Doctored

A friend put the view to me recently of psychedelics as a technology that has been advantageous for human evolution, but has also been exploited by some groups to further their own ends at others’ expense.

The idea of psychedelics being advantageous to our evolution is an interesting one. Can we really say whether things are, have ever been, or will ever be, ‘better’ than they would have been had they not existed, or been discovered? Here’s a Tao parable of the man with the horses (via Cameron Adams and Danny Nemu):

There was a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck. He said, “May be.” The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune. He said, “May be.” And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg.

Again the neighbors came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, “May be.” The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg the farmer’s son was rejected. When the neighbors came in to say how fortunately everything had turned out, he said, “May be.”

Tao: The Watercourse Way – Alan Watts

Weaponry is another example of a technology that has greatly influenced our evolution. Weapons allowed us to increase the distance between us and our prey, conferring a definite advantage on us in terms of the power relationship between the hunter and the hunted. We could also use them to maintain hostilities with other groups, thereby – according to Kant (Palmquist 2004) – promoting the dispersal of the species across the earth. Primitive societies appeared to recognise their weapon-making abilities as a gift from the gods that gave them tremendous power over other species. They responded by offering up part of each kill as thanks to the gods, alongside other sacrificial practices. In my spiritually numb youth, studying ancient Greek and Roman culture, I thought sacrifice sounded dumb. Now, I can see the sense in it as a means of acknowledging our privilege and keeping ourselves in check.

We might ask what would have happened if we’d rejected from the beginning the notion of killing other animals for food and become uber-gatherers instead. Chimps, our closest evolutionary relative, are omnivores. As well as plants they also eat insects, eggs and hunt other small animals (including monkeys). Still, we could have turned away from it. Did we have to weaponise our gathering to the extent that we have today, with our agrarian machinery, factories and freight? This all adds distance, insulating us from the means of production, its dangers and its devastation.

Looking at the big picture, it is clear that Nietzsche was right; the fundamental human drive is the will to power. This is universally shared across all cultures, although some see it as power over, some as power with. Indigenous people use weapons to hunt; some even use psychedelic plants to tune into their environment, to sharpen their attention on their prey. A key difference is that such people see themselves as part of the ecosystem rather than separate from it, and therefore reject the technological approach:

“The entire project of conquering nature appears more and more of a mirage… technical progress becomes a way of stalling faster and faster because of the basic illusion that man and nature, the organism and the environment, the controller and the controlled are quite different things.”

Watts, 1966 (p51)

The film Arrival tells a story of aliens who come to visit the earth. The lead character, a linguist called Louise, asks why the aliens have come, and they answer – in their circular, graphic language – ‘offer weapon’. The Chinese translate this as ‘use weapon’, causing them to cease their communication efforts and prepare for war. Louise argues that the symbol interpreted as ‘weapon’ could just as well mean ‘tool’, and that China’s translation results from the competitive nature of their interaction.

Louise learns that it is the alien language itself that is the tool/weapon on offer; those who understand it are able to perceive both the future and the past as parts of the same whole. Watts refers to this phenomenon in his writing on noticing and notation; we attend to the things that we have notation for and vice versa. One of the limitations of any language is that it signifies a world that is ‘an assemblage of separate things that have somehow come together’ (p35) rather than ‘the tones and inflections… of a single singing voice.’

The Enlightenment, secularisation, scientific progress and specialisation have enabled an escalation in our domination over nature. Tools provide us with an advantage; a leg up in the system. If we fail to check that advantage and as it distances us from its effects, it may be that the system will eventually collapse, but what is arguably worse is that the ‘game’ becomes tedious and mechanical. Watts uses many examples to illustrate this, including universities, where ‘the paperwork, recording what has been done, seems to become more important than what it records’ (p42). Narby (1998) presents the common view of psychedelics as a tool for disordering the mind (some, like Claude Levi-Strauss, claimed the opposite, but they appear to be in the minority). If the current order of the mind is harming or hindering us, for example if we are stuck in depressive thought patterns, or we need to quiet our human concerns in order to attend to and hunt down our quarry, disordering can be just what we need. But the distinction between tool and weapon is only a matter of perspective. Here is one of the epiphanic fragments from the autoethnography I spoke about at Breaking Convention:

August 2015. I am at a music festival watching the headline act. I want to do something purposeful with my altered brain state, so I ruminate a while on the political situation in the UK. It is quite a struggle to do so; I find it hard to see any connection between this euphoric experience with the beautiful colours and the heavenly music, and the frowning, tired people in suits sniping and jeering across the despatch box. But I persist; there is nothing else to do, after all, and time is going rather slowly. I recall something I read in the first year of my EdD that described popular culture as a form of anaesthetic*, and it occurs to me that the government should be delighted that we are anaesthetising ourselves in a secure open space far from London, rather than waving banners outside Parliament, asking difficult questions. But, then… who is having the better time? Us, whose sensory equalisers are hitting the red at every frequency? Or the likes of Theresa May, who have presumably never and will never experience anything like this? I decide it is a moot point, as if you don’t know what you’re missing, you don’t miss it.

Frank Barron apparently described the psychedelic ‘movement’ as the ‘commitment to fight for personal freedom and to oppose everywhere the war mentality and the tyranny of dogmatic beliefs… [to stand for] equal rights for race and gender and for ecological Earth-respecting ways of thinking and acting’. That is one view of the psychedelic ‘movement’, but there are many. Taking the view that they are a tool for disordering the mind doesn’t contradict Frank’s vision. It also promotes a healthy caution and skepticism, and commits us to sober ethical debate.

References:

*Held, D. 2004. Introduction to Critical Theory. London: Hutchinson

Narby, J. 1988. The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the origins of knowledge. Orion Books.

Palmquist, S. 2004. Kant’s Ideal of the University as a Model for World Peace. In: International Conference on Two Hundred Years after Kant. 20-22 November, Tehran, Iran: Allame Tabataba’i University. [Online]. [Accessed 4 June 2015]. Available from: http://staffweb.hkbu.edu.hk/ppp/srp/arts/KIUMWP.htm

Watts, A. 1966. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Souvenir Press.

Jurgen Habermas’ The Future of Human Nature (2003) explores what it means to change ourselves.

For reasons that will become clear, while reading I found myself reflecting on the differences between genetic intervention (by parents, into the genetic makeup of their offspring), and another form of human enhancement, psychedelic therapy.

I feel that the ethical implications Habermas outlines to counter gene therapy actually support the case for psychedelic therapy. Genetic intervention is decided by the current generation but acts on future generations. The autonomy of the (future) person whose genetic makeup is affected is not and cannot be taken into account. Another major issue with gene therapy is that genotype will always remain exactly that; it may determine the phenotype of the individual in some cases (gender, for example), but by no means all. Genes express themselves differently in accordance with a complex range of factors, both internal and environmental.

In contrast, psychedelic therapy is by its nature personalized to the individual undergoing treatment. It is autonomy-enhancing in that it increases the capacity of individuals to recognise their issues and overcome influences that limit their autonomy, such as trauma, guilt, shame or fear. The common metaphor for its mode of action is a ‘journey’ or ‘path’ (hence the experience itself is described as a ‘trip’). High-dose psychedelic experience is rarely wholly pleasant. It can be quite an ordeal, and hence requires determination and courage from the subject; a clear engagement of their autonomy, and the enactment of their desire to live their best life and to be themselves.

I was reading Habermas on my travels to and from a retreat in the Netherlands, which included a (fully legal) psilocybin ceremony. In terms of personal growth, it must surely be the most profound thing I’ve ever done. It was also, for a few hours at least, one of the most desperately unpleasant, but – unlike when I had my wisdom teeth out – what followed more than made up for it. The experience has cemented in my mind the notion that it is insufficient simply for the law to turn a blind eye to those who wish to grow and use these substances for themselves for personal development. I know many people who self-medicate with similarly high doses of psilocybin, preparing with care and following clinical protocol as far as possible, and they get a lot out of it, but this legal retreat was a very different experience. The careful preparation and integration, the particular benefits of learning in and from a group and the supplementary activities (breath and bodywork, meditation, intention-setting) meant that we all came away with a lot more than glowing cheeks and a few insights. This is powerful therapeutic education.

In philosophising about gene therapy, Habermas observes that, of course, parents also have a strong environmental influence on their offspring, but he never concedes that this too may be ethically questionable. On the terms he has outlined, it certainly is. Parents often restrict their children’s autonomy in ways that are 1) obvious to the child, 2) cause them pain and distress, 3) prevent them from feeling able to ‘be themselves’, and 4) have a knock-on or even a cumulative effect on future generations. The difference, for Habermas, is that such environmental interventions are, to an extent, reversible (through ‘analysis’), but I would challenge this. I think he is vastly overestimating the power of psychiatry. I could also suggest, given that Habermas is imagining a time when we have the technology to accurately tweak genotypes, they could presumably be reverse-tweaked for the next generation. I don’t wish to sound flippant, I just find it odd that the possibility doesn’t feature in his arguments.

Another major point that Habermas leaves out about genetic intervention is that it would entail parents’ hopes and desires being made explicit and addressed from the start. Conflicting desires between parents would be surfaced early, and unrealistic or unfair expectations could be moderated or challenged. I am not suggesting this would justify saving genetic intervention from the ethical garbage heap. What I am arguing is that it is somewhat short-sighted for us to condemn genetic intervention on one hand, while condoning authoritarian discipline on the other, particularly as the latter often manifests with conflict between parents, and confusion from hopes and fears that are not openly discussed or, worse, presented inauthentically. To do so is to tip the balance of opinion firmly towards nature over nurture, when we know that it is not an ‘or’ but an ‘and’.

Essentially, I find it strange that today’s moral philosophers continue to debate eugenics and technology-brain interfaces when they could be discussing psychedelic therapy. It may not be as philosophically tortuous, but that’s because it’s not an imaginary technology. It’s a real-life practice that is becoming well-established in the clinical and self-development arenas, and it needs to be talked about.

N.B. The retreat I attended was run by the Psychedelic Society, which organises regular legal experiences in the Netherlands. You can find out more and apply here.

I’ve been working on my methodology chapter while, appropriately, learning about listening. Well, I guess I’ve been learning about this throughout my doctorate, really. And I’m very conscious of the two-steps-forward-one-step-back mode, because I’ve had previous epiphanies; moments of realisation when the wisdom of others dawns on me, and the value in just shutting up and letting it in. I always find it incredible looking back through my blog, or my notebooks, or my emails, and realising I’ve been here before. How many times do we (I) have to be confronted with something before we internalise it? I guess it’s an ongoing thing. I still find it so much easier, effort-wise, to be the teller rather than the asker, although I struggle to accept that about myself.

I’m not veering towards epistemological or moral relativism. I’m not saying that everyone else is right about everything. What I’m saying it that, when other people speak, they’re speaking their truth, and there is truth in what they say. It might not be the point they think they’re making, but there will be truth in there, and one needs to stop fighting in order to see and hear that truth. We could all listen a bit more. This is an interesting idea to be hit around the head (repeatedly) with while I’m writing a doctoral thesis; i.e. making a claim and preparing to ‘defend’ it. How do we reconcile defence with listening? I’ll come back to that.

I found Monica Vilhauer’s book on Gadamer’s Ethics of Play really excellent. It’s a relatively short and highly readable book on Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical framework that underpins my thesis. It arrived in my hands at a perfect time, just as I’d finished John Callender’s book on free will and responsibility, although the connection between the two might not be immediately obvious. I was intending to spend November drafting my methodology chapter and felt a little guilty for reading John’s book instead; I worried that it was too tangential. But I’d attended the conference on psychedelics John organised for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in October, and we’d got talking about the promise of psychedelic therapy for emotional healing and moral development (which I would argue are deeply connected). He suggested I read his book, so I did. And then we met up and talked about it over olives and curry. It just blows me away, the wisdom of other people. I think it must take a very wise person to listen to an idiot child-adult like me and find something of value in there. John’s a psychiatrist, so that’s his area of expertise, but, still.

John’s book draws together a lot of threads I’ve been following. The central concern of my thesis is the role of universities in society, which Blessinger (not the most exciting of writers on HE, I find) summarises very simply as ‘creating an educated citizenry’. This of course raises loads of other questions: What does it mean to be educated? What is the value in having an educated citizenry? By ‘citizenry’, do we mean everyone, or are we just talking about a proportion of society? Why? There are lots of assumptions that are tied up in this about conflict, consensus, equality, efficiency, progress, and the place of human beings on earth. What kind of world do we want to live in? Is it possible for all our desires to be accommodated? One immediate problem clear from John’s book is that we struggle to accommodate our own desires even as individuals. We are in perpetual conflict between what we want, and what we want to want (and even, perhaps, what we want to want to want… etc). John presents psychotherapy as a process that helps individuals to become less conflicted. In focusing on their own second order desires, therapy accommodates the autonomy of the patient or client, rather than dictating what they should want and how they should be. Such autonomous moral development does not, however, present a solution to the disproportionate amount of violent crime and reoffending by individuals whose behaviour is ‘unconstrained by pity or common humanity’ (p244). Huxley (1962) had an answer for this in his novel/utopian blueprint ‘Island’; to identify early on in life those with an innate desire to dominate others, put extra effort into teaching them the rules of compassion, and send them to work felling trees. The more philosophy I read, the more Huxley’s vision makes sense.

We often focus on the conflict between individuals and groups, and I’ve been wondering whether this is putting the cart before the horse; whether we need to work in the first instance on our internal conflicts. Alan Watts (1966) says we don’t even need to work on these; we just need to accept that ‘the real goodness of human nature is its peculiar balance of love and selfishness, reason and passion, spirituality and sensuality, mysticism and materialism, in which the positive pole has always a slight edge over the negative’ (p134). According to Watts, there is no problem to solve anyway, other than perhaps the needless suffering that accompanies the fantasy of the self, and he points out that even those who do manage to become internally angelic evoke ‘hordes of devils to keep the balance’ (p135). White needs black in order to exist, and vice versa. To live well, and to be a ‘civilised, sensitive and intelligent member of the cosmos’, requires that we purge the self-contradictory rules from life.

There’s a lot of overlap between Gadamer and Watts. I don’t know why that surprises me; they’ve always been the two philosophers whose views resonated with my own more than anyone else’s. Both describe life as play. Both emphasise the need for difference, and the futility of trying to win others over to your perspective. Watts gets more fundamental about why it is futile – on a quantum level – while for Gadamer one gets a sense of a Third Way-style paradox; it is only through listening without the intention to persuade, that we have a chance of persuading! Vilhauer’s book opens with a quote from Plato: ‘could you really persuade… if we don’t listen?’

Vilhauer also acknowledges her family as her dialogue partners. This is something close to my heart at the moment, as my mother and I have recently been engaged in a hermeneutic exchange after she sent me her memoirs. They were long, and it wasn’t easy reading. The third and final part ran from 1984 (when I was five years old) to the present, and catalogued a lot of stuff I’d buried and run away from. But I thought about it, talked about it, re-engaged my therapist, and penned a response back to my mother that clarified a few things she was sketchy on and gave a taste of how I remembered a couple of key events. I was careful to avoid any accusations and to highlight the things I appreciated and was grateful for. And she wrote back, and I wrote back, and she wrote back again. Each time shorter, as there was less to disagree about. For Gadamer, through conversation we always come to some sort of agreement, even if it is on what exactly it is that we differ.

So… my thesis is about conversation, and perhaps it would help to look at it as a conversation. Or, at least, a snapshot of what I’m hearing from all this listening.

References:

Callender, J. S. 2010. Free will and responsibility. Oxford University Press.

Vilhauer, M. 2010. Gadamer’s Ethics of Play: Hermeneutics and the Other. Lexington Books.

Watts, A. 1966. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. London: Souvenir Press.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about psychedelics and moral enhancement. I met up with Jules Evans a few days ago to talk about psychedelic enquiry, while he was finishing off this piece on whether psychedelics make you a better person. I think his piece is excellent; it cuts through the romantic notions that usually surround the issue, and doesn’t bother with the tentative preparation of the reader that many philosophers employ when raising it.

Thomas Douglas (2008) raises a Kantian objection to moral enhancement; that the moral goodness of our desired motives is wholly determined by the earlier motives for bringing them about. I think this is interesting and I’d like to explore it. Let’s say I would like to be a better person (I do). I would like to be more caring, friendlier, and more empathetic. Why? Maybe because I want to improve other people’s life experience. I feel that being that way in my interactions with others will help them to feel better about themselves and the world. But…why? Why is it important to me that others have a positive experience of life? Is this to do with power? Do I feel that being this way will increase my power, in that others will look more favourably on me? Or maybe I feel that in extending care and compassion to my peers I increase our collective power? Nietzsche describes these two positions as master and slave morality.

I wonder whether power really is our supraordinate motive. I consider what I value in life, and I come up with things like love (giving and receiving), knowledge, freedom, sunshine, sleep, sex and nature. What is the relationship between these and power? For most of them, the connection is obvious. Not so much for love, and I think there is something very interesting here.

What if my desire to be more caring and more compassionate arises from a will to love, rather than a will to power? I gave up on reading Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Fortunately my psychedelic philosophy buddy Peter Sjösted-H has internalised the entire thing, and he tells me that Nietzsche does state that actions for love have a strength that makes them transcend any moral laws of one’s culture: ‘That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.’ (BGE 153)

But… I don’t believe the will is free in the libertarian sense. Say I am able to reason myself out of acting for individual reward, and opt to act for the wider good. It’s difficult to be compassionate and empathetic when your nature is screaming at you ‘what about me, what about what I want’. I might do it out of love (rather than some long-term selfish sensibility), but if my capacity for loving action is determined, how can we call that a moral decision? I could take a step back and consider my desire to increase my capacity for love, but if this too is determined then the same applies. It’s like when people say ‘oh, you’re so good’ when they see me drinking green smoothies and going for lunchtime runs. It’s easy for me. They may think they’re commenting on my superior morality, but really they’re just acknowledging a relative mismatch between their own first and second order desires, and expressing their envy that mine are more aligned (only in this regard, I imagine).

Under the umbrella of slave morality, Nietzsche claims that compassion and care are modes of action used by the weak to boost their collective power. But Peter tells me that it’s not as simple as that; Nietzsche also says compassion can be a sign of strength. It depends on the motives and the circumstances. Is Nietzsche equating love-motivated action with strength?

It’s a popular view. Here’s that bit from the Bible:

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:2

Skye Cleary (2017) points out how romantic love descends into power games, citing Nietzsche’s description of lovers as ‘behaving like selfish dragons defending their golden hoard’. Is there even such a thing as pure, unselfish love? Cleary presents Stirner’s view that love is merely an egoistic satisfaction of our desires; we don’t actually love the other person, rather we love ourselves loving them. De Beauvoir claims that we can work our way out of the power games; that we can love on the basis of friendship, respecting one another’s freedom, supporting one another’s flourishing, and working towards common goals; a truly symbiotic relationship rather than a mutually parasitic one.

So, on a philosophical level, if psychedelic experience increases our capacity to love and be loved – without power games – then it has moral value, right? But… does it do this?

Both Jules (Evans 2017) and Devenot (2016) write about the romanticization of the indigenous use of psychoactive plants, contrasting the Western view of ayahuasca as a benevolent agent of healing with the narratives of the mestizo Indians of the Upper Amazon. Jules draws on his own experience visiting the Temple of the Way of Light in Peru, and writers such as Stephan Beyer, to articulate how envy, sorcery and revenge are fundamental aspects of mestizo culture. Mestizo Indians believe that ayahuasca makes you more powerful – not more moral. They also acknowledge that humans have innate urges to harm others (a view that Westerners tend to deny), and so an apprentice shaman needs to be very strong in order to control these urges and use his powers for good.

Contrast this with the West where, from the present day right back to the Eleusian Mysteries, psychedelic experience is presented as a physical-emotional journey that teaches certain moral attitudes. Jules riffs off Aristotle, Jung and Plutarch in generating an impressive list: ‘concentration, self-acceptance, compassion, courage, self-awareness, humility, surrender, awe and love’, but concludes ‘there is nothing essential in psychedelics that necessarily leads to these things.’ It’s all about the intention. 

I wish to return to my original question – why do we want to be better? – and bring in Persson and Savulescu’s (2017) call for urgent enhancement of the moral character of humanity. It seems likely to me that the current concern around our moral character has been bolstered by the election of certain individuals to positions of political power. There is a concern among liberals that these powerful individuals are further influencing the moral character of the masses, for example by validating and encouraging distrust of minority groups and foreigners, the election result itself being an indicator of widespread moral decline. A related concern is that moral viewpoints have become more polarised, with a breakdown in communication between the poles. I recently came across a book by William Desmond (2011) on ancient philosopher-kings. I was taken by the account of Xenophon’s imaginary conversation between the poet Simonides and Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse, in which the former tries to persuade the latter that ‘no tyrant can be happy and that only virtue can bring happiness and increase the city’s power’ (p46). In another book – a biography of Cyrus the Great – Xenophon lists the philosopher-king’s practical virtues: ‘hard-working, hardy, brave, prudent, lawful, munificent, righteous, kind, humane.’

Why would someone want to become a philosopher-king? Out of a desire for power? Or out of love? Why does Trump want to be President? If it is out of love, is his ‘love’ for America a desire to possess it? Or it it that he loves himself loving America? In conversation with psychedelic dinosaur and conspiracy theorist Robert Forte a few months back, we discussed persuading those in power to try psychedelic therapy in the hope that it would open their minds in compassionate directions. But, in the absence of a genuine desire to become more compassionate, humble, self-aware, loving, etc, it seems the chance of achieving this kind of enhancement with psychedelics is slim. It is widely agreed across the moral enhancement literature, and in psychiatry (Callender 2010), that in order to be ethical, moral therapies must privilege the autonomy of the subject. 

I have been thinking about whether psychedelics could (or should?!) be categorised as a technology. Jules’ argument tips the answer towards the affirmative, if it wasn’t there already. An opposing view is that psychedelic plant medicines are a gateway to a deeper wisdom beyond ourselves; perhaps even that the discarnate entities encountered under their influence have some sort of plan for us. Watts (1966) points out that the more we interfere (with ‘nature’?), the more we have to analyse the results of that interference. This is a case of ‘goeswith’ (Watts’ own term) rather than causation; categorising psychedelic enquiry as a technological intervention entails the evaluation of that intervention. In discussing this with Peter the other day (10 December), he told me his view that we are a part of nature, so are our creations, and nature itself is a creation reciprocal of its creatures. I find most of Peter’s aphorisms useful and enlightening, although this one is not particularly conducive to a philosophical discussion of psychedelics as a tool for bioenhancement. In fact, most of the conversations I’ve had with both Peter and Richard recently have left me thinking there is actually nothing to debate. Maybe that is the point of philosophy, to deconstruct until all that matters disappears. Or maybe that means it didn’t matter.

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking and watch a stupid film or something.

References:

Callender, J. S. 2010. Free will and responsibility. Oxford University Press.

Cleary, S. 2017. Existentialists in Love. Interview by Richard Marshall in 3:am magazine. 16 December. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-romantic-existentialists/

Desmond, W. 2011. Philosopher-Kings of Antiquity. London: Continuum

Devenot, N. 2016. Psychedelic Drugs. In Hoogland, R. C. (Ed). Gender: Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Macmillan Reference USA.

Douglas, T. 2008. Moral Enhancement. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25 (3).

Evans, J. 2017. Can psychedelics make you a better person? [Online]. Philosophy for Life. 15 December. http://www.philosophyforlife.org/can-psychedelics-make-you-a-better-person/

Persson, I. & Savulascu, J. 2017. The Duty to be Morally Enhanced. Topoi. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-017-9475-7

Watts, A. 1966. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. London: Souvenir Press.

Next week I’m going to a launch of a new Impact pamphlet that defends character education in schools. Randall Curren is the author, and he will present his case with responses from four panelists.

Wikipedia tells me that ‘Character education is an umbrella term loosely used to describe the teaching of children in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditional, compliant or socially acceptable beings.’

The Impact pamphlet is still under wraps, but in his new book Living Well Now and in the Future, Randall Curren argues that we need to teach (albeit not in a coercive way) moral norms and attitudes that are supportive of sustainability; living well together in a way that does not diminish the opportunity for future generations to live well. It appears that in the Impact pamphlet (and in Wednesday’s talk) he will set out firmly that traits like perseverance and resilience are not virtues in themselves but simply means to ends. The ends Randall supports are the ‘fundamental British values’ of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance.

I’m guessing Judith Suissa will presumably argue against character education on autonomy grounds – as she did in my session on psychedelics in education at the PESGB conference. I imagine Michael Hand may argue for character education on patriotism terms. I would have thought that Toby Young might argue for the inculcation of resilience and perseverance, but then again he believes that character is inherited so maybe he’d say we shouldn’t bother teaching it. I don’t know Patrick Roach.

I’m all for character education. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with teaching pro-social behaviour. It’s just that – and maybe this is one thing I have in common with Toby – I’m skeptical about how effective that teaching would be. I would like society to think much more radically about how we might collectively develop greater empathy, forgiveness, gratitude and sense of unity. I appreciate the autonomy argument, but I think believe these are values we can all get behind.

The discussion paper I gave at this year’s PESGB conference was on Aldous Huxley’s philosophy of education, as presented in his final novel Island (1962). Huxley’s utopian vision incorporates the ritual use of a naturally occurring entheogen similar to mescaline or psilocybin – the ‘moksha medicine’, and a school curriculum that prepares children for their first entheogenic experience.

A research team at Johns Hopkins university have been publishing interesting findings for a good few years now on spiritual experience as a crucial factor in the therapeutic effects of psilocybin, which comprise positive changes in psychological functioning and trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviours. The personality or character changes observed in these studies are unprecedented; no other interventions are known to enact enduring changes in any of the so-called Big Five personality traits.

Their most recent paper (Griffiths et al. 2017) builds on what they already know about the importance of the spiritual or mystical-type experience, and seeing whether this can be maximised by combining the standard psilocybin therapy with a course of support in meditation and other spiritual-type practices. The results suggest that the addition of more intensive support for spiritual practices into the therapeutic protocol boosted the effects of the therapy. But both groups – the high dose, high support group and the high dose, low support group, did significantly better than the low dose group. In short, the standard psilocybin therapy was pretty effective by itself, but guided spiritual practice boosted its effectiveness further. Enduring changes in attitudes and behaviours were assessed by means of longitudinal measures of the following:

• Interpersonal closeness
• Gratitude
• Life meaning/purpose
• Forgiveness
• Death transcendence
• Daily spiritual experiences
• Religious faith and coping
• Community observer ratings (i.e how subjects’ friends and family think they’ve changed).

So… even if replacing GCSEs with a Huxleyesque entheogenic initiation rite may be off the table (for now!), there is something important we can take from this; that guided and integrated spiritual/mystical experience may be key to educating for the kinds of prosocial attitudes and behaviours (e.g. empathy, forgiveness and gratitude) that we can all agree on.

Then, of course, the challenge becomes about the nature of spiritual experience and how to facilitate it in the absence of the sacred plant medicines that are currently prohibited in this country. There are ways, but personally I think entheogenic initiation deserves its place on the table.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about ideas of academic culture and interdisciplinarity, and imagining a future for the university that takes into account the hyper-connected, globalised, uber-responsive world of today – what Zygmunt Bauman calls the ‘liquid modernity’. I’ve just received a gift of Joseph Aoun’s new book Robot Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artifical Intelligence. But I thought I’d also read some Bauman.

I chose his 2003 book ‘Liquid Love’ because it seemed to cover his broad thinking on modernity with a focus on its implications for human relationships. I find human relationships pretty intriguing, so I figured this one would be an easy read. My friend Aidan joked that it looked like a Mills and Boon novel, but there is no romance in it. Bauman’s despair about modern relationships is clear. I think his ranting tone was rubbing off on me in my recent post on virtual reality. Ranting is rarely convincing; one’s first thought is not ‘mmm, yes, you have a point there’ but ‘why are you so upset about this, personally? What happened to you?’. And, yes, I should consider that regarding my post on VR.

The first thing that really got under my skin reading Liquid Love was Bauman’s apparent conservatism around marriage. His commentary on the modern world of romantic relationships is, well, scathing. He thinks we are all uncaringly pressing ‘delete’ on one another. He makes a surface attempt to engage with the opportunities and challenges of this way of life, but having (I assume) never experienced them for himself (Bauman met his wife Janine at university and they were together until she died in 2009), it reads like he’s looking at them down a microscope. I’m not claiming things are universally better than they used to be, but there is a balanced view to be presented, and Bauman’s perspective is narrow. For example, Bauman would never have had to learn how to consciously uncouple, an modern skill that I believe demands at least as much empathy, generosity and selflessness as staying together, if not more (particularly if you share friends, offspring, pets, property, etc).

There was a time not so long ago where I would have agreed wholeheartedly about a lot of the things Bauman says about human relationships. For example, he feels an immense sense of loss about virtual communication becoming the default, and this used to be a subject close to my heart as well. Initially, the Internet helped me to feel less socially awkward, but as I grew older and became more comfortable around people, I began to find virtual communication unsatisfying and frustrating.

I think I’ve got a more nuanced view these days, and my perspective has broadened in the last few months since my partner and I uncoupled and I have been enjoying living alone. I now spend a lot of time by myself, which I like, and I’ve had some very deep, rich (and sometimes completely unexpected) virtual conversations that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I have a smallish group of Hackney-based friends and we use a Facebook Messenger group, mainly to exchange stupid stories, pull faces, tell rude jokes, and otherwise make one another laugh. We also use it to organise face-to-face meetings. With this group, I suspect one or two of them do find the online interactions easier and more entertaining. People participate when they’re on top form, and keep quiet when they’re not in the mood, and some quality banter gets exchanged. Still, I wouldn’t say – for most of us at least – that the face-to-face struggles to live up to the virtual. There is something quite delicious about social awkwardness (I know I’m not the only person to think this), and it is usually where the best memories are created and built upon. Meeting up in person is hard work; it’s not just that the interaction can be laboured; trying to make plans in the ever-shifting liquid of modern life is a major source of frustration. Alex Cornell points out: ‘Cellphones make plans susceptible to revision at any moment, thus making them in advance is pointless.’ It’s not quite pointless – yet. We still do it. And mobile phones enable various kinds of impromptu meet-ups that weren’t possible previously. For every challenge, there is an opportunity. We are learning that appearances are deceptive; we are perhaps even more aware now of our efforts to present our best faces to the world (ok, sometimes better than our best – filtered, enhanced, etc.), and that others are doing the same.

My point here is that modernity is just different. Not worse, or better.

I’m not leaping back into techno-evangelism. But reading Bauman’s words, tinged with anger, fear and sadness, really brought it home that there are deeply personal stories behind how we feel about modernity and technological progress. On starting to entertain a fantasy that Bauman’s wife had left him for someone she met on Friends Reunited and this very modern tragedy had fuelled his polemic, I turned to Wikipedia for clues. The entry did explain a few things.

On reading that Bauman wrote on ‘issues as diverse as holocaust and modernity’ my first thought was… are they that diverse? I’d just been writing about Spender and Lukács’ criticism of modernism for its capacity to ‘dissolve the personality’ (weaken the sense of self?), and, yes, I get that modernism and modernity are two separate things, but in these cases they both refer at least in part to the technological approach. Reading on, it seems to indeed be the case that Bauman felt the holocaust was caused by man’s anxiety about ambiguity (In an earlier post I relate anxiety with the narrative self). He actually wrote a book called Modernity and the Holocaust, an excerpt of which follows:

‘Procedural rationality, the division of labour into smaller and smaller tasks, the taxonomic categorisation of different species, and the tendency to view obedience to rules as morally good, all played their role in the Holocaust coming to pass.’

N.B. The values of instrumentalism, efficiency (performativity) and ordering are not exclusively right-wing or Conservative values. Obedience/authority is (according to Jonathan Haidt), but not the others.

The link with the holocaust wasn’t the only factor that I think may have contributed to Bauman’s strong emotions around modernity. Bauman and his wife had three daughters, Anna – an accomplished academic, Lydia – a well-known painter, and Irena, a top architect. Neither Lydia nor Irena ever married or had children. Pure conjecture on my part, but perhaps Zygmunt Bauman wasn’t happy about this state of affairs. Maybe he longed for all of his talented daughters to marry, procreate and continue the family line.

I thought back to some data I’d seen about marriage making men happier and women unhappier. Women’s happiness tends to increase after divorce. I wondered about a feminist perspective on liquid modernity. I felt like Bauman was clinging on to this institution and way of life that wasn’t doing women any favours. The old models of stability in love suited men more than women. I thought about how many of the societal changes Bauman writes about are related to women’s liberation from the home.

And then I found all this sociology research about women’s perceptions of happiness, and realised how complex the picture is. We have a paradox of declining female happiness. Women have traditionally reported higher levels of happiness than men, but they are now reporting happiness levels that are similar or even lower than those of men along with an awareness that they have greater opportunities for happiness than ever before (Stevenson & Wolfers 2009)

Key social trends implicated in this phenomenon include decreased social cohesion (Putnam, 2000), increased anxiety and neuroticism (Twenge, 2000), and increased household risk (Hacker, 2006), all of which may have had a greater impact on women’s happiness than on men’s. Another theory is that women feel more comfortable being honest about their true happiness and have thus adjusted their previously inflated responses! Interestingly, female suicide decreased markedly over time while male rates remain stable. This suggests that while median happiness may have fallen, extreme unhappiness in women has decreased.

The most persuasive theory in my opinion is that the increased opportunities for women to succeed in many dimensions feed concerns that one’s life is not measuring up. Women may now compare their lives to a broader group, including men, and find their lives more likely to come up short in this assessment. There are studies that indicate that men are still putting in more hours at work, but it is difficult to know just how much of the overall burden of home production has shifted, as measuring the emotional, as well as physical, work of making a home is a difficult task.

Akerlof, Yellen, and Katz (1996) have a particular theory around the ‘sexual freedom’ offered by the birth control pill. Often touted as a liberating force for women, they argue that the Pill actually benefited men by increasing the pressure on women to have sex outside of marriage, and dismantling the social obligation for a man to marry his pregnant lover. Did men glean a disproportionate share of the benefits of the women’s movement?

Essentially, it would seem that the decline in female happiness is widespread and cannot be attributed easily to one social phenomenon. Married/single, working/non-working – across large data sets these distinctions don’t appear to make a difference. A more pertinent question may be – why has men’s perceived happiness not decreased when objective measures of wellbeing are coming up short across the board?

This question points us to declines in marital satisfaction, which is common across the genders. However, marital satisfaction is more closely linked to perceived overall happiness for women. It is difficult to assess the role of changes in marital satisfaction on women’s overall happiness since marital satisfaction is only asked among those who are married and changing selection over time in this group makes causal inference challenging.

Maybe the home was a nice place for women to be because we made it so (here I am reminded of Richard’s provocative recent piece on Hugh Hefner and the reclamation of the home from domesticity). As women gained greater access to the world men created, they didn’t like what they encountered. This fits with the ‘expectation gap’ hypothesis. It will take a long while for women’s influence to affect the world’s infrastructure, much of which – social, physical, virtual – has been, and is still being, designed by men.

My diversion into a feminist perspective on modernity was fun – it got a lot of responses when I posted about it in the Facehole – but as I got further through Bauman’s book I must admit suffering a bit of a smash to my self-esteem. I recall cradling a comforting cup of tea, feeling like a deformed product of fluid modern society.

Bauman brings together Gadamer and Kant (p125) – two of my favourite philosophers when it comes to considering the potential for individual and collective human flourishing, and what we need to do to fulfill these. Gadamer emphasised the importance of fusing our horizons; of seeking to know the perspective of the other. As Bauman says, Kant warned us of the challenges of impending modernity more than two hundred years ago; he thought the lack of space would mean that we would be forced to embrace reciprocal hospitality.

I’m not sure we are there yet. Perhaps we are, in a way. Our technologies support a marketisation of reciprocity, and we appear to prefer that over something more organic. Take Airbnb for example – an exchange that engages human relations, understanding, negotiation etc., but depends on money to ensure exchanges are equal. The technology makes it practically feasible. The principle of open reviews helps both host and guest to choose to behave like reasonable human beings, and there are checks and guidelines in place to ensure participants are treated fairly and not discriminated against.

I rather think that the scarcity of space (particularly here in London) has meant that we have a greater desire to carve it out for ourselves. One of the factors in my partner and I separating was me quite literally needing to have a place of my own. I could have tolerated sharing the rest of it, if I’d only had one room of my own to retreat to. For many of my friends – including my ex-partner – the only option is to live in communal houses. But at least then you do get one room to yourself. I’m pretty sure Zygmunt Bauman and Immanuel Kant both had their own rooms to retreat to. I imagine they probably didn’t even have to clean it themselves either.

Airbnb allows me to offer a flexible, zero-hours position of ‘housemate’. I set the terms, and both of us have to stick to those terms or we get negative reviews. Ideally I’d prefer not to take people quite so often, but I need to pay the mortgage, and there are genuine positives. I get to meet nice people who I wouldn’t otherwise meet, it means the place never gets untidy, and having a stranger wandering around keeps me on task, away from the fridge and out of the Facehole. Most importantly, though, I am in control. I choose to share, or not share. If I really need blessed solitude, I take it. No commitment to a lifetime of someone else’s off-days, with both of you free to be your worst possible selves to one another. Maybe a little performativity isn’t a bad thing.

I’m not saying modernity’s better than what came before. But I don’t agree with Bauman that it’s worse. It’s different; it has different opportunities and different challenges. I’ve adapted to it, and I’m influencing it. Structure and agency…

I’ve been doing some thinking about this blog, and what purpose it serves now I’m into the writing-up stage of my thesis. If I’m to submit a full draft in January, it may be that I should spend all my time on that, rather than continuing to push out my embryonic ideas in blog form.

Also, over the last few months I’ve made new friends who are way ahead of me in the fields I’m writing in; philosophy, psychedelics, etc.. I’ve started sending them my posts, and they – somewhat adorably – have often read them and sent me feedback. That’s not something I’ve really had before. I never expected anyone to read my blog (except maybe David) and always intended it as my sketchbook rather than something I was doing for an audience, although, if I look into the darker layers of my psyche, I see this intention is fuelled by a desire to be recognised as open, unpretentious and non-ego-driven. And bright. And motivated. I’m only human, I guess.

Not only is my blog ego-serving, it’s also a cop-out. It’s a way of me reading and writing and presenting, doing the things I love about doctoral study, knowing that these ideas won’t ultimately be checked, judged or criticised. It’s all of the pleasure and none of the pain, and it also means I get to go in whatever direction I happen to be wandering in, whether it’s the right direction or not.

It’s awesome getting feedback. It also brings it home to you how half-baked your ideas really are.

Maybe that’s why I’m now thinking I should stick to actually drafting my thesis; because it would be a safer place to retreat to… for now.

And… for that reason I’m going to continue posting up my thoughts (nothing too precious; there are some gems I need to polish and find a good price for). I need to continually remind myself that I am a neophyte. I’m a fast learner, but learning requires feedback. Also, if selfhood is a delusion, and we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, what is there to lose?

Last week, Jim Carrey showed up on the red carpet at New York fashion week, much to the surprise of TV presenter Catt Sadler, who asked him – on camera – what he was doing there. The conversation played out like this:

Carrey: ‘There’s no meaning to any of this. I wanted to find the most meaningless thing I could come to… here I am. You gotta admit this is meaningless… I don’t believe in icons… I don’t believe in personalities… I believe we are a field of energy dancing for itself.’
Sadler: ‘But Jim, you got really dressed up for this evening!’
Carrey: ‘I didn’t get dressed up.’
Sadler: ‘Who did?’
Carrey: ‘There is no me... There’s just things happening…. It’s not our world. We don’t matter. There’s the good news.’
[Carrey gives Sadler a reassuring squeeze on the shoulders and exits stage right]

The interview went viral. Many of those who understood what Carrey was saying were delighted. Not all – some thought that it would rub the right people up the wrong way. Indeed, those who hadn’t previously entertained the idea of selfhood as a delusion – and the world being devoid of meaning – were puzzled, even disturbed. Media reactions ranged from shock, to concern for Jim’s mental health, to derision. Other media outlets have been clamouring to talk with Jim about the interview, and he has been happy to oblige. Sadler herself has described the interview as ‘unexpected’, but ‘fun’.

In his paper on naturalising spirituality, Letheby (2017) asks whether psychedelics – in their capacity to induce mystical or spiritual experiences – can offer part of a solution for (sub-clinical) existential anxiety, what he also describes as a ‘disenchantment of [or with?] the world’. What Carrey highlighted through his Fashion Week stunt was an enchantment with the self that contributes to existential angst and, one would presume, a relative lack of enchantment with the ‘world outside’.

Neuroscientific work is currently being undertaken to study the neural correlates of the psychedelic experience. It has been found that psychedelics disrupt and reduce the activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN), a network of interacting brain regions whose activity is highly correlated with one another and distinct from other neural networks. The DMN is implicated in mind-wandering, replaying events, agonising over whether to leave your husband, cut your hair short, get your navel pierced, etc.. The dominant hypothesis is that the DMN is ‘also’ responsible for our sense of self, but it is surely the case that this category of mental activity is a significant part of our sense of self; the ‘transtemporal identity’ Metzinger (2016) refers to, and the phenomenon Galen Strawson (2004) describes as the diachronic self. It is the stories we tell ourselves and others about our ‘selves’, the things we obsess over when we are not engaged in the present moment. It is what we write on our online dating profiles. It is how Richard Marshall’s 3:am interviewees answer his opening question: What made you become a philosopher?

In his 2004 essay Against Narrative, Galen Strawson highlights that a ‘strong sense of self’ is often equated to – or at least considered essential for – good mental health. This is an important point: I suspect that when psychologists refer to a ‘strong sense of self’ they actually mean a sense of self that is only very rarely attended to. If one assumes that the ‘self’ exists, then the ‘strong’ metaphor holds firm; it means it is there, it is stable, it is not an object of concern. If, however, we propose that ‘self’ is a delusion, it is no longer obvious whether it is a good or a bad thing for it to be uppermost in our awareness or lying dormant in the background, and therefore which positioning should be labelled ‘strong’ or ‘weak’.

Metzinger (2016) sketches out the human cost of our sense of self, which is substantial. Not only does the activity of our DMN use a lot of energy (and support a great deal of time-wasting), it is also the basis for existential angst. Metzinger reasons that for us to maintain a sense of self despite these considerable detractors, there must be significant payoffs. For example, a sense of self is a prerequisite for assumptions of free will and personal responsibility, without which society would break down.

From his chapter in Pereboom’s anthology on Free Will, it is clear that Strawson (2009) has also come to the conclusion that the self, free will and personal responsibility are constructions. Necessary constructions, perhaps, but constructions nonetheless.

Letheby (2017) cites Flanagan’s work on naturalistic eudaimonics; that is, empirical inquiry into the conditions for human flourishing. It would seem that a more flourished state – both as individuals and collectively – is one where we spend less time thinking about ourselves (our ‘selves’). Despite its implied finality, I’ve opted for the past tense because the processes of flourishing – for example the psychotherapeutic process – may demand a fair amount of inward reflection. But I propose that the state of having flourished and continuing to do so (perhaps an appropriate metaphor would be blooming), is a state where the attention is focused outwards more than inwards.

On the topic of psychotherapy, it is worth noting the recent award of breakthrough therapy status to MDMA-assisted therapy (MAPS 2017). MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is a very interesting substance that has been described as the ‘perfect drug for psychotherapy’ (Sessa 2011). The complex profile of effects on neurotransmitter release and neural receptors as tabulated by Sessa (2017) render MDMA a potent entactogen (or empathogen). MDMA reduces hypervigilance and the amygdala fear response, promotes novel thinking, and produces experiences of emotional communion, oneness, relatedness and openness. It is is a powerful adjunct to psychotherapy because it suppresses our self-protective mechanisms. In a sense, it allows the ‘self’ to be gently broken down.

So, I am proposing that the ‘strong sense of self’ touted by psychologists as the ideal mental state has been misconstrued. It has come to be conflated with the examination and presentation of personal narrative. Lilla (2017) highlights how the modes and attitudes of ‘identity politics’ have become embedded into university curricula and policy, and argues that they have made students less likely to engage with a world beyond themselves. Lilla claims this is ‘strangling liberalism’. O’Neill (2016) warns that it is separatism in disguise.

While my supervisor has warned me about paddling in the treacherous waters at the confluence of neuroscience and philosophy, I am seeing neuroscience coming on in leaps and bounds (in no small part thanks to psychedelic research), and the very existence of the journal Neuroscience and Consciousness (e.g. Letheby & Gerrans 2017) indicates that there is important and groundbreaking work being undertaken at this nexus. I am personally intrigued by the neural correlates of the identity crises of the liquid modernity described (and lamented) at length by Bauman (2003), Illeris (2013) and others. I’m sure there must be people looking into this, but for all the papers still being written about psychedelic ego-dissolution, I wonder whether today’s psychonauts are experiencing ego-dissolution as standard.

During several of my own lower-dose psychedelic experiences I have become hyper-aware of my annoying thought chatter, to the point where I have found it mildly disturbing. The experience is one of an augmented ego rather than a diminished one. Even with 25mg of psilocybin I would describe my experience as primarily mind-revealing and empathetic rather than ego-dissolving (although the recall of ego dissolution is unlikely to be accurate, calling as it does on the very thing that may or may not have been dissolved!).

Ego-dissolution versus apparent ego-augmentation may be an issue of dosage more than one of psychological set. It is highly likely that today’s amateur psychonauts are more moderate in their doses. The excessive 500-600mg hits of LSD that Christopher Bache routinely used (Biehl 2017) and were commonplace among researchers and amateur psychonauts of that era have fallen out of fashion relative to the lowest effective dose or ‘LED’.

A microdose could be hypothesised as sufficient to dampen the mind-wandering activity of the DMN and improve focus on the task at hand, but well below the level required to dissolve the ego and transform us into one of Sessa’s (2017) tie-dyed, ‘bare-torsoed hippes’ (I have to apologise to Ben for dragging this up again, but it’s just too funny not to). A criticism I have heard levelled at the practice of microdosing by some members of the psychedelic community is that it colludes with neoliberalism, promoting performative attitudes and an individualist mindset, rather than helping us to connect with and care for nature and one another.

Jim Fadiman’s large-scale volunteer study of microdosing found that anxious subjects without comorbid depression did not find microdosing beneficial, in many cases reporting increased anxiety. This is a very interesting finding that resonates with some – by no means all – of my own micro and meso-dose experiences, and I hope it is explored further. Speaking at Breaking Convention, Fadiman (2017) said that while he has enough positive reports to generate a reliable picture of the perceived benefits of microdosing, he is still keen to hear from more of those with less positive or mixed experiences.

If there is a causal relation, in which way might it run? Are we, the citizens of Bauman’s liquid modernity, more identity-focused and individualist because we lack profound spiritual experience, or do we shy away from profound experience to protect and sustain our selfhood and our individualist way of life?

My own neophyte thoughts about psychedelics, the sense of self and mental health broadly correspond with Letheby’s (2017) conclusions. A standard definition of ‘spirituality’ is an experience of something bigger than ourselves. While we can transcend the self through broadening our perspective, engaging with nature and our ‘affective responses of wonder and reverence’ (p14), Letheby also cites Harris’ (2014) claim that spirituality is simply ‘insight into the non-existence of the self’ (p15).*

Dismantling the illusion of the self – at least in part – would appear to alleviate psychological suffering of many forms. An important question is how far we should go with it. Metzinger (2016) makes excellent points about society’s reliance on assumptions of free will and personal responsibility, and while it is true that ‘nice people take drugs’ (Release, 2017), it does not necessarily follow that all people who take drugs are nice.

* Harris recently interviewed Thomas Metzinger; a link to the podcast is included below with the other references.

References:

Bauman, Z. 2003. Liquid Love. Polity Press.

Biehl, Z. 2017. Meet the professor who self-administered 73 high-dose LSD sessions. Psymposia, 5 September 2017. Available at: https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/meet-professor-self-administered-73-high-dose-lsd-sessions/

Fadiman, J. 2017. Creative Problem-Solving: High Doses Then, Microdoses Now. Breaking Convention, 1 July, Greenwich, UK. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBd2NRO2Ck

Forsdyke, D. (2015). Wittgenstein’s Certainty is Uncertain: Brain Scans of Cured Hydrocephalics Challenge Cherished Assumptions. Biological Theory. DOI: 10.1007/s13752-015-0219-x

Harris, S. 2014. Waking Up: a Guide to Spirituality without Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Harris, S. 2017. The Nature of Consciousness: A Conversation with Thomas Metzinger. 10 September. Available at: https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-nature-of-consciousness

Illeris, K. 2013. Transformative Learning and Identity. Routledge.

Letheby, C. 2017. Naturalising Psychedelic Spirituality. In Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. 52 (3), p623-642

Letheby, C., & Gerrans, P. 2017. Self unbound: ego dissolution in psychedelic experience. Neuroscience of Consciousness, p1-11.

Lilla, M. 2017. How Colleges are Strangling Liberalism. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 August. Available at: http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Colleges-Are-Strangling/240909

MAPS 2017. FDA Grants Breakthrough Therapy Designation for MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD, Agrees on Special Protocol Assessment for Phase 3 Trials [Press Release] 26 August. Available at: https://www.maps.org/news/media/6786-press-release-fda-grants-breakthrough-therapy-designation-for-mdma-assisted-psychotherapy-for-ptsd,-agrees-on-special-protocol-assessment-for-phase-3-trials

Metzinger, T. 2016. All about the ego-tunnel. Interview by Richard Marshall. 3:am Magazine. 25 February. Available at: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/all-about-the-ego-tunnel/

O’Neill, B. 2016. Orlando has exposed the poison of identity politics. Spiked. 15 June. Available at: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/orlando-has-exposed-the-poison-of-identity-politics/18457#.Wb6WO0qGP1I

Release 2017. Nice People Take Drugs. Campaign merchandise. Available at: https://www.release.org.uk/products/nice-people-take-drugs-tshirts-unisex

Sessa, B. 2011. Can MDMA enhance trauma-focused psychotherapy? Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry. 15 (6), p4-7

Sessa, B. 2017. The 21st century psychedelic renaissance: heroic steps forward on the back of an elephant. Psychopharmacology. 23 August. DOI: 10.1007/s00213-017-4713-7

Strawson, G. 2004. Against Narrativity. Ratio XVII, p428-452. Available at: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/against_narrativity.pdf

Strawson, G. 2009. The Impossibility of Ultimate Moral Responsibility. In Pereboom, D. (Ed). Free Will. 2nd Edition. US: Hackett.

It seems Dave Chalmers has decided that the problem of consciousness is too hard. He’s now moved on to virtual reality:

https://aeon.co/videos/new-realities-are-imminent-how-vr-reframes-big-questions-in-philosophy

I really like Dave Chalmers, and I really hope his philosophical interest in VR isn’t intended as some sort of endorsement of the thing itself, or I might have to stop liking him so much.

Last year I was on a stag do (I know, how very modern) and one of the guys had brought along a little cardboard-box viewer gizmo which was supposed to turn into a virtual reality headset when he put his iPhone into it. They made me look through it. I looked around a bit. There were shapes. They moved. Not only was it aesthetically displeasing, it seemed devoid of meaning and purpose. I said so, and asked if anyone was planning on going outside today (we were in a youth hostel in rural Scotland, and it wasn’t raining).

They told me it wasn’t the thing itself that was amazing, it was what it represented in terms of technological potential.

Arrgh.

Reality is not just about what’s out there. What about what’s in here? Consciousness is the only thing we can be sure of existing. Consciousness is what makes life what it is.

Sure, ponder the idea of virtual reality for philosophical purposes, but do we really have to develop it? Much like space travel and with time travel in Asimov’s Age of Eternity, once you’ve got the technology, that’s one thing. But just think about all the really bad ‘proto-virtual reality’ we’d have to endure on the way.

I hate to think of all this time and money being spent on developing sophisticated technologies that mimic a prescribed visual world. The most beautiful, moving things I’ve ever ‘seen’ have been with my eyes closed; while on psychedelics, during orgasm, while dreaming, etc.. They have been creative acts of seeing, and that is what has been so profound and moving about them. Virtual reality would not engage the imagination. It would even, I presume, restrict interpretation.

Say we did, one day, have the technology to plug ourselves in and experience skiing for ‘real’; the metallic smell of the snow, the cold air on our face, the crunch of the skis on the fresh powder. How could it possibly feel the same, emotionally? Would the threat of falling bear the same consequence (a long trudge uphill to search for a lost ski, a broken leg, death)? Would you be looking forward to a well-earned bowl of gulaschsuppe and a beer served by a cheerful Austrian in a dirndl? Would you feel a glow of gratitude for the lovely weather and an urge to make the most of it before tomorrow’s snow that is likely to keep you playing Scrabble in the chalet? Would you feel a tinge of sadness that you have to leave the mountains on Saturday to go back to work? Would you feel proud and pleased that your friends are noticing the improvement in your short-turn technique?

No. Because you’d be in a wind tunnel on springs with a box on your face, in Swindon.

Finally… take Chalmers’ point that it is, in fact, highly likely that this world *is* a virtual reality, maybe constructed for other beings’ entertainment. Would they really be entertained by us discovering and creating a virtual reality of our own? It sounds like watching someone else play Tomb Raider, only a thousand times worse. Maybe that’s the point of the game. Maybe the moment when we create our own virtual reality, it’s ‘game over’… and we all disappear.

The end of the socialist trentes glorieuses saw the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) put in force in the UK to discourage citizens from ‘misusing’ certain substances. Despite it being a logical impossibility to ‘misuse’ something with no mode of use that is deemed correct or valid, the Act includes not only ‘medicinal’ substances but also those classed as having ‘no therapeutic purpose’.

The Act’s primary objection to the ‘misuse’ of such substances is their ‘undesirable’ side-effects, listed as addiction and dangerous or ‘bizarre’ behaviour.

Superseding the Dangerous Drugs Act (1965), one of the most significant changes in the 1971 Act was the classification of substances according to relative degrees of ‘harm’ from ‘misuse’. In terms of the Act, ‘harm’ is not a measure of physiological toxicity. It is a function of whether the drug is being ‘misused’ or how likely it is to be ‘misused’ (i.e. its desirability), and the extent to which its use constitutes a ‘social problem’.

So, the Misuse of Drugs Act explicitly and unashamedly counters our own desires.

What is the ‘social problem’ of the effects of psychedelic substances (that are neither addictive nor toxic), that warrants their classification among the ‘most harmful’? Psychedelic experience enables people to learn about their minds, and to think differently. It can make people more open to new experiences (MacLean et al. 2011). It can make people more empathetic and less neurotic (Wagner et al. 2017). It can lead people to see greater beauty and value in life and the natural world (Griffiths 2006, 2008). These attitudes and behaviours obstruct the goals of an individualised, neoliberal society keen on increasing productivity and achieving dominion over nature.

Alcohol is a highly desirable drug; it lowers inhibitions, helping us to relax and connect with one another. It tastes good. It is woven into the physical and ritual infrastructure of our society and is associated with leisure, socialising, eating, sex and other pleasurable activities. Alcohol is a direct cause of social problem. Lowered inhibition can lead to aggression and impaired judgement. Accidents are caused by loss of psychomotor control and/or slower reaction times. Such incidents inflict physical and emotional harm to the drinker and those around them. In addition, alcohol is physiologically addictive and toxic. It is broken down in the liver, mouth and gut to acetaldehyde, a carcinogen that causes cancers of the mouth, throat, oesophagus, breast, liver and bowel. Alcohol causes liver damage (cirrhosis) and produces highly reactive molecules in cells that can damage DNA and further increase susceptibility to cancer and other diseases.

According to the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971), alcohol is not harmful.

Griffiths, R. et al. 2006. Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained  personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology, 187, pp.268-283

Griffiths, R. et al. 2008. Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22 (6), pp.621-632

MacLean, K. A., Johnson, M. W. and Griffiths, R. R. 2011. Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22 (11), pp.1453-1461.

Wagner, M.T. et al. 2017. Therapeutic effect of increased openness: Investigating mechanism of action in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Journal of Psychopharmacology

As I sit at the garden table, eating scrambled eggs on buttery toast with a side of dressed spinach, hummus and avocado, I notice something.

I notice my scrambled eggs on buttery toast with a side of dressed spinach, hummus and avocado.

I notice the way my teeth sink into the soft, salty, peppery eggs and meet in the squidgy, buttery, sponge of the bread, and how if I suck just a little the melted butter runs around my tongue in the most delightful way.

I notice the avocado slices trying to escape the prongs of the fork, slipping and sliding over one another as if to say ‘…not me! Not yet!’

I notice the stems of the spinach, bending and cracking as I roll them into the creamy, grainy hummus.

I notice this because I am alone.

No-one to ask me what I am thinking.

No-one to talk at me talk at me talk at me.

Nobody here but me.

Readings, B. 1996. The University in Ruins. Harvard University Press.

Readings describes himself as ‘deeply ambivalent’ about the university, and his book as an attempt to think his way out of ‘an impasse between militant radicalism and cynical despair.’ I know how he feels; I felt that way for a while. For me, there has been a turning point; my anger has gone, and I feel a lot more positive about the future. I’m optimistic that we are beginning to embark on a viable and preferable path of human development and innovation… but more on that another time I guess!

Writing in the mid-1990s, shortly before Dearing and Blair – and Reading’s own untimely death in a plane crash – Readings makes the case that there is no longer any fixed idea of the university, that its social role as an institution is up for grabs. He draws a distinction between this claim and the attempts of others to engage with conflicting ideas of the university, and those who argue that new theoretical advances render the old ideas obsolete.

Readings’ work is focused on the Western idea of the University, and on an American view in particular, explaining that ‘Americanization’ is synonymous with globalization. He doesn’t beat around the bush here and I guess that’s one of the few advantages of being dead, you don’t have to deal with the consequences of posthumous publication. Maybe that’s why this book comes across as so brave and ahead of its time. Readings sees the dissolution of the university’s sense of purpose is an outcome of ‘decline of the national cultural mission’ (p3). The university used to produce, protect and inculcate national culture, and now there is no national culture.

I found myself questioning this while watching a sheep-shearing contest yesterday – I am on a self-led writing retreat on the west coast of Wales), but I don’t think that’s the kind of national culture Readings thought it was the university’s task to protect. By the way, the guy who won was called Shaun. True story.

At this point in reading, I thought about whether there were (and still are) some things about national culture in the Western world that needed changing; white supremacy, nepotism, ‘powerful knowledge’ and so on (on the other hand, much of the English literature canon, while heavy on dead white males, is on the subjects of oppression, exile and diversity). Do we need a national culture? What is its value? What if we do have a culture, it is just more fluid, mutifaceted and multicoloured than it used to be? Sure, today’s universities are bureaucratic transnational corporations as Reading points out, but they are also questioning, broadening and synthesising culture. At least, ours does; I see it happen on a daily basis.

With bureaucracy comes administration and the pursuit of what Readings calls the ‘empty concept’ of excellence.

Barzun (1968, p19) speaks of administrators thus:

‘if caught young, such men can become top civil-servants and be accepted as professionals without being scholars; they can enjoy a prestige of their own and share fully in the amenities that are widely believed to adorn campus life; and they can do more than any other agency, human or electronic, to render efficient the workings of the great machine.’

Practically, we need administrators, and – having been a programme administrator earlier on in my HE career, I rather think the drive to excellence may be the most obvious source of meaning in an administrative role. In my university admin job I was dealing with students face-to-face and over the phone at least some of the time, but many university administrators do not. They deal with numbers, interfaces, forms and faceless applications. What rewards exist for such an administrator that enable them to derive pleasure from the work? Dealing with applications efficiently, monitoring satisfaction, using data to predict critical incidents, ensuring applicants have accurate information about the course and that students receive and attend to updates; this is what it means for an administrator to do their job well. Benchmarks and targets provide direction; something to aim for.

In this sense, ‘excellence’ may be deeply, personally meaningful, and I am concerned that in decrying it as an empty concept – as I have myself done – academics reveal a worrying lack of empathy and understanding (perhaps the complaint is even emptier than the concept). There are, of course, cases where bureaucratic pressures on institutions and individuals have been linked with distressing events. Ron Barnett told me about Stefan Grimm, former Toxicology chair at Imperial College, who killed himself while under employment review having not met Imperial’s demanding grant income targets. But we have all, to some extent, been complicit in constructing the world we live in and we do what we can to make ourselves comfortable in it. We are all hypocrites.

Don’t get me wrong; I like what Readings is saying, he says it well, and he was clearly ahead of the game in forseeing all this. Also, he is not blaming the bureaucrats. He is correct right that a university focused purely on excellence serves nothing but itself, but a university is not an inanimate object, it consists of human beings who value stability and meaning in their lives. Would we level the same charge at a coal-mining community, desperate to preserve their livelihood? Thatcher clearly did, but I’d like to think we would approach the wicked problem of the future of the university with sensitivity, respect and patience. As agents we can enact change on the system, but the system acts on us as well (Archer 2007). We are products of it as well as agents within it.

In describing the breakdown of the nation-state, Readings identifies nationalism as a sign of this dissolution, recognising the conflicting desires that service globalisation. The ‘hollowing out’ (p47) of the state entails a loss of belief in a political alternative, as – he argues – a purely capitalist system actually offers a non-ideological belonging. In a capitalist system, everyone just has to focus on doing their own job effectively; there is no need to concern ourselves with finding universal answers to questions of the good life and human destiny. It is essentially a breakdown of the collaborative process and could be seen as a form of stress-avoidance; avoiding ‘conflict’, getting our heads down and getting on with it. I think people see it as trusting in nature. I certainly got the sense that many people see our true nature as individual and competitive rather than collective and collaborative when I attended last year’s book launch of Rethinking Capitalism. I am personally ambivalent and conflicted; the biology graduate in me says that we are both, and that this is one of the primary tensions in human nature; a yin and yang that we are constantly balancing. The psychedelic researcher in me says that we are all one consciousness, and the ego is a product of fear that stops us from working together and recognising our commonalities. Fear – resulting from trauma – is very efficiently transferred in a population. It is cumulative and reciprocal.

I’ve just ordered Jaroslav Pelikan’s ‘Idea of the University’, as Readings is intriguingly dismissive of Pelikan’s re-reading of Newman; he sees it as outdated (Pelikan was writing around 1960) and identifies its alternative title Apologia pro vita sua – ‘in defence of one’s own life’ – as particularly telling.

So, Readings and I agree entirely on the observation that the university has become self-serving (or self-sustaining). Of course it has. We live in a precarious and fast-changing world where jobs are less secure and the underlying commitments these sustain (families, home ownership) are ever more demanding. We are all concerned for our livelihoods. I often get the feeling reading polemic literature on the university that the authors – many with secure jobs that have prima facie meaning – feel that administrators are morally as well as intellectually bankrupt. I would rather live in a society with minimal bureaucracy, an economy founded on Jackson’s three C’s (care, craft, culture), and reduced working hours in line with the predictions of Keynes and the recommendations of the New Economics Foundation, but we cannot wait for the administrators to enact change; they alone do not have the capacity to free us all from the system. Academics may feel oppressed by the bureaucrats, but they would do well, I think, to mind Freire’s (1972) advice that our oppressors need liberating before we can become liberated ourselves.

Readings identifies consumerism as the biggest threat to university education and a ‘sign that the individual is no longer a political entity’ (p48), along with increased migration and internationalization. Citing Gérard Granel (1982), Readings argues that ‘it is now pointless to seek the destiny of the University in its capacity to realize the essence of a nation-state or its people’ (p48). Granel sought to redeem the University by giving it a negative coherence; an oxymoronic ‘coherent anarchy’ (Fynsk 1991, p350). These arguments are still alive in universities; many teachers at UAL are confused about whether we are supposed to be offering our students what they see as a British education. Most of them are fairly sure they know what a British education is, particularly in the creative subjects, but uncertainty abounds about why students from China come to Britain to study fine art, for example, when we hear that artists in China are being imprisoned for creating subversive works, and why they come to study fashion when the values and processes of the Chinese fashion industry are so different from our own. There is the colonial view that our Chinese students revere the British way and expect to return to China and influence their home culture (perhaps an example of American-globalisation of which Readings speaks). In addition are assumptions and theories about trade links, filial piety, social status and social capital. The true picture is undoubtedly complex.

Angst is rarely a productive way forward. Perhaps what is best is for us to continue to deliver what we think is a British education, with all the evaluation and reflection that entails (and openness to learning and influence of other cultures), and without endless pondering on what other nations want from us. Such a preoccupation suggests an unhealthy dependence and a diminished sense of identity. Here again we can call on Carl Rogers’ theory of human development, only for a nation of peoples rather than an individual. With authenticity, acceptance and understanding we can become the best we can be.

Readings is saying the essence of a nation-state has now dissolved, and cites Heidegger’s Rectorial Address as the final plea for universities to band together to fulfil the political will of the nation-state. Also lost, Readings claims, is any referent for culture. Readings describes CP Snow’s argument for two academic cultures as a ‘fascinating rhetorical ploy’ (p61), and highlights F.R. Leavis’ recognition of the significance of Snow’s treatise in the process of fragmentation.

Readings proceeds to place literary culture in opposition to technology (p61), and sketches out the philosophical notion of culture espoused by the German Idealists; founded on concepts such as Wissenschaft and Bildung, and preceding the fragmentation described by Snow. The German Idealists believed that only a unified academic culture would direct progress and innovation towards a ‘higher social unity’ (p61).

I’ll probably write more on that in a bit – it does overlap with recent posts, and I think now is the time to engage first-hand with Snow and Leavis’ famous argument. Watch this space.