One of the curiosities of human thinking is that humans often don’t like their thinking or how their thinking makes them feel, their mood. As a result, they indulge in deliberate mind-altering experiences. Mind-altering can be done in hundreds, if not thousands, of ways, so it goes by many names. Examples of deliberate mind-altering experiences include:
These examples show that there are many ways humans like to alter their thinking.
One thing mind-altering experiences have in common is that the practitioners tend to speak very enthusiastically about them. Another thing mind-altering experiences have in common is that people who witness them are enthusiastically judgmental about what they see. One person can watch another person going through a mind-altering experience and be: quite favorably impressed by it, quite curious about it, or quite worried about it. Some people witness mind-altering and say, “ah... so what?” But many others do not have that kind of indifferent reaction, and they tend to be enthusiastic about their choice of whether the mind-altering is a good or bad idea.
Finally, and this is what makes this an interesting topic for me, much of the thinking about what is an appropriate or inappropriate activity in altering one’s consciousness springs from instinctive/emotional-level thinking. Human communities are in the habit of labeling consciousness-altering activities “good” or “bad” without giving much thought to the real-world consequences of those labels. This puts the labeling in the Goat Sacrificing category, and the current spectacular example of this “act without insight” mentality is the War on Drugs.
The cost of enthusiastically judging mind-altering is the topic of this essay.
For hundreds of thousands of generations (millions of years), natural selection has been favoring more versatile thinking in humans. This is taking place inside larger and larger brains. The human brain is an evolutionary wonder, and it got to be a wonder by being pushed hard by natural selection. Because of this, it should not be surprising to find that human brains have “kinks” of various sorts. The human brain works well enough on the whole, but there are undoubtedly parts that could be (and will be) designed better.
The part of the brain that has been pushed the most is the part we call consciousness - the part that engages in advanced tool use, advanced language, and abstract thinking. It is my speculation that this heavily worked part of peoples’ brains “aches” a bit, especially after a long day’s use, and people find relief when it “turns off” for a while.
Most, if not all, mind-altering involves turning down the intensity of higher-level brain functions. When we mind-alter, we “let down our hair” in one way or another, which is another way of saying, we let the lower level functions - the instincts - run the show for a while.
One reason for mind-altering is it’s comfortable. This is what we are doing at parties and other celebratory social functions. Another reason to change consciousness is to experience sensations that the high level processes rarely encounter – to add insight about the world we normally experience, and any realms of existence beyond it. This involves dredging up what is normally instinctive thinking to the conscious level, or letting the conscious level come up with what are essentially brand new thoughts.
Examples of these are:
Many people admire the insights that come from mind altering, and for that reason they admire the people who do the mind-altering. Many, but not all. Some people get deeply concerned and fearful rather than admiring.
Consciousness-altering seems to be universal, and just as universal is watching your neighbor’s consciousness- altering and then making judgments on its appropriateness.
The instinctive thinking that supports enthusiastic judgment against a style of mind-altering is fear of crazy people. A person with an altered consciousness is acting crazy. When that crazy behavior is familiar, as in “just having fun”, the fear is minimal. If the crazy is “strange” behavior, the fear becomes substantial. If that fear of bad crazy is mixed with a healthy dose of fear of strangers - these are strange people doing this bad crazy behavior - the instinctive call for action gets very powerful, and it's time to call in the goats.
Added to the fear of bad crazy is the fear of contagion, as in, spreading disease. If this bad mind altering technique becomes popular and starts spreading rapidly, the fear factor goes way up and the call for prohibitive action gets even more intense. Contagion is also the source of the fear of “gateway drugs”, as in, “Well, this drug may not be so bad itself, but it leads the user into using the really bad stuff.”
Humans around the world, and of all cultures, form strong opinions about what is appropriate consciousness-altering and what is inappropriate. Those strong opinions are increased greatly as the community gets more prosperous. An example of this is the rise in popularity of Temperance Movements as Industrial Age prosperity comes to a community. As the prosperity increases, those who are “doing it wrong” are more strongly censured. They can be jailed, exiled or even killed. Those who are “doing it right” are deeply admired.
An example of doing it wrong is consuming alcohol in a mosque. An example of doing is right is “speaking in tongues” at a Christian Evangelist religious revival.
The admirable goal of controlling mind altering is to stop abusive, self-destructive and violent behavior. Every Temperance Movement promotes reducing these tragic behaviors as its goals. Where laws and policies can help reduce the personal and social damage done by abuse, and help people learn to do their mind altering responsibly, these are good policies. They are helping the community grow, prosper and stay enfranchised (covered below).
The problem comes when too much instinctive thinking mixes in, and tolerance is lost in the implementation. The instinct thinking that leads to poor implementation is that the bad forms of mind altering let in a demon who then gets in control and provokes the terrible behavior. (Within this style of thinking “Demon Rum” is only half a metaphor.) The instinctively simple answer is: “Don’t let the demon in in the first place” which means supporting prohibition. A related concern is addiction, as in, once this “disease” is contracted it is nearly impossible to cure. A third powerful concern, as mentioned above, is that of contagion - if a mind altering technique is popular, it spreads like a disease. All of the above instinctive thinking fears promote supporting simple prohibition, not “learn how to do it better” tolerance as the way of controlling bad mind altering.
So in working to stop a damaging mind altering technique, and its spread, the intentions behind the simple prohibition choice are the best. Sadly, the results of the prohibition choice haven’t matched these intentions well at all.
The War on Drugs is notorious for costing billions and not achieving its goal of stopping illegal recreational drug use in the US. This Wikipedia “War on Drugs” article gives some statistics about what could be saved by being more rational about dealing with the recreational drug issue. From the article, “According to a 2008 study published by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron, the annual savings on enforcement and incarceration costs from the legalization of drugs would amount to roughly $41.3 billion, with $25.7 billion being saved among the states and over $15.6 billion accrued for the federal government. Miron further estimated at least $46.7 billion in tax revenue based on rates comparable to those on tobacco and alcohol ($8.7 billion from marijuana, $32.6 billion from cocaine and heroin, remainder from other drugs).”
This 10 Apr 13 Forbes article, “The Wasteful War On Drugs Is Doomed By Economics 101” by Jacob Sullum, gives more information on why the Drug War hasn't worked as planned. From the article, “The basic problem with that strategy, as drug policy scholars such as University of Maryland criminologist Peter Reuter have been pointing out for years, is that illegal drugs acquire most of their value close to the consumer. The cost of replacing destroyed crops and seized shipments is therefore relatively small, a tiny fraction of the “street value” trumpeted by law enforcement agencies (which may in any case be fictitious). As you get closer to the retail level, the replacement cost rises, but the amount that can be seized at one time falls. That dilemma helps explain why throwing more money at source control and interdiction never seems to have a substantial, lasting effect on drug consumption.”
In sum, the War on Drugs has cost billions per year, lasted decades, and not succeeded. But these are just the direct costs. They are far from the biggest costs.
The biggest and most persistent cost of enforcing a judgment on mind-altering is that it disenfranchises those who the community powers-that-be have decided are doing it wrong. This cost occurs because those who are doing it wrong don’t agree, and they are not going to give up their way just because other community members have decided against it. This is an emotional choice, an instinctive choice, so the enthusiast will want to continue even if giving up their preference is a very logical thing to do. Doing something for logical reasons is analytic thinking, not instinctive thinking; it's hard to do, and it's not comfortable. Since mind-altering is all about instinctive thinking - doing something that is in some sense comfortable - those who want to do it “wrong” or inappropriately will ignore the analytic thinking. Instead, they will become secretive about doing it - they will become disenfranchised.
Disenfranchisement means that a person feels the community doesn't care about them, that they don't have a say in community affairs, and, as a result, they care less about the community’s welfare. Disenfranchisement is not an on-off thing; it's shades of gray. A person can back their community whole-heartedly, a lot, a little, or not much at all.
The less a person is enfranchised, the less they will do for their community, and the more they will do against it. Disenfranchisement is aggravated when large numbers of the community feel that they are disenfranchised.
The spectacular worst case scenarios in the 2010's of community disenfranchisement involved the Palestinians of Gaza and Somali pirates operating off the Somalia coast. The Gaza and Somali communities are supporting horribly anti-social activities conducted by their radical elements because they just don’t care. They are seriously disenfranchised communities.
Disenfranchisement in the USA is not as severe as in Somalia or Gaza, but we have it, and it's expensive. The riots in the summer of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri are a dramatic expression of disenfranchisement. The billion dollar illegal recreational drug industry is a much bigger but less dramatic example.
A major source of disenfranchisement in the US is disputing right ways and wrong ways of consciousness-altering. Let's look at the alcohol/drug issue as an example. Temperance movements started in the 1800's in various places around the world. One US version of this movement, Prohibition in the 1920's, has become part of American lore. It became famous for the ways it wasn’t working - gangster violence, speakeasies, and boot-legging. Another equally famous version of a temperance movement is the War on Drugs started in the US in the 1960's and still going on today. It too is famous for ways it isn’t working - gangster violence, drug-fueled parties, excessive criminal penalties, and escalating drug dealing. These are all expensive activities that are supported by the powers-that-be making disenfranchising choices on how to deal with mind-altering styles. If legal, the commerce conducted to support mind-altering activities would become much less expensive, and the people enjoying these forms of recreation would become more responsible about how they conducted these activities. One example of this happening was more responsible alcohol consumption after Prohibition ended. Another similar example is taking place as this book is being written - cannabis use in Colorado and Washington states.
Another thing the alcohol and recreational drug prohibition movements have in common is they show that prohibiting popular forms of consciousness-altering does not extinguish their practice. What prohibition does do is make the practice expensive for the whole community by disenfranchising the practitioners, and the enforcers, in various expensive ways, as I will cover next.
The secondary cost of disenfranchisement is proving wondrously fertile ground for growing hypocrisy and corruption. Hypocritical leaders (who say one thing and do another) thrive in this environment. With one hand, they support the fearful part of the community by talking about the virtues of prohibition and temperance. With the other hand, they support the disenfranchised part of the community by looking the other way when encountering popular, illegal activities. They can indulge in and even profit from both sides. For example: the preacher who rails against the evils of drink in a Sunday morning sermon and takes a collection, then makes a bootlegging run that evening. Or the cop who is collecting his salary, but catches only the drug smugglers who aren’t paying him off.
The cost gets larger as the leaders and the community become acclimated to hypocritical practices. The practices can spread, which starts a vicious cycle. The hypocrisy and corruption disenfranchise even more members of the community - the hypocrisy and corruption spread into more community activities. Very ugly, indeed! In the US we have the billons of dollars recreational drug shadow economy. In Pakistan this cycle has evolved to the point where as much as half the economy is “shadow economy” - outside what the powers-that-be control. It includes things such as shimming up a power pole to steal electricity from the state-owned power company. This is a hefty dose of disenfranchisement.
What I am going to recommend goes against instinctive thinking, which means it's hard to do, and it must be taught. That said, the American community must recognize how expensive it is to be judgmental about consciousness-altering activities in all their forms. We must become aware of our blind-spot thinking in this arena.
We must recognize this and become much more tolerant. Tolerance is an important Industrial Age virtue, and this is another area where it pays off. This kind of tolerance supports enfranchisement, which has always been at the heart of the American Dream. People around the world dream of coming to America - it's the Land of the Free. Freedom in this usage means enfranchised. So the solution is learning and practicing tolerance in this area of human activity.
One big step in this direction of being more tolerant needs to take place during the law drafting process: separate the crime from the reason it happened. In the eyes of the law charge a person for an illegal activity, but be deliberately blind to why that illegal activity happened. Example: a person is driving recklessly and stopped by the police. The police can charge the person with reckless driving, but why this person was reckless driving should not matter in the eyes of the law. DUI, texting while driving, and similar laws should not be in the law books. All that matters, legally, is whether a person is operating their vehicle safely or not.
There are many ways to mind-alter, and most of those ways can be done responsibly if the practitioners aren’t criminalized and disenfranchised. Practicing this tolerance will save us a whole lot of money, to boot, because we can stop spending the billions we currently waste to fight the War on Drugs.