Gravenhurst
drugs vs. society.
“It’s interesting how exploring the world outside of yourself is seen as acceptable, but exploring yourself and your own mind without endangering other people is stamped down very hard – you get put in prison for it.”
“It’s interesting how exploring the world outside of yourself is seen as acceptable, but exploring yourself and your own mind without endangering other people is stamped down very hard – you get put in prison for it.”
“Cut her up? Cut her out? Crush her will before she finds it?” (The Hollow Men)
Cut HIM down! Cut HIM off! Crush HIS pill before he finds it!
“Aspiration pneumonitis and pneumonia are caused by inhaling toxic substances, usually gastric contents into the lungs.”
Maybe refrain from throwing up next time, Mr. Talbot?
You are wrong , you are endangering other people’s lives by saying that drugs don’t cause any harm. Young people who buy your records and who think that anything Nick Talbot does is cool.
Either enjoying yourself has already played havoc with your brain or you must have been really repressed during your puberty. So the shit comes all out of you now.
Asserting that there are hundreds of leisurely pursuits that can get you and others killed yet are applauded by millions is a far cry from suggesting that drugs don’t harm people.
You are absolutely right. What a bad example! Constructing an analogy between mountain climbing and drug taking as more or less appreciated “leisurely pursuits” does not work. Mountain climbing is a far cry from taking drugs and getting stoned is a far cry from self-exploration. Far from it!
It’s betaking oneself to flight – from oneself.
P.S., Mr. Talbot, don’t you get applauded enough for your music? Isn’t that a “noble pursuit”?
I guess the only way to know for sure if getting stoned / high / down is a legitimate form of self-exploration is to do it, and since you appear to be an expert on the subject I can only assume you have “explored” this area yourself, making you as allegedly guilty as those you criticise. You lose.
There are manifold ways to acquire knowledge. Doing it is only one form of making experience. You can also choose between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge before experience. Since many people have died from drug consumption before I was born, I was clever enough to deduct that drug taking can lead to death. As I’m not keen on exploring wether I would die from drug taking or not, I refuse to test narcotics in general.
You see, one can be “an expert” on many subjects without having to do things by oneself. I don’t want to destroy my brain. I need it to acquire knowledge.
You assumed that I was experienced in getting stoned, classifying my statement as “expertise”.
You are mistaken. But to err is human. You’ve lost.
The ability of thinking and being creative is a great gift that requires no toxic stimulus. Sometimes it requires a facilitator to unfold potential that lies idle. This facilitator can be of a human kind. Listening to your heart is also a good way to start self-exploration, in case you have the heart to do it.
As long as it still beats…
P.S. With my “criticism” my intention was not to scrutinise the question of guilt, but first and foremost to call attention to the fact that drug taking is being played down to “enjoing yourself” and “having a good time”.
By valuing my comment as expertise, implicitly, you accepted my statement, that getting stoned is betaking oneself to flight and thus a far cry from self-exploration, as true. That means that we are in complete agreement!
You’ve lost, definitely.
Weak. You’ve turned this into a game of winning arguments that has taken priority over the subject at hand.
Anyway. The original point made by Nick still stands – you have argued that drugs can harm and kill you. If you were listening, so did he. In fact he explicitly argued that they are as likely to kill you as many other potentially lethal activities. If you are afraid of dying of drug complications, don’t take drugs. I know I don’t. If you are afraid of falling to your death, don’t climb mountains.
I won’t accept your argument until you start attacking stuntmen for the same reasons.
Oh come on! If Nick Talbot is having a good time when talking about drugs, why shouldn’t we? Disputations were absolutely common in ancient times when people used to talk to each other instead of switching on the TV or the computer. And furthermore, I don’t want to conventionalise Mr. Talbot’s disputable utterances to the having-to-be-most-seriously-discussed things in the world.
Anyway. He did not argue “explicitly” that drugs are as likely to kill you as other potentially lethal activities, if any, at the most implicitly. With his argumentation he points out that some dangerous activities are being applauded while drug taking is being penalised.
I don’t question the fact that many people overestimate themselves and endanger other people’s lives. I find it absolutely correct that people, who think that they have to explore the Columbian rain forest, disregarding the well-known possibility of being taken as hostage by FARC rebels, should pay for their rescue. But Mr. Talbot is not warning against the noxious effects of drug consumption, he points out the “fun factor” of drug taking without differentiating which kind of substances he is talking about. And the way he says it, suggests or implies that he bemoans it’s societal inacceptance, if I may be so presumptous. But he ignores the reasons for this phenomenon. His comment sounds rather naive, like: “Why don’t they let me have some fun? I’m just exploring myself.” He leaves out the heavy losses and consequences of drug consumption for the single addict and the whole society. What about drug related crimes and forced prostitution? Expanding on his argumentation, the addicted prostitute is having such a “good time”while demeaning herself day by day. The addicted criminal is “enjoying himself” between burglary and pickpocketing. Not to speak of the costs for medication and withdrawal treatments. I believe that Mr. Talbot is not so naive to think that these effects would disappear if drug consumption was legalized. And at his age he should know that children or weak members of the society cannot evaluate the consequences of drug consumption by themselves. I doubt very strongly that anyone who buys synthetic drugs knows how they are composed and which quantities have a harmful impact on ones health.
As for stuntmen: I’m not fond of action films. If I had it my way, this genre could become extincted. But I assume that professional stuntmen learn to minimise the risks of getting hurt and work with strict safety arrangements.
A worse and underestimated dangerous leisurely pursuit where you are sitting in your room and not hurting anybody: gambling and computer games.
This topic absorbs me more than it should. I feel like having to add something before I can go on with my housework. Help!
So far, we have neglected the notions “puritanism” and “hedonism”. It is interesting that Mr. Talbot starts his sentence with “I think that we” and then corrects himself: “I think that the world is still suffering from a kind of puritanism”. Sounds like a Freudian Slip…
It might be the case that he has suffered from puritan parents or puritan teachers. (Which I don’t know.) It might also be true that British society is still affected by puritanism as it’s roots lie there. For my sake even the colonies. (Which I can’t judge.) But to assert that the whole world is “suffering from a kind of puritanism” and hence has an ” irrational fear of drugs” and condemns it as “hedonism” is nonsense.
The ban on drugs is a cross-cultural phenomenon of the Western Lands. In some “less developed” (I don ‘t like this expression) places in the world this ban doesn’t exist. Partly, because people live from the cultivation of drugs, partly to restrain hunger, partly, because they don’t know the facts about their harmfulness and, last but not least, because they form a part of their rites.
People in Western and other societies have a rational fear of drugs, because they know and see that they do great execution, not because taking drugs is seen as “hedonism”. These societies have democratic or other political systems, which are in the funds and have the means to fight against the society-destructible or bio-destructable impact of drugs.
Lately, I talked to a 43 year old man who complained that he still suffered from the fact that his dead father did neither accept his degree in Architectual Studies (“they just fiddle around”) nor his second degree in Social Sciences (“such a young science can not be decent”). I understand that people suffer from repression. But I can’t understand that they don’t do anything against it , when it is over. I think psychotherapy or psycho-analysis is still a much more effective way of self-exploration than intoxicating and benumbing oneself.
“A priori knowledge is knowledge before experience. Since many people have died from drug consumption before I was born, I was clever enough to deduct that drug taking can lead to death.”
This isn’t the meaning of a priori that I understand. It does mean “before experience”, but this also includes the experiences of others – any experience. So an example might be a mathematical truth. But my knowledge that smoking is bad isn’t a priori – in fact it depends on the experience of millions of smokers.
In fact “a priori” is knowledge which is sort of “inherent” or “given” and cannot even be gained by experience. It is independent from experience.
This notion was simply meant to exemplify that is not essential to make own experiences to “know” certain things and disprove that one should become an “expert” in drug taking, in order to be able to judge their harmfulness.
(Although I believe that Kant critised the pure intellectual way of understanding, as being insufficient for the acquaintance of metaphysical knowledge. The question would rather be: “Is it possible to compare drug taking as an example for the acquaintance of “physical knowledge” with the acquaintance of metaphysical knowledge?”)
I’m no expert in philosophy, but it was not essential to read the “Critique of Pure Reason” in order to exploit Kant’s notions in favour of my argumentation.
Irrespective of having fun in argueing, I think that intelligent adults in general – not referring to musicians in particular – who know the facts of life, but who nonetheless risk ruining their own life (or at least pretend to do so) cannot be distracted from doing it. But they should be precluded from animating suggestible, manipulable, influenceable minors to put their life on the line. That’s no “noble pursuit”.
Thanks for your interest in my arguments. May I attempt to clear up a few points. I think some other’s words have been put into my mouth.
I neither morally condone nor morally condemn the use of recreational drugs, or rock-climbing. I believe that people who are likely to get something positive or pleasurable from such activities are most likely to discover it for themselves, without any encouragement. I’m not a hippy; I don’t believe we should all take psychedelic drugs to ‘expand our minds’. But I do believe that we should have the right to find out for ourselves, be it climbing, kinky sex or psychedelics, so long as we don’t harm others. This could be classified as a broadly Libertarian position. But I also believe that it is important that society in turn provides the highest quality of information on the dangers and delights of such activities. This makes my position a bit less Libertarian, as I am prepared to expand the role of the State in helping people make choices.
We must try to disentangle the complex relationship between the harm caused by a drug, and the harm caused by its illegal status. This is difficult to do but it underpins the whole argument for decriminalising drugs. By taking them out of the hands of criminal gangs, controlling them through medical channels and practising harm reduction and education rather than punishment and criminalisation, the whole network of drug related crime -property theft, prostitution, people trafficking and gang-related murders- would be transformed beyond recognition.
The charity Transform http://www.tdpf.org.uk/ is a good place to get into the arguments for changing drug policy.
Naturally I had neither the time nor the oratorical skills to spontaneously reel off an argument like this on camera at a moment’s notice before a show. So I just tried to make an observation about the streak of irrational puritanism in society that condemns some pursuits and condones others. I’m disappointed if I didn’t communicate coherently, but it seems like it has provoked some debate, so that’s a good start. I’d also like to add that at least one of the people who has made a comment here is a nutcase who has been trolling my blog for months and forced me to start moderating my comments section, something my anti-censorship instincts regrets.
As for the role of drugs in the creative process, I don’t think there is any necessary relationship between the two. There are some stand out exceptions though : It’s hard to think Augustus Pablo’s dub reggae classics like “King Tubby’s Meets Rockers Uptown’ could have emerged through anything other than a thick blue cloud of ganja smoke, and it’s hard to think that Fugazi would sound any good if they were stoned.
“Nutcase” is your denomination for people who waste their time showing “interest” in your circumlocutory utterances. You should decide wether you appreciate or dislike publicity. If you “provoke a debate” you should be so fair to allow that people may controvert by expressing their very own opinion, which is not always playing to you, I’m sorry. Shutting someone down just because he’s not a member of your elitist circle of admirers, who are allowed to participate in your conversation group testifies to weakness of character.
“Fuck off” is a simple and clear announcement which is understood by anybody. There’s no need to pronounce someone as psychopathic or mentally disturbed, just because you can’t tolerate any spark of criticism or any different opinion. Or because you lack the “oratorical skills” and the maturity to engage in a proper debate.
There might be many other “nutcases” who like your music but dislike your views.
“But I do believe that we should have the right to find out for ourselves, be it climbing, kinky sex or psychedelics, so long as we don’t harm others.”
Find out for yourself, have as much “kinky sex” as you like to, for my sake take all the drugs you can get, but enjoy and be silent. I think you underestimate your status as example for many young people. What is good for you has not necessarily to be good for anybody.
“By taking them out of the hands of criminal gangs, controlling them through medical channels and practising harm reduction and education rather than punishment and criminalisation, the whole network of drug related crime -property theft, prostitution, people trafficking and gang-related murders- would be transformed beyond recognition.”
Wishful thinking.
“I’d also like to add that at least one of the people who has made a comment here is a nutcase who has been trolling my blog for months and forced me to start moderating my comments section, something my anti-censorship instincts regrets.”
Shit happens. “You’re still young that’s your fault,
there’s so much you have to go through.”
I can’t say much about mountains, but FUCK ME, I’d LOVE to go ROCK CLIMBING with Nick Talbot.
Get it? Get it? huhuh. huhuh.
Anyway…
“Rock-climbing” seems to be an ingenious cipher for some sort of “kinky sex” I have not yet had in my life.
See, Mr. Talbot, there are even more degenerated nutcases who utter their most secret wishes on really respectable websites like this one.
It’s funny how emotionally charged arguments become once you hit a neuralgic spot. Sometimes one might wonder whether the argument’s stringency benefits from that fact. That is, the presumptions most comments are based upon seem to cloud the writer’s ability to think and write about this topic openly. That might be an explanation for the attacks on Mr. Talbot here.
I just came back across this after forgetting about it for a while. One point I forgot to make- in a recent interview Johnny Marr (my guitar hero) said that he thought all people should try psychedelic drugs at some point; he clearly sees it as a wholly benign experience. Now that, to me, is an irresponsible thing to say. It goes way beyond defending drug use to actively encouraging it. As I say above, people who are likely to get something out of psychedelics are likely to come across them without any encouragement. I don’t encourage drug use; neither do I condemn it. The central thrust of my argument is about comparing value systems and the worth of certain pursuits. I think there is some currency in comparing apparently acceptable pursuits that endanger others (mountain climbing that necessitates rescue) and unacceptable ones that harm only the individual. We as a society clearly think that mountain climbing is a better way to spend time than taking drugs. I’m interested in finding out why this is, when both are potentially dangerous (and the former can endanger others too). I also think there is a role for drugs in the arts. Most interesting art has been produced without the need for psychoactive substances. But then there are bands like the Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3, where the drug use is inextricably linked with the aesthetic.
The most dangerous thing we do each day is involve ourselves in road traffic. But road travel is, it seems, necessary, so it is worth the risk. If the argument against pleasurable drug use hinges on the notion that we should avoid ‘unnecessary’ dangers, it is a weak one; we can’t live our lives purely on the lines of necessity.
Little Deer- your rejoinder to my points about drug decriminalisation and regulation was two words: “wishful thinking”. Surely you can come up with a counter-argument rather than simply assuming the very point at issue! The madness of current drug legislation is brilliantly conveyed in the TV series The Wire. Dangerous drug use is not a problem that will be solved overnight, if ever. But it’s hard to see how the current situation could be any worse. Right now, the drug ‘war’ is being won by criminal gangs; the same people who traffick humans and deal in arms and murder. And the social problem of addiction; well, it doesn’t take a social policy specialist to see that criminalising a drug user, especially one who has a serious problem, isn’t going to help them get well. And the link between addiction and property theft is plain for all to see.
Well, I’ve drifted around various issues here. I’m sorry if I seem to have been encouraging drug use; unlike Johnny Marr, that’s absolutely not my position. My central point argument concerns individual liberty in drug use, and the lack of respect we have for it demands some kind of explanation. It does indeed seem to me to be irrational when many other dangerous pursuits are not only acceptable but celebrated.
I have to say, Little Deer, I’m saddened by your ad hominem attacks; they detract from the eloquence of your arguments. Do I have puritan parents? And was that a Freudian Slip? Oh, please! No, my parents are very liberal people but it’s generally best to attack arguments rather than carry out character assasinations. It’s arguable I’m guilty of it myself though; I apologise if I offended by saying that one of the people here is a trolling nutcase. That may sound harsh but their behaviour became increasingly worrying.
I’ve enjoyed this discussion; it’s a shame I forgot about it and only just came back to it. Even if you think I’m talking utter guff, I nonetheless applaud your involvement; you’ve all given me pause for thought.
Cheers
Well, I’m very glad that I also forgot this for a long while.
And let’s forget it anyway. In the end, fully grown up gifted people are fully responsable for ruining themselves, if they wish to. Who cares? Sometimes I still do.
‘Little Deer’ -so just to clarify, are you the person who was stalking my blog? If I take the comment moderation option off and post a new entry, will you come back? It’s just not the same without you.
“Shutting someone down just because he’s not a member of your elitist circle of admirers, who are allowed to participate in your conversation group testifies to weakness of character.”
-Now I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen as doing that. Come back, get hateful, be creepy, make me concerned for the well-being of myself, my friends and family, whilst exploiting the easy, sleazy anonymity of the internet. Hope to see you soon.
I just like the exchange of words in various languages and banter. It is sort of playing on an intellectual level and displaying creative spirit which remains unfold. I do not like the internet nor anonymity at all. I would love to meet at least one soulmate or sparring partner in discussions of flesh and blood in my life. Very hard to find. I have never been hateful against you, I am a very sensitive person who is concerned about too much things in live which you cannot control, and much more concerned about foreign people than caring for myself. The internet makes you lose your inhibitions and exhibit the innermost of your soul, or expose subliminal activity. Go ahead with your posts, it is close season, no need to worry. I’m going to stay in my place and rest my weary head now. However, thank you for wanting me back, or was it one of my characters?