Bring Back The Bans

Is now the time for experimental bans?

On June 17th, a man in Reykjavík was charged with disrespecting our flag — yes sir, the flag of the Republic of Iceland, our beloved fatherland. He had put the flag out of his car window in the night and — according to the police — sullied it in the process. This broke several articles of the “flag laws,” a set of laws created in 1944 by the newly independent republic. They state that one should promptly burn a flag which has been sullied or damaged. It is also forbidden to display the flag at night. Charging someone for these infractions might appear backward and extreme. That’s because it is. It’s a throwback law, one of the last standing laws that outright ban people from doing something innocuous in the name of decorum.

Many bans of this sort have come and gone. Until 1984, you couldn’t own a dog in Reykjavík. The argument went that dogs belonged in the countryside and should by all rights stay there. After all, what use could they have in a place with no sheep? From 1915 to 1989, you weren’t allowed to drink beer at all on this desolate island. It was seen as an especially devious drink, leading to alcoholism and debasement. This spurred innovation: at Reykjavík pubs, cheap vodka (which was completely legal and cool) was added to low-ABV beer. In that way Icelanders could also savour the experience enjoyed by many outlanders, that of frequent bathroom breaks.

One by one, these bans have been repealed. It’s no longer in fashion, banning things. Instead, we’ve turned to sin taxes and other, softer discouragements such as licensing. There was a brief ban comeback during the pandemic — which we have, by collective agreement, agreed to place in the memory hole — so I will say no more. But aside from that interlude the trend has been going one way: old bans have been repealed; new ones are scarce.

Experimental bans

So, is it not time for new, experimental bans? We could ban arbitrary shades of red in public and see what happens. Shut down all social media and television on Saturdays. Maybe we’ll enjoy it. Ban all recorded music in clubs and bars on Fridays: live performance only. This music idea might be veering uncomfortably close to the Taliban‘s no-music-ever policy but the outcome; more paid gigs for musicians and more live music, might not be so terrible.

We can also fix our eyes on practical problems: children’s reading aptitude has collapsed in the last decade. Could this not be fixed by banning, by law, children from using phones until they’re 15 years old, an age suggested by Jonathan Haidt in his book The Anxious Generation? We could bore them into submission and good mental health and, maybe as a result, into reading fiction and high literacy. Is that as crazy as it sounds, or have we become so bereft of ideas, in such a passive neoliberal groove, that anything but feebly letting tech businesses do as they wish to children’s brains — on a global scale — sounds radical?

The joys of rebellion

Not only might more bans do society good, circumventing them is fun. I once had the opportunity to drink an illicit beer in the Indian province of Rajasthan. Two soldiers happened to come by to admire — as they would — the old fort walls and rusted cannon which stood by the restaurant. My waiter, a smooth criminal, came over and plucked my friend’s beer from the table. Seeing what was happening I leaned forward to hide mine from the soldiers’ view, and the waiter did the rest. From then on, we were in cahoots, sworn brothers. Once the authorities left he brought the cold beer back. It tasted that much better.

To take an example closer to home, Vantrú, our local atheist association, used to host a bingo on Good Friday to protest the religiously inspired laws that forbade joyful gatherings on that sad and holy day. Then in 2019 the law was senselessly repealed. The illegal bingo, cherished by so many as a chance to protest in style, had lost its fizz.

Freyr writes articles about travel, books, and much more on his Substack: freyr.substack.com