Too Much of a Good Thing

A while ago, I heard a debate on NPR about underage and binge drinking. The guests and callers all had different ideas on how to address the problem. More education was a popular suggestion, as was tougher punishment. I tried to call in to make my point, but I sat on hold until the program ended. What I wanted to say was this: underage and binge drinking is just one symptom of a fundamental imbalance in our society. People in our society don't just drink too much, we eat too much, we sleep too little, we run up too much debt and we generally consume and produce completely unsustainable quantities of everything. We live in a culture of excess, and any attempt to treat isolated aspects of that critical issue are doomed to failure. We are blessed to live in a civilization that enjoys an embarrassment of riches. We are surrounded by such abundance that we've largely lost a basis for comparison by which to determine moderation. The sustainability movement is, of course, well aware of this (as are most readers of this blog), but until that problem is addressed on a much more widespread scale, we will not make any progress in the fights against obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, sleep deprivation, and all the many other "ills of excess" from which our society suffers.