Re: Serving Alcohol To Minors

On Sep 9, 5:01 pm, Troels Forchhammer <Tro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In message
<bbdd7a00-43d5-467f-be59-d6c26829a...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
karna...@xxxxxx spoke these staves:



On Sep 5, 9:04 am, Troels Forchhammer <Tro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

<snip>

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that anyone in the present thread
or in AFH-P has overreacted, ludicrously or not -- I haven't been
following the discussions closely enough to tell.

Thank you for clarifying.

You're welcome.

Actually I'm a bit sorry to see how it came out -- I didn't mean to
suggest that I find it likely that such has happened in the posts
that I haven't read; it is rather the opposite: I find it quite
unlikely, but on the other hand I did have to qualify my statement to
refer only to what I have been reading in some detail lest someone
would come running with an example. My only defence shall be that I
am not usually that clumsy  ;-)

I was referring in general to media reports of concerns over this
scence (the news reports that have been in Denmark have focused
on US reactions, but obviously I cannot know whether these
concerns have been voiced elsewhere as well), and specifically to
a piece I read from New York Times

<snip>

[*] <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/28well.html>

<snip>

Now that I have read the article, you need say no more about the
Media Coverage on the matter.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but in some ways I am, perhaps, a
bit naïve . . .

Danish media, I'm afraid, delights in stories that allow them to
portray the general US populace as irrational and unreasoning (I
suppose you can guess how they relish to report anything to do with
'intelligent design' and similar rejections of the natural sciences),
and even though I did subtract something from the reports, I probably
should have subtracted even more :-/  

<snip>

Well, Harry did 1) Torture a teacher, 2) Beat a member of a rival
sports team two on one after he was already down, 3) "Knife"
another boy in the bathroom, nearly killing him.  Whether such
behavior offends British or Danish sensibilites or not, the
evidence of the books proved that it happened.  Right?

Indeed.

We don't in general hold much respect for the authority of the
individual in Denmark (except for the Queen, but that's another
matter), and so we don't really see it as any worse for being a
teacher, and whether or not Harry overreacted, his actions were
always[*], IMO, morally justifiable.

In this particular context the odd thing is that we may agree that
butterbeer contains a small amount of ethanol, but at the same time
cultural differences may make us disagree on whether they are non-
alcoholic or not. I'm not exactly sure what my point is, really --
perhaps to say that we shouldn't focus on a particular word, but
rather, if someone disagrees, try to find out if the disagreement is
really in the interpretation of a word or phrase rather than in the
interpretation of Rowling's text.

[*] Perhaps not _always_, but very nearly so -- I seem to remember
that there are exceptions, though I cannot at the moment remember
what they are :-)

Why can we not apply the same simple common sense to the issue of
whether butterbeer is alcoholic or not, and whether this does or
does not conform to UK Muggle law, and leave our sensibilites out
of it? So far the Americans on this thread are not the ones who
are having any trouble doing so.

I'm afraid that I don't know the UK law on this matter, but I do know
something of the Danish law.

In Denmark you have to be 16 to buy anything alcoholic, and 18 to
have it served in a bar or similar. These rules are, however, only
very poorly enforced, and it is quite common for 14 or 15 years old
children to be able to get served in bars -- both beer, mixed drinks
and even strong spirits. But I very strongly suspect that butterbeer
would be marketable in Denmark as non-alcoholic (despite the small
amount of alcohol in it) and thus not be constrained by the same
restrictions as alchol.

The relevance of public sensibilities in this is that there is often
a better correlation between public sensibilities and how the law is
actually enforced than there is between the law it self and public
sensibilities. I don't know the UK law on this matter, but I'm not
sure it is relevant for Rowling's writings either -- it seems to me
that she is more likely to be influenced by the cultural norms in the
society that she grew up in and lives in than she is by its laws.

On top of that there are some conventions in much of the 'child-
hero' kind of children's literature which is that the hero, whose
opponents very often are adults, have to meet the adults on a more
equal level, and therefore the child hero(es) get to act more adult
in a number of ways. This is also a part of the cultural norms, of
course, and so it may be that the child-hero of a children's book may
get away with doing things at a much younger age than what we would
accept from children in real life. This probably plays an additional
role in why Harry's actions seem justified and generally 'OK'.

I'm sorry -- I'm digressing ;-)  

What is the purpose of investigating whether or not the drinking of
butterbeer conforms to UK Muggle law (of the late nineties)? I
suppose I could find out by reading up on the thread, but it's
getting late and I need my sleep, so I'll do it the easy way and just
ask ;-)   What may it tell us?

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>

    People die, but do you care when they die? Do you
    absolutely have a sense of how evil it is to take another
    person's life? Yes, I think in my book you do.
 - J.K. Rowling, CBCNewsWorld: Hot Type, 13 July, 2000

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