Dilbert_X wrote:
uziq wrote:
lots of music scenes and cultural experiences involve drug consumption,
all those people taking MDMA in the 1990s at raves
drugs are just part of certain experiences – sure, maybe youth culture experiences specifically
lots of cocaine in the restaurant/hospitality trade, for instance, or finance.
Its funny how specific drug consumption is associated with certain cliques, just as certain clothing, behaviour, etc often is.
Is it peer pressure or people wanting to fit in to the clique? Or people with specific predispositions gravitate to certain cliques?
Bankers drink a lot of champagne for example, is it because people who like champagne gravitate towards being bankers or ordering champagne in the club announces "I'm part of the banker clique"? Bearing in mind a lot of champagne is pretty ordinary and there are better sparkling wines out there without the name
Same question for cocaine.
i think you need to think a little deeper about it. human beings have congregated in social gatherings and rituals for the sole purpose of intoxication for as long as we’ve been a species. the fact you can only apprehend the ‘drug experience’ on the level of ‘people trying too hard to be fashionable’ betrays a slight paucity of imagination. i can recommend you some very good anthropology books on the role of ecstasy in religion and pre-religious life if you like. are all the men of an amazonian tribe who gather once a week to get out of their gourds on DMT-containing vines just ‘desperate to fit in’?
people taking drugs has always been a thing and always will be. the fact it has been a constantly expressed need and desire throughout all cultures in history suggests it’s probably a constant of our nature, and not some shallow ‘desperate teenagers who are insecure’ thing. after food, shelter, and sex, the next thing on the maslow’s hierarchy would seem to be finding some means of getting absolutely mashed. that we’ve developed industrialised and hi-tech means of doing so, rather than letting the women of the tribe spit on some barely digestible root nonstop for 3 days so that it ferments into a disgusting alcoholic beverage, is besides the point.
i’m sure people do end up identifying with certain sub-cultures on an unconscious level. it’s part of identity formation, sure. but is it any more risible becoming a champagne-swilling banker at charity do than it is being the stereotypical engineer autist who has never ‘understood’ the bright young things crowd? (i note by the way that these drug-taking stereotypes are always negative and comical: what about average joes who get together every week to drink alcohol at a bar, the ordinary college kid who goes to keg parties and gets plastered?) you’ve fled your whole life into the safety of that convenient identity tag, too, the guy who is ‘just too rational’ to do anything like that even though it’s clear that it’s part of human life to lose control and enjoy relinquishing that rationality, from time to time, too. it’s not some big insight. you speak down to these people as if they’re pathetic and shallow but i hardly see how you’re so wise and well-adjusted.
Last edited by uziq (2019-02-20 01:04:08)