3 ms·

The man made the "unreliable narrator" his main device, but I think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" should put to rest any idea that such trendy chemical amus

The man made the "unreliable narrator" his main device, but I think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" should put to rest any idea that such trendy chemical amusement aids have much therapeutic value in the general case. It least puts such ideas in a position of having to work a lot harder to make their case.

oldmanjay 11y ago
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. Although there are reasons to believe the incidents in the book are to some degree real, it is a story told with a purpose of entertaining, not a medical evaluation of chemical action. Have I mistaken your purpose, and if not, can you clarify the reasoning?
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  No, I think the book makes something akin to a moral point. That Our Humble Narrator was as much victim as perpetrator of the Better Living through Chemistry era. It's precisely the opposite of a medical evaluation. It's a reductio ad absurbum on the idea that there's a potential Utopia within us revealed by drugs. Drugs apparently make you a new man but the new man may not be perceptually ... congruent with the old man. I think he's describing the collapse of the experiment that included the Summer of Love. "And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Can the medicos provide structure to ameliorate this?

3 ms·

The man made the "unreliable narrator" his main device, but I think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" should put to rest any idea that such trendy chemical amus

by ArkyBeagle 11y ago

oldmanjay 11y ago
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. Although there are reasons to believe the incidents in the book are to some degree real, it is a story told with a purpose of entertaining, not a medical evaluation of chemical action. Have I mistaken your purpose, and if not, can you clarify the reasoning?
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  No, I think the book makes something akin to a moral point. That Our Humble Narrator was as much victim as perpetrator of the Better Living through Chemistry era. It's precisely the opposite of a medical evaluation. It's a reductio ad absurbum on the idea that there's a potential Utopia within us revealed by drugs. Drugs apparently make you a new man but the new man may not be perceptually ... congruent with the old man. I think he's describing the collapse of the experiment that included the Summer of Love. "And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Can the medicos provide structure to ameliorate this?