedy nights sports on television screens and Other such events are considered natural activities to go along with a night of social drinking One sports bar in Florida even has bingo on non baseball nights during the long slow summer off-season for tourism Of course, there are other drinking establishments that offer more let's say Adult forms of entertainment however, the alcohol consumption at these places becomes less complementary and more secondary to such entertainment activities Certain organizations and businesses go well with drinking establishments Hotels catering to weary travelers often have a lounge or tavern Fraternal clubs usually have a bar for their members Restaurants with sports themes often have a bar area for those who simply want to drink and watch a game instead of eat Dance clubs often have bars attached to them Even college campuses usually have a club or bar on campus for students who have reached legal drinking age and for their professors Stadiums, of course, are another place where bars and beer stands seem natural Beer has been made available at a price at professional baseball games for years Participation in the ritualized purchase and consumption of beer at these games was so enthusiastic in fact That it became common in the mid 1980s For concessionaires to curtail sales in the seventh inning of games Otherwise the behavior of intoxicated customers Could have created the general impression that the concessionaires benefited from an embarrassment of riches With the emphasis on the embarrassment But this complicated social landscape does not even scratch the surface of the importance of drinking establishments and alcohol consumption in Western culture Who drinks what they consume and where they consume it is a powerful sign of social class Stereotypes of what drink goes with what status illustrates the symbology Beer is for the working class Sherry is for little old ladies after dinner Pontiac and expensive scotch are for discerning upper crust tastes Wines are divided into categories that lead to class distinctions as well Race and ethnicity are also stereotyped into alcohol preferences Less true today, but certainly a part of drinking history is the distinction between men and women and their drinking habits In Victoria drinking halls still have doors marked ladies in their escorts from past days of segregation of drinking halls by gender In fact, it was as late as the 1960s that women were not supposed to drink alone at bars Men on the other hand were expected to drink well and drink often by each other rounds and then head home each to his respective missus Hopefully with enough money left over to take care of the family Controlling alcohol consumption has been vilified in the past in North America Temperance movements led to legal prohibition of alcohol Throughout Canada government ownership of the distribution of liquor has lasted for nearly 70 years With only recent privatization in some provinces In the US several state and local governments have controlled distribution outlets at various times since the repeal of prohibition Drunk driving and alcoholism are considered as serious social problems That have generated many social claims leading to many social policies Controlling alcohol consumption has been used as a way of controlling immigrant populations and minors Controlling alcohol consumption has been at the center of discussions on other forms of drug abuse Controlling alcohol consumption has generated trillions of dollars American and Canadian in tax revenues for governments over the years But all these efforts at social control haven't made drinking alcohol go away Many believe that is because of the alienating consequences of capitalism Drinking establishments have served traditionally as places of connection for many workers And consuming alcohol even in moderation seems to take the edge off the drudgery for many But it is not the alcohol alone that succeeds in offsetting alienation Community connections are increasingly being seen as an important aspect of drinking in these settings In Europe, Canada and some of the larger cities in the US The neighborhood pub is reasserting itself as a place to connect with others in one's community Pubs are positioning themselves as centers of more than entertainment beyond the mindless varieties With seminars salons book reading clubs and poetry nights joining the more traditional forms of entertainment Publicans are seeking to put the public back in the public house And cater to adults of various ages with various backgrounds It is this effort towards connection and community that we want to examine today This trend may make taverns return full circle to their place as central meeting halls for their communities There was a time in North American history when even church congregations held meetings at a local tavern We talk with history professor Sean Kafferkey about the history of drink and drinking establishments in Canada When we were thinking about doing this episode about pubs and about drinking establishments, I asked around and I was told by the history department at UVic that you're the drinking professor So you want to tell me why they called you that? Because for the first time in the department a course was offered on drink and it was called social control in Canada 1828 to 1928 And I guess I got that reputation by taking the students out for a brewery tour the practical as well as the theoretical Tell me you teach about the history of Canadian Drink, that's correct. And tell me a little bit about it. I take it that part of what's going on is the temperance movement during that time Right they track the temperance movement starting in 1828 and carry that study through until the end of prohibition in Canada Roughly 1928 and the move Away from private sector control and so far as distribution is concerned and and look at the government regulation and the post prohibition era And during that time, um Well, tell me a little bit more about the temperance movement. Um It sounds like it would just be just a bunch of religious people telling a bunch of other people that they shouldn't drink But it was really more complicated than that, right? It was it was part of the wider reform movement So the suffragists would be considered part of the reform movement and the attempt to get women to vote Provincially and federally in the country and there was an Intimate connection between the suffragists in this country and those that were involved and say the women's christian temperance union There was overlap in terms of membership and prominent personalities in both who were members of both groups Uh, there was it also fits within the reform movement for changes to the penal system in terms of the justice system In terms of education municipal reform in the country as well Women were seen as the uh, the social housekeepers of their communities and were taking responsibility for what was going on in their community outside of The four walls of their residence and temperance fits within that So it was directed against alcohol and abuses thereof but it was also an attempt to Put a Protestant work ethic Into those across the country and create a sober sober and disciplined workforce and to deal with the abuses of drink and neglect and poverty and the like also there was a kind of Especially an anti-immigration Attitude that was part of this well in so far as the temperance movement was concerned. It was directed primarily against foreign immigrants and Canadian working class an attempt to inculcate Canadian views in terms of drinking habits and Canadian cultural attitudes and beliefs And it was a way to assimilate those that were arriving on Canadian shores through the temperance movement And it was directed against specific ethnic groups One group in particular that it was directed against would have been the irish in upper canada prior to confederation irish canadians were seen as a threat to the socio-economic standing of Those that were already living in the province And under the guise of the temperance movement the irish were labeled as drunkards And it was an attempt to sober up the irish, but it was also an attempt to Maintain the status quo for those that were already living within the province so that the irish Did not threaten them economically. So it was under the guise of temperance So there was indeed a lot of social control that was going on and it was imposed from above I mean primarily the temperance movement was a movement of the middle and upper classes directed against the lower classes But predominantly it was the middle classes. They were carving out a niche for themselves in canadian society during this period of influx of Thousands upon thousands of immigrants arriving on our shores each year starting with the irish during the potato famines And then later under the wilford lorry a administration from 1896 through 1911 And his minister of the interior cliford system who was bringing in Hundreds of thousands of immigrants each and every year as we opened up our immigration doors And to deal with the abuses of industrialization as well in the factory system as part of what's going on here as well Elaborate a little bit more on that Well in so far as the factory owners were concerned for example to lower their costs And to maximize their profits in terms of insurance the underwriters such as loyd for example would impose upon ship owners and and factory owners Higher insurance costs because of accidents that would come out of Drinking loss of life loss of loss of goods and in a way to cut down their costs They would enforce upon their employees that they become sober During the work day whether they were on board ship or working in factories So you would see the beer factory boy for example disappearing from the shop floor and you would See an attempt on the part of the ship owners and the captains who work for the ship owners to Impose strict regulations as it related to drink Tell me a little bit about drinking establishments during this time I am curious as to kind of the parallel evolution of u.l And evolution is probably a poor word for it But a parallel history there of the ways in which Drinking establishments changed during this period and on up into the 20th century Well, usually what happened in canada was the tavern was usually the first structure that was ever built in any community It was built before the schools. It was built before the churches And the taverns performed a very important role in canadian society It was a place where people would assemble to discuss Debates as it related to politics and what was going on in their local community The taverns served as a focal point for circuses that would come to the town Schools Were also part and parcel of the taverns Magistrates would hold court in the taverns for example And they served a number of functions And the only thing that the taverns were not used for was for the temperance societies themselves They absolutely refused to meet in them. They were also used as polling stations too During municipal and provincial and federal votes later And it provided amenities that weren't available for the average canadian Fireplace furniture a newspaper if that individual happened to be literate It was a place to assemble to be there with your friends and treat them to around It was a place for travelers to stop into and Have a drink and have a bite to eat As they changed the teams on for the carriages as they made their way across the province for example Later in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century the taverns themselves Provided many amenities that the average working class canadian did not have Frequently the tavern would have a public telephone where the average canadian would not have one in the residence There would be a public washroom available in the tavern and that wasn't always the case for the average canadian And equally important taverns have always been a place for the canadian working class to cash their checks their paychecks Employers did not pay wages in cash And the average canadian worker was paid once a month and since banks were only open from 10 until three five days a week And the average canadian was working 12 hours a day six days a week The tavern was frequently one of the few places that would cash your check So the men would go in there Get their Check cash, and then they would sit there and treat their friends their co-workers to Several rounds before they made their way home And hopefully they made their way home with some of that money Exactly uh, if they didn't then they had to go another month before they were paid by their employer Which meant that the their wives and their children suffered, uh, they couldn't purchase clothing They couldn't purchase food. They couldn't take a vacation. There was no disposable income So unions worked and and fought for Employees to be paid every two weeks and system that we now have in place and to to get their employees paid in cash instead of In paychecks so that they didn't have to go to the tavern to cash their checks And this probably explains why so many women were involved in the temperance movement It was a very practical aspect of it too to get your get your man home with some of the money exactly and to ensure that That their husbands weren't coming home drunk and then taking it out physically on the women or taking it out on the children or neglecting the children And making them responsible So they're there's certainly a moral component to as it related to the temperance movement But it's what is part of the wider reform movement generally that they were considered Regenerators through regenerating Canadian society. So there's a religious and a moral component to it But it isn't strictly directed against Drink there's there's other things that are going on here Temperance movement was also trying to prohibit the sale of tobacco for example In keeping men away from young single Canadian women Because men were considered to be evil particularly when they were You're listening to first person plural on cfu v Victoria's public radio 101.9 fm 104.3 cable And on the internet cfu v dot uvig dot ca Giving sociology and I Moving towards the latter half of the 20th century There's something in canada that happened that did not happen in the united states after the um Temperance movements in the prohibition Uh in the 1920s and that was state sponsored stores state distribution provincial distribution Of alcohol We have a lot of listeners in the united states as well as here in victoria. So tell me a little bit about How that works here in canada and how it's beginning to change especially here in british columbia Well after prohibition the first province in the country to institute state-run Distribution systems in terms of of liquor is concerned with kebab and british columbia followed shortly thereafter And it became a program that was accepted by the provinces across the country And it was an attempt to deal with the worst of the abuses That we saw during prohibition itself the vice and the crime and the profiteering and and the like It had been in the hands of the private sector before prohibition and that system wasn't working and the government took over responsibility for that And since the end of prohibition the government has found itself the provincial governments have found itself in this unusual position Where they are both the distributor and the retailer for the liquor But they are also responsible for regulation and enforcement and they see themselves in this Contradictory position and what's now happening in british columbia is that the the current administration is going to privatize that And we'll close down the state-run Government liquor stores and turn it over to the private sector So what you're going to see now is that There will be potentially a doubling in the number of liquor outlets that are available in the province where you can purchase your alcohol And the government will still be responsible for regulation and enforcement But it's a way for them to rid themselves of the The overhead costs in terms of wages that are paid out to the government employees medical benefits and pension and the like While they can while the government still continues to reap the maximum profit through taxes and by ridding themselves of the overhead of the stores themselves So they will turn it over to the private sector So I think what we're seeing here is that the That the system is coming full circle from privatization prior to prohibition and now 80 years later Turning it back over to the to the private sector Not sure what the hidden social costs will be for british columbians as a result of this policy. We'll just have to wait and see what happens But there are some definite potential problems there with the uh with the system being more private I foresee that there's potential problems. Um, some of the problems will be that you're Potentially more than doubling the number of outlets and that doesn't include bars and taverns pubs and the like You're just talking about the stores that can sell liquor these days But potentially doubling what's going to happen on the enforcement side Is there going to be enough inspectors out there making sure that the private sector is not selling to underage? british columbians what's going to be the hidden social costs for us With some bars potentially now being open till four o'clock in the morning What will be the cost in terms of an increased insurance cost to british columbia through the insurance corporation of british columbia? What will be the cost uh to the municipalities in terms of enforcement with the police departments? Since the counter attack program the drinking driving counter attack program has been scaled back And now bars will be open till four o'clock What will happen to our medical premiums potentially? There's all sorts of potential hidden costs that are involved here And I don't think um We know exactly what's going to happen yet And the argument that that british columbians will benefit as a consumer because we will pay less Because they're privatizing Doesn't hold water if alberta is uh looked to because they've privatized their system The only reason that albertans pay less money is that there's no provincial sales tax in place Uh, it has nothing to do with the with the taxes on liquor They're paying virtually what british columbians are so i'm not sure that the some of these programs are going to benefit british columbians in fact It may hurt british columbians Now there's some differences in the law between different drinking establishments And um here in victoria and i'm not sure whether it's in throughout The province or not but we have neighborhood pubs right And how is a neighborhood pub different from a bar? or a club traditionally what's happened with the with the the taverns and then The dirt the beer par the beer parlors were as they were geographically concentrated They were usually in and around industrial areas or downtown where there wasn't the that mix between residents and and customers The neighborhood pubs actually went out into the communities. It was um Something that started to happen in canada in the mid 1970s. It really took off in virgin columbia in the early 1980s prior to expo 86 And what that meant was that these pubs would go out into the communities themselves. They were smaller establishments They started out with a seating limit of 125 and i think it was essentially up to 65 There were fewer parking spaces available For the number of seats in the establishment which differed from some of the beer The traditional beer parlors where they had huge parking lots and seated anywhere from 300 to 400 people And the neighborhood pubs were limited in their hours Closing time was Or last call was 11 and you had to be out the door by 11 30 The traditional beer parlors was last call was at one o'clock and you had to be out by 130 Because the bars were in residential areas and to cut down on noise and the traffic flow and the possibility of fights and so forth They had an earlier closing time I'm not sure that this new legislation will affect the neighborhood pubs in terms of their closing hours I think what the government is looking at is having certain bars in the downtown core Apply to stay open till four o'clock a minute has to go through a community review process But potentially some bars in victoria vancouver and elsewhere could be open till four o'clock in the morning And what sort of problems will that cause will we now have drunk drivers on the road at six o'clock seven o'clock in the morning when people are You know the rush hours starting and parents are getting children off to the daycares As opposed to a drunk driver at three o'clock in the morning in a involved in a single vehicle accident Where they've gone off the road and have only injured themselves that haven't injured somebody else So other potential hidden cost social cost I want to Just sort of in this with I asked you uh before we did the interview to come up with a cool story from history that involved a drinking establishment So i'm ready to hear your cool story. Well, we only had one rebellion in this country It was a not a revolution because it failed and in 1837 1838 there was the rebellions in upper and lower canada And in upper canada now presently ontario Where the Armed a rabble mats before they marched down young street to Physically take over the legislative building was at a place called montgomery's tavern So they went in and had a few drinks and steeled their nerves and got up a little artificial courage and marched down young street And only to be backed by the army and the sheriff and Within a matter of hours the rebellion was over and then the army marched up young street and Shelled the tavern and burned it to the ground. Oh goodness so they failed after even after getting the um The liquid courage to go down there and they actually didn't succeed in taking over the government No, they did not they failed miserably Any thoughts on whether or not the alcohol might have had something to do with the failure um Probably not related, but uh, it uh, certainly Meant that the men were marching down young street to prepare to do battle But uh when confronted with reality, they didn't perform very well against those that were sober and better trained There you go Well, listen, I appreciate very much your time and uh, especially since we ended up through technical difficulties having to do this More than once. Thank you very much. You take care. Have a good day. You too Bye-bye I Think to first person plural with dr. Patty Thomas and me carl wilkerson On today's show we're talking about in this half hour patty and I will read some extracts from an academic style paper We are making available on our website. It is a short but ripping saga We're counting a key moment as it happened was beer Said died for the following excerpts of a paper called Tea time at the brew of a superior mathematicians to gain employment in industry and be charged with the valuation of their company's operations On occasion a theoretical advance will come about as a result of problems faced by such a mathematician William Sealy Gossett graduated oxford in 1899 Was hired by Arthur Guinness son and company limited And went to work for the company at the st. James's gate brewery in double ireland During the pursuit of quality control activities Gossett became concerned with the issue of small sample size Statistics was still in its infancy And the precise nature of the relationship between population standard deviation and sample standard deviation was not known Gossett at the age of 32 and in the second paper he ever published Developed a distribution that reflected the difference between sample and population parameters for populations known to be normal Gossett was required by brewery regulations not to disclose his real name on published work He selected the pseudonym student And the distribution has been known as the student t-curve or students t-curve ever since The normal curve had been derived rigorously by this time But not knowing the standard deviation for a population being sampled And not having a reliable distribution function based upon the sample standard deviation Combined to impose severe constraint upon the experimenter Gossett's first attempt to deal with the problem was an empirical one He obtained an existing dataset Composed of the heights rounded to the nearest inch of 3000 convicts And their left middle finger lengths rounded to the nearest multiple of two millimeters He then grouped them into fours and found the mean and standard deviation for each group It didn't work well Gossett then set to work on a method based on statistical theory and was successful developing the t distribution The t-curve is actually an infinite number of curves One for every sample size greater than or equal to two For finite sample sizes the curve is not normal It is like the standard normal curve, but is less centralized in its distribution For increasing sample sizes, however, the t-curve converges to the standard normal This convergence bears out the optimistic assumption on the part of earlier researchers That a large sample size would minimize the discrepancy between sample and population standard deviation Allowing use of the normal curve with a sample standard deviation without perceptible inaccuracy Gossett's assumption of normality is not unjustified Normal and near normal distributions were showing up with increasing regularity in various fields of research A fact that was itself partially responsible for the rigorous development of the probability density function that replicates the normal curve Moreover, several other distributions approximate normality for large sample sizes It may surprise the listener to discover that Gossett's paper was not dubbed an immediate classic by the mathematical world Gossett's paper lacked rigor, but a better explanation of its lukewarm reception was that statistics was not universally accepted as a worthwhile field of inquiry at this time A deterministic bias, a product of the previous 500 years of scientific history in europe, was perceptible in mathematics And as statistics watched in mathematics, sampling was to statistics Quote Statists and statisticians were almost unanimously distrustful of sampling and emphasized at every opportunity the importance of complete enumeration To rely on an incomplete survey was to become dependent on conjecture A procedure that statisticians associated with the discredited political arithmetic And an obligation from which they had thankfully been absolved due to the massive expansion of official statistics As ladies 1901 Laudaslas von Borkevitz Observed correctly That the degree of exactitude of inferential calculation had been little investigated in social statistics close quote this from page 236 of theodore importers the rise of statistical thinking 1820 to 1900 Let alone any statistics gathered in a cost perceived as less important such as brewing beer Statistics pioneer carl piercing with him gossett had studied for a year prior to the development of the t-curve Was unimpressed by gossett's accomplishment and wrote to gossett saying quote only naughty brewers close quote Would use such small samples in the first place? Gossett was not chasing writing to pierce in that quote If i'm the only person that you've come across that works with two small samples You are very singular close quote Eventually a formal derivation of the t-distribution was assembled by r.a. Fisher However, he did not find it necessary to get it published immediately By one account the proof existed in 1915 But was not published until 1925 Fisher did use gossett's innovations in his development of the f statistic Evidence of gossett's academic credibility and helpful to his popularity Gossett's employers were even more tolerant The t-curve has been used at the st. jane's gait brewery ever since that time Today the t-curve is an integral part of any introductory statistics course The practical consequence of a small sample curve has made it an indispensable element in the construction of a unified paradigm of uncertainty theory The misgivings of the pure mathematicians of the 1800s and early 1900s Regarding probability and statistics of a suitable milieu for formal mathematical analysis Have been eradicated The 20th century was marked by the increasing collection availability and utilization Of numerical data in the hard sciences as well as the social sciences The t-curve was a timely and accurate addition to the growing body of statistical knowledge And is established as essential in both practical and theoretical contexts Pursuing sounds of sociological so gaseous The police state is using its phallocentric organ the corporate media To control ordinary people like you and for places of excessive drinking Well, not just excessive for drinking period optimally excessive drinking The way they structure it the place you're supposed to come home from early the place you're supposed to stay all night but in the states the linguistic splits aren't as Great as they are throughout the rest of the english-speaking world, but we did have after hours places Which are places you went after all of the respectable bars, I suppose closed down this usually at about two in the morning But apparently there was a legal distinction between the two And it's a linguistic split that I think underlines the dairy user's term again social construction of the activities in question But certainly is an interesting Taxonomy of you will I hesitate to use that word, but it really clearly shows differences between the united states canada Great britain. We're using the same words, but the taxonomies are different It's more interesting to me to think about a pub Or a tavern Being a social center being a place where people can come and Do other things besides drink Do things that enrich the community in fact it can become a center of community And it may be a reflection on my own disposition growing more and more sour Over the last 20 years, but I noticed a sort of Demuendo in that respect in the united states bars went from being places where of course you went to socialize to of course you Didn't socialize or there were meat markets places where you went to pick somebody up by the end of it I don't think they were even meat markets anymore. I think the idea was you went there You didn't talk to anybody and they drained you of your money and you left And if you happen to consume alcohol to excess in the meantime well more power to you But that wasn't the manifest function of the place the manifest function was the owner took your money And the idea that there might be something of that for the consumer like Well other than alcohol Kind of went missing even the term lounge, which is another one that we hadn't Brought up. Oh, yeah lounges. I totally forgot that one That's one that gets used a lot and in a lot of different contexts It evokes well it evokes piano players and really bad music in my mind As long as we're pursuing the linguistic tense of meaning. I would say it also evokes women's bathrooms Oh, yeah, that's true Back in the old days when theaters were more ornate than they are now There would be the men's bathroom in the women's lounge the ladies lounge. Oh, excuse me But the word lounges is what i'm concentrating on here. They used to refer to bars as lounges to give them Ahead of respectability the notion being that it's a place where you stop off to socialize and perhaps drink as well if you feel like it and The emphasis was much more on that somewhere around the late 80s that changed That was the point in time to which i would assign the change It went from being a place where people went quite naturally to associate with each other to being the place where people quite naturally went To avoid associating with each other. It was a place at which one quite naturally avoided associating with anyone else Really thinks so. I mean, I think that when I go to pubs restaurants with bars at them and so forth It always seems to me like there's more People talking to each other sitting around the bar Than anywhere else in the restaurant I mean it seems like people do go and sit and talk At least to the bartender But a lot of times with each other That there are things happening. I mean dancing is one thing that happens at places like that Live music is another thing that happens darts and billiards and Games playing trivia Those kind of things I'd say the subjective element is stronger than usual in this case because I did a fair amount of drinking in the 80s and in the 90s I did almost none. In fact, I did none after april of 1990 because my stomach was wrecked And it might just be that that was the date at which my disposition started to turn sourdough is my earlier terminology To wet that one enjoys the enterprise more if one gets into the spirit of the thing and less if one does not So I was still going to bars and bar restaurants and that kind of thing But I don't want to pop and sit around and Be sore about the fact that my stomach was wouldn't permit me to do anything stronger So there might be a little bit of interaction effect there We'll have to include that in the ride up Why is it though can do you think We don't have Centers of culture where people can go and just sit around and gab or have meeting places Or do all of the things that the tavern did The way that shan kafir he was explaining it when he was talking about the taverns of the turn of the 20th century Where all sorts of things happen in this one meeting place? Why aren't there cultural centers like that anymore? And I wanted the same thing when I got old enough to drink I was under the impression that all of the Association that people must be doing must be at the bars and that was Sometimes true and sometimes not true But where it's going on nowadays. I really didn't have a clue. So why don't you start to do so? I started to come back at least in name Most of the salons that I know ever very formalized And they don't have they have people coming and going all the time and they're not neighborhood And so suddenly it's newsworthy or exceptional when people get together to talk about anything more intelligent than When they can actually play at home next But that's my point is that it's like very structured And that's not what I'm asking what I'm asking is how come it is That people who live within a certain neighborhood Don't have a specific place that they go to now to hang out And know your neighbors We all kind of go to our little boxes and stay in our little compartments And when we do go out we go out with a set number of friends and we stay at our little tables And ignore everyone Well the pessimistic answer is the one that we've hit before on previous episodes that People within the same zip code have a great deal in common with each other and yet do not associate with each other That might be it might simply be that the people you're most like are your competitors or A man is a wolf to another man or however you want to phrase it And that finally came home to roast with a vengeance during the 90s But a more optimistic approach might be that people don't associate along geographical lines anymore That specialization of interests is Advanced enough pardon me for using the teleological term that that is the way people organize now To wait you don't associate with people from the same zip code or the same neighborhood at the neighborhood pub What you do is associate with the other anglers in the crowd or the other sci-fi fans or what have you And you might not even come from more remote areas because transportation has improved somewhat and communication Yes, you might also be doing your association in a chat room on the internet Some night rather than in a bar down the road Do you think we've lost something by doing that? I think face-to-face contact counts. I think that's the real issue And it's unfortunate that people are so suspicious of each other now that they won't put up with it I'm not not even enough to say that the suspicions are Not grounded or that they cannot be grounded But I think the solution must have been and will have to be something other than Never looking at other human being in the face again as long as you live And almost seems like people do that nowadays that they just sort of Have a very narrow I don't want to save you but what I mean is tunnel vision They have tunnel vision when they go down the street. They don't pay attention to the other people around them It's kind of sad and they have reason to to behave that way But at the same time I feel like the way to deal with it is not to treat the symptom but to treat the disease it's interesting too that we've sort of come down to this because There is a Professor of history Who has written a book about sociology? Who in the history of sociology who suggests that the birth of sociology came from People who lamented the breakdown of face-to-face communication People who were lamenting the breakdown of a sense of community so in a way Sociology as a discipline Was created in response to this kind of industrialized Alienation that we're talking about this kind of not knowing your neighbor anymore Because you're too busy doing your work too busy keeping your interests too busy being specialized So I think that sociology might have a lot to offer here You have been listening to first person plural Because how people get along with each other still matters First person plural is a show created for community radio by carl wilkerson and dr. patty tomas to examine social and organizational issues Music for first person plural is performed Composed and produced by carl wilkerson Except where noted For more information about first person plural dr. patty tomas or carl wilkerson Visit our website www.culturalconstructioncompany.com Or email us at fpp at culturalconstructioncompany.com