A simple but deep theory about drugs and postmodernity
deepsocks.substack.com
deepsocks.substack.com
Is this true? I think about the same things without drugs, perhaps just with more consistency and structure. But there aren’t many, if any days in which I don’t seriously contemplate how I’m different from a bee, how strange it is to be anything at all, wonder what perception could be like from a body with different vision, smell, or senses I don’t have, and so on.
I guess drugs can help explore those thoughts, but they certainly aren’t a requirement and I’m not otherwise restricted to thinking about paying the bills and the next episode of… Whatever people watch.
I’m not sure this theory matches my experience well at all. I do see some overlap.
As far as postmodernism and drugs aligning goes, there are likely many other relevant events which coincide as well. It’s a convenient pairing, it certainly seems compelling, but it doesn’t seem like a wrap to me.
For one thing, postmodernism is wrought with skepticism towards any kind of objectivity, the notion of authoritative narratives, a discreet self, and linear, concrete histories.
A lot of cultures that ate a whole lot of drugs did not come to remotely similar conclusions with psychedelics. In fact, some had practically inverse conclusions. Why? Well, I assume because environmental factors matter. Context matters. I think drugs would certainly help explore Post modernist ideas, but they wouldn’t generate them. They wouldn’t be required to arrive at these ideas.
I’m clueless and uneducated, so disregard everything I say.
Clearly, drugs aren't doing anything for this author's ability to discern intelligent thought from vapid, intellectual posturing.
Taylor, on his use of "postmodern:"
> “Postmodern” is intended to recall Robert Brandom’s recent nonstandard use of this term for a sort of Hegelian synthesis of the best of the ancient and modern worlds.
source: https://brinkley.blog/about/
The author then confuses Taylor's "postmodern" with more common definitions here:
> Stop and think about how more and more humans started to describe themselves as being “postmodern” at the same time that more and more humans used more and deeper drugs to get higher and higher
I don't think that was intended to deceive. A more charitable take is that the author likes saying "postmodern" to seem intellectual.
I will give the author credit for (exactly) one thing. They used the word postmodernism but didn't define it as a box containing everything they don't like and perceive as less than 100 years old.
In that sense, they are better than tens of thousands of other internet essayists. Might want to lay off the DMT though.
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>The author then confuses Taylor's "postmodern" with more common definitions here
A synthesis of "postmodern" counternarratives with premodern/modern worldviews is still itself postmodern(post-postmodern). You draw a valid distinction but at the same time the two definitions are related and the distinguishing lines are blurry without the right framing.
This seems like a fun facebook post amongst some people that just found erowid?
I swear, there’s an unnamed PR company that focuses on getting people’s blogs to the front page regardless of value and they’re doing magnificently. Kudos!
It's like the author is at the same time high but had never used or seen anyone using drugs.
- Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intelligence-and-spirit)
- Yuk Hui, Recursivity and Contingency (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786600523/Recursivity-and-Contin...)
Essays like these are exercises in thought by themselves.
Drugs do certainly impair this 'buffered self' and let something of the 'porous' out. The other way to mitigate that buffering of the self is physical sports where you are in a flow state. Pretty much all the solo or duo olympic events create the feeling that almost all drugs are trying to recreate or immitate anyway, and that is the feeling of uninhibited performance and flow.
I get the article, but drugs are a vice, and a vice needs to be respected, imo.
Also a bit judgemental to call "drugs" a "vice", no? Many drugs would be pretty harmless without the harsh legal penalties and with more state-run support systems. Other drugs are pharmaceuticals that help people survive. Those are not a "vice" and are rather a critical tool for survival.
Drugs aren't concretely like sport, but they can have an effect of putting someone in a more sport-like state of mind, though without the competence, skill and moderation of an athelete. If you are on a snowboard at the bottom of a good run you are likely in that moment your peak 'unbuffered' self, and the effect of that is relating to the world with the acceptance of someone who feels they are in a moral equillibrium. Drugs (recreational or psychoactive) can also provide or support that feeling of balance and equillibrium (or intensity), as that's what makes them desirable. Drugs are a tool, but when you use them, you've already accepted that you need them, whereas sport has a completely different orientation to an objective. It's "practice and get better" vs. "use a substance to manage something suboptimal." That is, drugs can be fun and useful, but they are inferior to sport in that they're the option we take when we don't have something to practice to become better at. It's ok to be in that state, but I'm just saying there are just better ones to be in.
People take drugs sometimes just for fun like any other activity and aren't trying to manage every tiny bit of their life min/maxing, optimizing every activity.
Moralizing "drug" use in the way you suggest is pointlessly minimizing and judgemental.
I read the thing but didn’t find any “simple but deep” theory. More of a warning against drafting blog posts while high.
What about the moderns who are depressed or melancholy over the obvious external events they witness or are aware of: endless small wars with the threat of nuclear annihilation always in the background, continued degradation of one's surroundings under the pressures of global warming and resource extraction, widespread poverty and societal conflict, to name some of the prominent ones?
Maybe this is claim merely a marketing claim pushed by pharmaceutical manufacturers and others who don't really want any change in the status quo, because addressing the root causes of these problems would require some fundamental changes in said status quo?
Apparently the idea is that the division between 'secular/rational' and 'spiritual/religious' simply didn't exist in the 'pre-modern world' - but rational scientific inquiry is hardly modern, see the ancient Greeks and also the rational studies of Chinese and Mayan astronmers, the works of Indian and Arabic mathematicians - are they 'post modern'?
So then, getting drunk on alcohol or ingesting some other drug is supposed to dissolve the boundaries between rational and irrational and 'let the human soul out of its steel cage'... Well, okay. Probably not necessary to ingest powerful psychedelics to have this experience, but to each their own, and I'm generally in favor of decriminalization of all drugs, as long as people are aware of the various risks involved, and the side effects (it is kind of hard to learn anything difficult or challenging when you're drunk and high, for example).