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Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human. There's nothing superior or desirable a
by robbedpeter 4y ago
Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human. There's nothing superior or desirable about not using chemical tools to alter your state, and it's silly to think that way. Teetotalling is masochism.
You might not like changing from your baseline, but maybe you don't like blue or purple and prefer red cars. You don't have to like everything, and not everything has to be to your taste.
- rayiner 4y ago> Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human. No that's a very post 1960s European/American thing. For most of the rest of the world, it's all about doing what you're supposed to do.
- browserman 4y agoThe idea that there is one "thing you are supposed to do" that defines human experience is ironically a pretty modern reactionary mindset. They were smoking cannabis in ancient Scythia - it's "what you were supposed to do".
- rayiner 4y agoTell me where in the Bible or Quran it tells you to “embrace the full range of experiences?” Let’s throw anything Confucius wrote for good measure.
- browserman 4y agoHow on earth do any of those texts have any ability to inform our idea of 'what it is to be human' compared to the actual weight of evidence of what humans have been doing since the dawn of history? What a bizarre non-sequitur!
- rayiner 4y agoThey’re evidence, from a large cross section of the world, of what humans have been doing since the dawn of the written record. Nearly everyone spent their lives working, eating, raising children, and fighting. That’s what an American shares with people in a Bangladeshi village. That’s what makes you human.
- browserman 4y agoYes - and whenever those people could, from the dawn of history, they were also getting drunk, high, and tripping balls.
- robbedpeter 4y agoIronically resulting in many of the modern religions which eschew the use of substances.
- rayiner 4y agoSome humans did that, and the others found the behavior odious enough to develop social norms against such behavior. Humans have always had many vices, sure. They lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. That doesn’t define their humanity.
- browserman 4y agoAnd other societies developed social norms which sacralized and ritualized the usage of such drugs, or which totally normalized them. Again, the idea that there is a single social expression of what constitutes 'humanity' is a very reactionary mindset that flies in the face of all evidence and history.