Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.
Counterpoint: Isn't that pretty obvious even without psychedelics?
If it were obvious psychadelics were safe, they would be legal. The war on drugs hinges on ensuring the public is terrorized.
Also, if it were obvious that there's a possibility everything you know is wrong, most people wouldn't be living their lives based on the infallibility of one particular book.
If it were obvious the power structures were not based in reality, we wouldn't have an unshakable two-party system.
None of this is obvious to the majority of people.
Not quite - the subtler point of that is this civilization versus a civilization, which in turn is part of the larger point that civilization is a made thing (and continuously, at that - like Sartre's consciousness) that we have the option of doing differently. That your cultural opinions are opinions, not facts, and that most of "consensus reality" has that kind of relationship with actual reality.
Like when economists talk about the Market like it's some oracular weather system instead of a bunch of things people made and do.
This is also the actual meaning behind the "drop out" of "turn on, tune in, drop out" - not to leave all civilization entirely, but to leave /this/ civilization in order to participate in your own.
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Counterpoint: Isn't that pretty obvious even without psychedelics?
If it were obvious psychadelics were safe, they would be legal. The war on drugs hinges on ensuring the public is terrorized.
Also, if it were obvious that there's a possibility everything you know is wrong, most people wouldn't be living their lives based on the infallibility of one particular book.
If it were obvious the power structures were not based in reality, we wouldn't have an unshakable two-party system.
None of this is obvious to the majority of people.
It's probably obvious if one has widely varied experiences or is open to exposure to different viewpoints through social media or literature.
IMO though, the vast majority of humans are completely absorbed with self interest to get outside of their own head without a little boost.
If true, what this says to me is that a ban on psychodelics is justified if you are interested in maintaining civilization.
Not quite - the subtler point of that is this civilization versus a civilization, which in turn is part of the larger point that civilization is a made thing (and continuously, at that - like Sartre's consciousness) that we have the option of doing differently. That your cultural opinions are opinions, not facts, and that most of "consensus reality" has that kind of relationship with actual reality.
Like when economists talk about the Market like it's some oracular weather system instead of a bunch of things people made and do.
This is also the actual meaning behind the "drop out" of "turn on, tune in, drop out" - not to leave all civilization entirely, but to leave /this/ civilization in order to participate in your own.
I think "the status quo" would be a bit more accurate.
Fixed it for you?