What lies at the heart of a liberal arts education? Surely it is a commitment to seeking and meditating upon the good, the true, and the beautiful? And where are the good, the true, and the beautiful to be found? There are many answers to the latter question: in great literature, in masterful paintings, in powerful musical compositions, in the natural world contemplated through the lens given by the knowledge that all is God’s creation. These are the obvious answers, to which one more should be added.
From at least as early as Plato, the moderate consumption of alcohol while enjoying good company has been a part of the vision of the good life. The late, great English philosopher, Roger Scruton, offered an elaborate account of this in his book, I Drink, Therefore I am, a robust defense of wine as central to human flourishing. Yet, while Scruton was on the right track in pointing towards adult beverages as important for a fulfilled life, he made an uncharacteristic error in identifying wine as the chief source. As any fool should know, it is not wine but rather gin and tonic that stands at the heart of a truly fulfilled existence, embodying as it does the good, the true, and the beautiful.
To take these in reverse order, G and Ts are beautiful. There is nothing more pleasing to the eye than a high-ball glass, stacked with ice and filled with clear, pure gin and a dose of tonic, with a slice of lime or a sprig of mint or basil as garnish. It is a testimony to the purity and abundance of creation. And the mixing itself is an act of balance which brings out both the necessary proportions of nature (e.g., one part gin to two parts tonic), and the importance of human wisdom and creativity (Do I add bitters? How much ice should I include?), a perfect example of the execution of the cultural mandate which, as Charles Taylor observes in the chapter on cocktails in his massive tome, A Secular Age, takes both mimesis (the need to respect nature) and poiesis (the divine command to subdue the earth), seriously. Then, there is the taste. Well, drinking a well-mixed G and T is like having a liquid version of Mona Lisa painted on the tongue.
As to the true, G and Ts offer a coherence view of truth, the perfect combination of the ingredients combine in a manner that, frankly, just makes sense. As Wittgenstein commented at the end of his famous but fiendishly arcane guide to happy hour, the Tractatus Mixologico-Philosophicus, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must imbibe.
Finally, the good. Life is not an argument, as Dostoevsky said. Had the great Russian novelist had access to Gin and Tonic, however, his novels might have been somewhat less depressing. There is, after all, nothing more enjoyable than sitting on one’s deck of a summer evening with dear friends, sharing a fine cocktail, good company, and entertaining conversation. Had Raskolnikov, Prince Myshkin, the Underground Man, or the Karamazov clan drunk cocktails rather than the rather tasteless rubbing alcohol they call vodka, all might have ended, as they say, happily ever after.
Grove City College is undergoing a curriculum view and seeking to establish what an education focused on the good, the true and the beautiful might look like. As liberal arts at other schools in America is in crisis, with political radicalism disemboweling the concept, is it a coincidence that places like Middlebury have not placed mixology at the heart of the liberal arts core and are now horribly vulnerable to every wind of woke ideology? I suspect not. As we move to the future, perhaps Grove needs a core course in G and Ts to stabilize our vision in this time of sea change.
Now, such will come with a cost: the Registrar will need new software to virtually ‘card’ students as they enroll for the course, so as to comply with state law. And professors will need to be trained in bar etiquette, learning how to mix drinks and polish glasses while pretending to listen to the tragic life story of the last student to leave the classroom because he has no home life to speak of. But it can be done. The only question: do we as a College community have the will to do it?
The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the values and beliefs of Cogitare Magazine, nor of Grove City College.
