A while ago, i was having a discussion here about what i perceive to be a general tendency within the psychedelic community, including this place: the tendency to be very negative about society as a whole and to look down at most people who have never taken psychedelic drugs. To look at the majority of the people as empty-headed zombies, programmed to do empty-headed stuff and to be purely materialistic.

Immediately i got jumped on by many people who strongly critisized me for saying this and...as a result i got furious with anger and said some realy stupid and nasty things .

Still, this is a serious issue for me. I must admit that i am not completely unfamiliar with some of these feelings. For instance, when all kinds of racist party´s where strongly gaining momentum throughout europe i was appalled, not just by the fact that this happened, but also by how easily the public seemed to simply accept this trend.

Nevertheless, i think it´s important to try to be positive. I must admit that i sometimes fail horribly at being positive, as well. But that doesn´t mean that i haven´t got the right to critisize a negative attitude towards society.

Society isn´t all that bad. There may be all kind of things terribly wrong in the world. But there are also important things that have been accomplished through the ages.And most importantly: there are some universal values that most of us share, based on respect for every human being. And what´s especially very concerning when people start critisising western society, is that they often turn a blind eye to human rights violations commited by regimes that don´t go very well with the west. Fidel castro is the most well known example of this, but i have seen people defending moammar gadhaffi on this forum as well.

Just as it is appalling when people simply accept racist party´s to gain political ground, it is appalling to me, when people easily dismiss gross human rights violations by dictatorial regimes, either by denying the fact that they happen in the first place (the 'american propaganda' argument), or by deploying the argument of cultural relativism (it´s their culture, you have to respect that they think differently about torturing people).

I think that we all have the obligation to at all times, make the right choices. It doesn´t realy matter, in this sence, whether a violation of basic moral principles is coming from the political left or the political right. To turn a blind eye to things that are just wrong, because 'they´re on our side', or something of that sort, is never acceptable. Basic moral principles are above politic´s and should never be dismissed.

There are many things wrong in the world. And also within the society´s we live in. But then it´s simply a matter of fixing those wrongs and make them right again, even when it takes an awfull lot of effort and time.

But i still want to emphasize that we should never look down at people and the world we live in. Not only do most people mean well. There are important moral principles that are engrained within our culture.

I don´t want to be part of an internet community that looks down on people, that wallows in negativity and that stands with it´s back towards society. If again, many people are gonna jump at me and say things on the order of 'how dare you say this, society is made out of pure evil' or something of that order, then i think i am done here.

I agree.

Pretty much completely with what you say here.

it is a double edged sword. You can choose to only focus on positive aspects, but that does not really make the really horrible negative aspects of this society go away. Just like if you only focus on the negative aspects it does not help do much for creating more positive aspects.

In reality we are destroying our planet..or world..our home. This is just stupid and western industrialized culture is a huge driving force behind all of this. I just really dont think that not acknowledging and calling out our society for it's faults here is going to help..the system is broken becasue it destroys our world, our home. This warrents heavy criticism.

As I see it: Be all that you can be. I cant save humanity, its not my or yours problem there is 7 billion people on the earth. There is no point to carry the mistakes of 7 billion people on your shoulders.

Only thing one can do is to handle your own stuff and try to make as little impact as possible. The sooner one accept that fact the better, will be alot happier beacause of it.

Only thing that can help us get out off this mess is hard core science

Actually Jamie, it does not warrant heavy criticism.

It warrants heavy action. Criticizing does absolutely nothing.

And at the same time, the fears need to be checked and grounded again in reality.
Yes we are destroying the planet, but not a single one of us will be here to see any of the severely bad ramifications of that. No I'm not talking about Katrina, I'm talking about see levels rising feet around the planet.

Besides that society is waking up to the fact that we are destroying the planet and things are changing. Fast enough? Not for my liking, but I'm not in charge of...well...of everything or much of anything either. The entire world is becoming more liberal, more educated, more tolerant, and slowly waking up to a lot of the issues we have. It won't and can't happen over night, and it won't all happen in a single generation either, but we are vastly better off today than we were at most points in history with regards to human rights, education, and living conditions. Yes I understand all the problems around populations growth, and oil depletion etc, doesn't change the fact that humans are vastly more educated on the whole today than they were even 50 years ago. We have a much better chance of dealing with these problems.

From my view it's like this.
The world is exactly the way it should be. It will be all right because it is the way it is. I didn't vote to be here living and I don't get to vote about dying. Something far beyond any of us propels this thing forward day and night. No reason what-so-ever to fight that. Take action for change, but then let the results of those actions stand on their own.

Are you in control of the thoughts passing through your head? Now extrapolate to 7 Billion people. This is far bigger than any of us. We are a living breathing biomass...together...as one.

If there will be a change in society it will change when enough people reach critical mass and want change. I believe it will happen. I could be wrong, but I'm happier believing it will happen.

I honestly see no sense slamming western society like it is the full problem. It clearly is not to my eyes.

Life evolves, right now it has evolved into concrete jungle cities with creatures commuting in and out of these citeis with cars and oil. This to will pass, but what it will turn into may surprise all of us. Do we go back to the stone age? I doubt it. Humans on the whole are to educated these day's. Even if half the planet died off the other half would carry on to bigger and better things. 1000-5000 years from now humanity will be something you couldn't even imagine would be my guess


My only real point is that it really is better to focus on the positive and not the negative unless you are doing something positive to fix a negative. Otherwise you end up allowing yourself to become negative thereby tipping the biomass ever so slightly more towards the negative. Every individual has an effect, but at the end of the day we are just one biomass called earth. The web of life is vastly connected and it is ironic that the illusion of a separate self causes so much pain and suffering, but alas this is exactly the way it is.

Life is good and bad. Depends upon the subjective view of the 'individual'.

Peace.

This ^^^

Stop worrying about how other people feel about society, turn off the computer, and go do something to make this world a better place.

Respectfully,
-Another complacent hypocritical American wasting his life away staring at computer screen instead of taking his own good advice.

I can see where your coming from. The thing is...many of those people who have never taken a psychedelic drug are incredibly aggresive toward us people who have taken psychedelics.
IMO psychedelic users are treated as less than human in many ways by society.

The fact that "they" will literally lock you in a cage for extracting DMT from a tree is pretty outrageous and so IMO the larger part of society has done a great deal to enforce the negative views that pscyhedelic users have of them.

When great injustices are being served out left and right it pretty much fuels the
"us against them" way of thinking.

While I believe that a free thinking society as an idea has potential. I don't see much hope for the current model of "society" that has been forced on everyone.

I do think it is important to remain positive despite all the B.S however.

We as a socieity will fix them, and we will learn our childeren how to fix them as well. All the childeren being born thse days...they are all smarter than we where at those age. They need us to give the good example and they will succeed where we fail.

Equal rights for women for instance, is something that has been fought for. And there are still many places where they´re simply non-existant. So, don´t take anything for granted. It´s that attitude, a sort of cultural awareness that connects you to society and the world around you and that will make you part of the movement of change. Just like within society back then, there was a big wrong there: women where seen as useless animals that just happen to be here so that they can get sons (instead of daughters ofcourse). A terrible situation. But with a lot of effort and struglle, our ancstors fixed this big wrong in our society. Not by turning their backs toward it, but by fully engaging into it, even if it meant imprisonment for them.

The DMT community needs to see just as much what it misses if it doesn´t full on engages in society, just as society needs to see what it misses ou on when smart, creative, sensitive, ethical and talented human beings are turning their backs toward it.

Many peope are working on those environmental issues. I know that there are even quite a few bankers who actually agree with the OWS movement, so you cannot say that all bankers are corrupt.

We just have been a little compacent for the past few decades and that has stopped us from thinking about the world. Now some banks start falling, some currencies crumble and some glaciers keep melting. So are we gonna built a shelter for ouselves and wait for the impending doomsday or are we gonna do everything in our power to prevent it from happening, fixing each of those problems one by one?

Yes, but they don´t know who we are. That´s why they can keep holding on to these beliefs.
I look like it this way: there´s this french mountaineer who´s nicknamed spiderman. He climbs tall buildings and after that he get´s arrested each time. It´s just this one single individual who´s doing something that may be risky in the eyes of the public. It´s a single case and most people are afraid of heights to at least a certain extent, so they all look at this guy like he´s a clown and getting arrested is part of the act. It´s not that this makes whole society evil, it´s just that they don´t know what to do with this guy.
But when guys like steve jobs openly say that they´ve had a psychedelic experience and that it was one of the most profound and wonderfull experiences they´ve had in their lives, you can slowly expect a change in attitude. Amost every expert these days says that drugs should be legalised and that the war on drugs has failed and will keep on failing, that it costs more lives than it was supposed to save and that it is overly expensive and based on outdated views.

How do you think the men (when women still wheren´t allowed in parliament)where mocked who for the first time spoke like this on womens rights in houses of parliament? But their words have now become the fabric of society, while their opponents have been long forgotten.

I agree emphatically with BOTH SIDES on this issue.

I fully agree with, for example, Steven Pinker, who methodically and successfully points out that "society" now is by far the most peaceful and enlightened of any point in history.

And I fully sympathize with an ENDLESS list of great minds in the past who have "turned their backs" on society.

I don't care about society. I think only that society should be "not bad," that there not be overwhelmingly powerfully bad tendencies pervading it (like absurd levels of tribalism).

But I think life is about INDIVIDUALS (yes, and part of a person's ideal development is "right action" toward others). I want society mostly just to stay out of my way--and I don't have much concern for it otherwise. My goal towards others is to act well MYSELF--and to acknowledge that I can't (and don't want to) control others.

The ideal of human existence is to generate "good" individuals. With all good individuals, a "bad" society is impossible. Without good individuals, a good society is probably impossible.

I think the big reason why so many in our little community have a negative view of society is the persecution, as it has been said. It really gets me down when I think about it. A few special molecules have given me so much, a priceless amount, of good and yet if I was exposed I would be thrown in jail. I see it as how many though out time have been persecuted for their beliefs. If I am caught, I'll really be no different than so many in the past who were harmed, imprisoned, etc. for what they believe.

But the important thing to remember, is one side must be the bigger side. One side must take the high road. I don't like what anti-drug folks do. It gets under my skin to hear lies and false information. My girlfriend works for someone who loved her job busting people for drugs in the army. It sickens me. But if the endless cycle is to be stopped, one side must be forgiving. It would work faster if both sides were forgiving, but good luck, most of the other side are a bunch of ignorant bigot fascists.

But I forgive them.

Another very important thing to remember, is our little community here is still part of society. Society is not something you can escape! If you move to the mountains to be a hermit and live alone forever, you still are part of society by your absence. Your absence changed society.

So what can we do? Well, I have made it a habit to do my best to give people the truth about things when I can. I always do my best to keep eyebrows at acceptable elevations, but it is so important to spread the truth. This is why I joined the Nexus. More than any other forum or site, this one is dedicated to the truth.

The truth, by its very nature, corrects falsities and lies. This can be seen throughout history. This is why we have so much good social reform, and human rights have almost always trended towards equality and justice. It is the fabric of the truth that makes it behave this way. It may not happen as fast as any of us like, but it happens. My state is voting to legalize marijuana next month. Whether it passes or not, it is a sign of the triumph of truth! They tried to vilify and demonize that pretty little plant, but their lies cannot be sustained.

The same is true for the environment. People like Paul Stamets and normal folks are awakening up to the truth. Perhaps it will be to late. Perhaps we'll have to learn the hard way, but as far as I can tell, the trend is in the right direction.

All society is really, is a bunch of confused apes trying to make sense of why they exist. When viewed in that light, it is easier to forgive the wrongs, and appreciate the rights.

I would really like to share your optimism. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who feels like there is some type of active conspiracy involved in trying to eliminate psychedelics from the picture.

I hate to get all conspiracy like but I just can't shake the feeling there are those at the top who know exactly what psychedelics are capable of and THAT is why they don't want them around, becuse they are a threat to the power/money structure.

Obviously I have no proof or evidence to support this idea, it's just more like a feeling I can never quite shake that says....there is something ELSE going on here.

However, I see this as no reason to give up all optimism, even if there is a conspiracy of some kind, I still strongly believe that rightousness will ultimately prevail in this world.

I believe that a shift of society to a more enlightened state would be comparable to a woman giving child birth...It will be painful, loud, and full of tense anxiety but when the labor has finished what will be born will truly be miraculous.

-

Well, next time some 18 year old kid suddenly realized that the economy is fake and dirty, that a large percentage of our luxuries here we afford at the heavy cost of what are basically slaves overseas and that the current rate of environment desturction is alarming at the best of time you can tell them that there is no point in their newfound criticism...

You really expect anyone to be able to act on something before they can have this realization that leads to inevitable criticism that usually inspires such action?

I guess I might be alone here but when I look around I see a society that is at least 50% just a pile of shit. We should all be vocal about that 50% and work to get rid of it and improve what remains. This is happening somewhat, but it is happening in part because of many of the people who do openly criticize this society.

I like technology and I like people. I like community..but I also just like to be realistic about the situation and not indulge peoples false hopes for the sustainability of a system that seems inherantly unsustainable.

I do think that things are on the right track and thay things are just where they are sopposed to be..but I also think that people waking up, criticizing the current paradigm when they see something that seems off, informing others and then removing their participation in that aspect of the system to be just another essential part of getting us to where we need to be. I dont beleive in absolute positivism..I think it was Maynard who once said that anger can be an extremely useful tool, but it is hate that is unproductive. They are two very different things. I do not see a lot of hate, but I do see a lot of anger. Anger is natural is going to surface when people wake up realize how backwards some aspects of our system is at the moment. People are waking up every day, so you cant expect them all to not critisize what they see before they begin to act on what they see. It takes one to get to the other, so instead of hating on people who are seeing something around them that makes them feel helpless maybe have some compassion for them.

Maybe you have never known someone who has had their life turned to shit becasue of the way this society is structured. I do. How do you expect people to feel? America is not just middle class people with money..there are all kinds of poor people out there and our economy does nothing for them..have some compassion for these people and try to see things from their persepctive. Any one of you would likely hate society just as much had you had to spend a month in their shoes.

Pure gold.... ^^^ this statement is 100% pure gold.
Jamie if you write a book I will purchase 1 copy.

Having lived under USSR regime during my early years(including having to sing and praise Communist hymn in school while having to endure 3++ hours line ups to obtain basic items for survival) I completely agree with you on this point. We really have it easy here despite everything thats going on. I don't participate in western culture or mass consumerism yet I can appreciate certain aspects of it.

All you have to do is ask the people who are sitting in prison for posession of a plant or benign substance, who have lost their children, their spouce, their life..who will forever have a hard time finding any decent paying job..or go ask all the children who have parents now sitting in jail for growing a plant..who are now sitting in foster care with people who might only have those kids there becasue they get paid to keep them there..what a nice family to come home to.

Imagine how these people must feel about how great our society is next time you(not anyone here in particular) criticize others for feeling this way when you are sitting at home a relativly free person in comparison. The system just has not fucked you as bad at the moment..but dont think that there are not others who have been ruined because of how this society works..

Think the drug issue is a minor one in comparison? Look around..the drug war is a HUGE issue and it creates problems all over the world and fills up our prison systems while making other people even more rich.

Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters ripped from their family because someone grows a plant. Real enlightened society we got going on here.

People also like to compare..compare compare compare...compare our society to some middle eastern war zone..or compared it to some society 1000 years ago and then stand back and go on about how great we are in comparison..except you would not try to argue in favour of say, a rapist becasue they only raped 3 women and not 30 women like another rapist. Who cares about how we compare to some other situation? We should be beyond this and striving towards a a more fair and honerable egalitarian society..not trying to be just better than some other disfunctional system.

Just saying, the whole positivist attitude thing is almost elitist at times because it is far too easy to expect everyone to take that road when you are not actaully standing in their shoes. If you can understand why people feel this way and empathise with them you will get a lot farther than just assuming they are all nagative people with hate who dont act on anything.

You will find that most people dont hold this kind of hate..they feel helpless, frustrated and backed into a corner and dont know what else to do. If you only see hate and pointless criticism in them then you probly are not really seeing much beyond the surface.

I am all for being positive, but not if being positive to you means not having a voice to speak up when you see something that is clearly wrong taking place. That to me is just disempowerment.

-Firstly, i love this thread!!

This invention of society is something we have to put up with, rather than truly like IMO. It's plain to see that landowners are running the show, and that there are people in power and the rest of us are slaving away excessively to 'earn' a living so that we can live in a room on some land and pay for gods food that someone else has taken ownersip of, just like the land.

If technology and society was working for us we'd only be required to work 15-20 hours per week by now, however it's obviously not working so, and probably because those in power don't trust us to have freedom.

Terence Mckenna said culture is not your friend. Unless you can find a way of living off grid, you're a slave, and never should have needed to be so.

I agree very much with Eliahua's views on a conspiracy against psychadelics, and Jamies % of shit that society is. I think the biggest issue is that todays kids are growing up in such a disconnected society that if things carry on this way they'll think that materialism and consumerism is the norm, and that nature is some kind of enemy.

Currently the main concern is that we are destroying the land we depend on for food and safe shelter, we are also polluting our seas and skies. You can bet your bottom dollar that this is what has happened because of society. If we lived in a natural way, we wouldn't care for industry, going to space, etc. We would not need to consume junk, we would learn to live off the land in a sustainable way, and would never dream of polluting our soils, rivers, seas, skies. Neither would we have any interest in mining for gold and other minerals and stuff. We simply would not care for a 'junk' lifestyle, and i think it's concrete city living that is what's responsible for them cravings due to us trying miserably to fill the gaps of feeling at home with mother nature.

Society is progress for sure, progress for an early demise!

I think that we agree for about 90%. There are two major points i want to make though.

1-The things that are good about society shouldn´t be taken for granted. I see many devellopments that could potentially threaten society. A small political movement that does not represent the majority of the people at all (like racist party´s in europe for instance, or the evangelicals in america) could gradually gain ground, up to the point where they can exercise serious power. In america the evangelicals have a say in education for instance and they have managed to push creationism into the schoolprograms, and they are trying to strip poor (mostly african american and latino) people from their right to vote.
While our economies are grinding to a halt, many people look at china that shows impressive (though forged) growth figures, and they´re saying: 'hey, in china, if you own a factory, you don´t have to bother about unions and such, couldn´t we have the same thing over here?'.
And if liberal (most people ARE actually liberals, even if they don´t like to call themselves that way) people don´t vote, don´t organise themselves, or simply take all these rights that we DO have, for granted. If they don´t stand-up for these rights that we DO have, then many of these rights could gradually be taken away from us. And maybe WE won´t live to see the day that our society´s start to resemble china´s, but maybe a next generation will.
Thát´s what can make me so damn angry.

2-When people organise themselves, they actually CAN achieve quite a lot. There are many NGO´s like greenpeace, amnesty international, oxfam, etc. If you join such organisations as a volunteer and you have some good ideas, you can actually make people listen to you. I have had the opportunity myself to join a round-table talk with some CEO´s of some major companies that way, and actually saw one of my ideas realised to improve fair-trade. If you come with good plans, and you are part of an ogranisation (and these organisations already exist, you don´t nessecarily have to start one yourself) you can realy have influence, even when you´re just an 'ordinary citizen'.

And ofcourse they´re not gonna listen to you, when you start calling them slave-owners or greedy bastards. Even among bankers there are good people who are willing to listen when you have a constructive idea.

Ive only got time to read the original post here and my feelings on the subject are that sometimes it feels good to wallow in your own self pity and complain about something that's not you, for your own sake. I sometimes think its about being that person who turns it around, because its about gratitude for what is. if someones complaining about how "stupid people don't just wake up they're too busy on their devices and gratifying themselves with material" i like to be the person who doesn't criticize back, you know i don't do it perfect every time but at least providing that insight that there's love in everyone's heart, everyone has the ability to love, everybody has something that matters to them and the time will come in everyone's life where they realize how much more things mean to them than they're being told, or that they're allowing the time to consider.