01 December 2004
The drugs episode
As someone who finds being stoned unbelievably unpleasant, this report, one among many, intrigues. I'm not sure, however, how you measure a genetic predisposition for psychosis other than by knowing whether any of your family members have, or have had, mental health problems, but it seems to me that there is something inherently psychotic about cannabis anyway: the paranoia, the hatred and suspicion of those around you, the weird thought-loops and delusions.
I once had the misfortune to live in a house with three heavy stoners. Every time I went to the library (mostly to escape the fug and the monotonous stupidity of their conversation), I was accused of 'betraying' and 'judging' them, as if my decision to do some work was really just an attempt to piss them off. The dumb, fat, slightly pasty egoists.
Legal classifications aside, I've never understood why dope is deemed more socially acceptable than speed or even booze (the annoying pious logic of the stoner: 'just 'cos alcohol is legal everyone thinks it's ok to drink...you know it's worse for you than dope. I never drink, just smoke...'). Perhaps I've just never appreciated its finer qualities, but all it's ever made me do is simultaneously want to do something creative (like play the piano, or write) and taken away my ability to do it (like Shakespeare's quip about booze and sexual desire).
Not like wine, which is just perfect, obviously.
Additional free Zizek quote of some relevance, that at least one person in the world hasn't yet read:
Today's hedonism combines pleasure with constraint — it is no longer the old notion of the "right measure" between pleasure and constraint, but a kind of pseudo-Hegelian immediate coincidence of the opposites: action and reaction should coincide, the very thing which causes damage should already be the medicine. It is no longer "Drink coffee, but with moderation!"; it is rather "Drink all the coffee you want, because it is already decaffeinated..." The ultimate example of this stance is chocolate laxative, available in the US, with the paradoxical injunction "Do you have constipation? Eat more of this chocolate!" - i.e., of the very thing which causes constipation. And is not a negative proof of the hegemony of this stance the fact that true unconstrained consumption (in all its main forms: drugs, free sex, smoking...) is emerging as the main danger? The fight against these dangers is one of the main investments of today's "biopolitics." Solutions are here desperately sought which would reproduce the paradox of the chocolate laxative. The main contender is "safe sex" — a term which makes one appreciative of the truth of the old saying "Is having sex with a condom not like taking a shower with a raincoat on?". The ultimate goal would be here, along the lines of decaf coffee, to invent "opium without opium": no wonder marijuana is so popular among liberals who want to legalize it — it already IS a kind of "opium without opium".
I once had the misfortune to live in a house with three heavy stoners. Every time I went to the library (mostly to escape the fug and the monotonous stupidity of their conversation), I was accused of 'betraying' and 'judging' them, as if my decision to do some work was really just an attempt to piss them off. The dumb, fat, slightly pasty egoists.
Legal classifications aside, I've never understood why dope is deemed more socially acceptable than speed or even booze (the annoying pious logic of the stoner: 'just 'cos alcohol is legal everyone thinks it's ok to drink...you know it's worse for you than dope. I never drink, just smoke...'). Perhaps I've just never appreciated its finer qualities, but all it's ever made me do is simultaneously want to do something creative (like play the piano, or write) and taken away my ability to do it (like Shakespeare's quip about booze and sexual desire).
Not like wine, which is just perfect, obviously.
Additional free Zizek quote of some relevance, that at least one person in the world hasn't yet read:
Today's hedonism combines pleasure with constraint — it is no longer the old notion of the "right measure" between pleasure and constraint, but a kind of pseudo-Hegelian immediate coincidence of the opposites: action and reaction should coincide, the very thing which causes damage should already be the medicine. It is no longer "Drink coffee, but with moderation!"; it is rather "Drink all the coffee you want, because it is already decaffeinated..." The ultimate example of this stance is chocolate laxative, available in the US, with the paradoxical injunction "Do you have constipation? Eat more of this chocolate!" - i.e., of the very thing which causes constipation. And is not a negative proof of the hegemony of this stance the fact that true unconstrained consumption (in all its main forms: drugs, free sex, smoking...) is emerging as the main danger? The fight against these dangers is one of the main investments of today's "biopolitics." Solutions are here desperately sought which would reproduce the paradox of the chocolate laxative. The main contender is "safe sex" — a term which makes one appreciative of the truth of the old saying "Is having sex with a condom not like taking a shower with a raincoat on?". The ultimate goal would be here, along the lines of decaf coffee, to invent "opium without opium": no wonder marijuana is so popular among liberals who want to legalize it — it already IS a kind of "opium without opium".
