(no subject)
A new religion sweeps the land, proclaiming that bartenders are bad and damaging society. Bartenders promote alcoholism, they operate in the seedy underground, they are profiting off slowly poisoning their customers.
Bartenders become stigmatized and legally grey; most quit the profession to become weed dealers instead. People quit their mixology classes; bars go underground, hard to find.
Over a few years, those who still bartend have become a tougher, harder crowd. They come out of people with fewer options, or people who have less to lose. One is a single mother looking for pay in a bad housing market. Another is a young man who is comfortable with breaking the law. Yet another struggles with mental illness and finds the underground bartending market to be more forgiving to his flexible schedule.
No longer do you see middle-class kids putting themselves through college, or a freelance writer making a bit of extra money on the side.
And so you are arguing that bartending should be socially accepted and decriminalized. But then you hear - "Bartending is obviously bad and damaging. Bartenders are desperate, mentally ill, fucked up on drugs, or criminals. Nobody wants to do that job, you have to be fucked to want to do that. I can't believe you want to normalize bartending when you see the effect it has!"
Like, you're not wrong that bartending has a tougher crowd, but you didn't stop to wonder why that is? How maybe the problem is actually the stigma and underground nature? How you'd get the same effect if you stigmatized other jobs, such as waiters or artists or sex workers?
Okay yes, this is obviously about sex workers. I'm not saying there's no other factors that go into the discussion about sex work, but I'm sick of critics pointing out the "lowlife" nature of sex workers without wondering if maybe they caused that in the first place.
I have an unpublished blog post entitled "All norms are self-recommending." It's basically this same argument you're making. The kind of person who violates one norm tends to have a lot else going wrong in their life. This generates a correlation that reinforces the norm.
Bartenders become stigmatized and legally grey; most quit the profession to become weed dealers instead. People quit their mixology classes; bars go underground, hard to find.
Over a few years, those who still bartend have become a tougher, harder crowd. They come out of people with fewer options, or people who have less to lose. One is a single mother looking for pay in a bad housing market. Another is a young man who is comfortable with breaking the law. Yet another struggles with mental illness and finds the underground bartending market to be more forgiving to his flexible schedule.
No longer do you see middle-class kids putting themselves through college, or a freelance writer making a bit of extra money on the side.
And so you are arguing that bartending should be socially accepted and decriminalized. But then you hear - "Bartending is obviously bad and damaging. Bartenders are desperate, mentally ill, fucked up on drugs, or criminals. Nobody wants to do that job, you have to be fucked to want to do that. I can't believe you want to normalize bartending when you see the effect it has!"
Like, you're not wrong that bartending has a tougher crowd, but you didn't stop to wonder why that is? How maybe the problem is actually the stigma and underground nature? How you'd get the same effect if you stigmatized other jobs, such as waiters or artists or sex workers?
Okay yes, this is obviously about sex workers. I'm not saying there's no other factors that go into the discussion about sex work, but I'm sick of critics pointing out the "lowlife" nature of sex workers without wondering if maybe they caused that in the first place.
I have an unpublished blog post entitled "All norms are self-recommending." It's basically this same argument you're making. The kind of person who violates one norm tends to have a lot else going wrong in their life. This generates a correlation that reinforces the norm.