Probably the most confusing chapter I've read yet-- but I'm going to try.
The cultural "freakout" about binge drinking (or today, Four Loko drinking) is a cultural issue, rather than a behavioral issue. That is, we are more concerned that it is considered "okay" in certain groups or settings to consume more than we are physically able. You would not take 20 shots in 10 minutes in your front yard or at school, but you would at a bar or at a party. Well, to be perfectly honest, nobody could take 20 shots in 10 minutes, but this is an example so just run with it.
When we are in a certain setting or mood, we are apt to behave in different ways. On gamedays, we wear orange and yell and scream about being Tigers and having Clemson pride. Many people wear orange on Fridays. When I go home during a break and there is a Clemson football game on (mainly because I grew up in a West Virginia Mountaineers family, back to the theme of environment) I turn the tv on and kind of listen to the game as I'm doing something else, and I save my orange tshirts mainly for lounging.
These themes are linked into rites of passage-- the 21st birthday (and the morning after), the first football game of the season, the last football game of the season, and any occasion (mostly birthdays, football wins, football losses, trivia nights, days that end in -y, the completion of an exam or paper, etc.)
Everyone must take a midnight shot on their 21st birthday. Everyone must sit on the hill for at least one football game. No one should EVER read the inscription on the statue in front of Tillman, until after graduation.
These aren't specific rites of passage to anything but the mood we place ourselves within. If I wanted to sit in my bedroom on my 21st birthday with the door locked (closest thing to a neutral environment I can think of right now) then I wouldn't have had to take a birthday shot. However, I was with my friends, and at midnight we went and bought beer and I took a shot of vodka right as the clock turned. Now that I think of it, I was actually late getting to my friends' house, and they were yelling at me for not taking the shot right AT midnight.
When we place ourselves within certain moods or environments, certain behaviors are expected of us-- this is a part of the culture and the moods associated with it, rather than a behavioral issue. If I were to refuse my birthday shot, it would have discouraged everyone around me, and we probably would have ended up playing board games for a few hours and gone to bed. Instead, I took the birthday shot and we all drank for about 3 hours and danced around and had a lovely time. By placing myself within the expectations of the culture, the culture continued.
Ulmer's combination of narrative and argument usually guides me in the right direction-- I can't figure out how to tie in the tango allegory at all... something about it just isn't clicking with me today. As a matter of fact, I was lost from the tango onward.
This is what I gathered from the "office" at the end of the chapter, however.
He combines allegory and narrative to instill moods or images that we can tie the argument back to-- this is in the spirit of electrate thinking. Instead of saying "this is this and this is this," he is saying "assess how you feel when you read this story, and that feeling should tie into this argument."
To find our wide image, we should start looking at signifiers in all four aspects of our mystory and begin finding connections. He found the connection of "gall/gaul" and began assessing that connection to other allegorical principles.
