• Harry Reid Cancels Debate
• Largest Internet Protest in History is a game changer (really!)
• The numbers are impressive.

Now, if we could just mobilize that kind of sentiment to end poverty and world hunger, then I’d have something to tweet about.

It’s true!

The priests were, for the most part,  working  for the nobility!

They helped the nobility ease their consciousness by providing “spiritual” justifications for wealth and privilege (“divine right of kings” it was called), but they also suppressed the anger and resentment of the peasants by saying “follow the king” because “God wants it that way.” The priests, it turned out, where in bed with the nobility, sometimes literally I imagine, and they served in the interests of wealth and privilege. Personally, I doubt it was always that way. I’m not a Catholic but I know enough about Jesus’s supposed life to know he wasn’t to fond of greedy people (he threw the money lenders out of the temple, didn’t he?). Based on his example people probably became “Christian” for the high moral standards and general compassion of its leader. But time passed and corruptions entered and eventually the Church was built (with the funding of the only people who had cash back in those days), inquisitors were appointed, and infidels and heretics where tortured and murdered…

But I digress…

The point is, the intellectual and emotional boundaries that had protected the opinions of the Church, that had made the words of the priest seem like the holy gospel of the Lord, and that had justified horrendous levels of torture and abuse were, during the “enlightenment” smashed and the modern scientists, champion of Truth and defender of all that is philosophical, empirical, and natural, was born.

Yay the scientist!

Taking the moral and intellectual road the scientists followed the example of Galileo and began searching after the Truth and nothing but. This new breed of person didn’t care that the priests said this, or the pope said that, or the bible said creation was only seven days long, they wanted to know the Truth and they set out to find it themselves!

And, if the technological world that surrounds you now is any indication…

If the spread of democracy (however flawed) in the world is any reflection…

The Truth did set them (and us) free.

And I think we should acknowledge that contribution.

But I also think we have to examine the limitations, and question the foundation, and admit to some error because frankly, from where I’m sitting, modern day science has become co-opted in service of wealth and privilege just like the ethical and emancipatory spirituality of Christ had been co-opted before.

Don’t believe me?

Watch this movie (GenerationRx).

From the atomic bomb to the dopamine droplet science now serves in the interests of power and privilege. And it’s not just that we serve in the interests of power and privilege, we justify it as well. We coin erroneous phrases (phrases used to justify the hierarchy and the domination of the weak as “natural”), develop erroneous indicators like “IQ” and the bell curve (which help “explain” why some people have more than others), and force people into irrelevant gender boxes. It is like we don’t understand the basic facts of life, and before you huff and puff, read this. Our entire North American culture is based on the erroneous concept of the alpha male, a concept used to justify male domination of women, corporate domination of peasants, and managerial domination of employees.

How embarrassing is that?

And while we do not torture people who do not submit and obey, we do medicate them.

Can’t sit in class?

Can’t follow the rules.

Don’t believe our truths?

Well Mr. “The problem is with you,” we have a pill that will help with that.

It is true.

We provide technology for the industrial  mill, armaments for the economic wars, justifications for the status quo (with more or less awareness of our role), and chemical straightjackets for those who don’t fit.

So what is a unsatisfied scientist to do?

Well, rather than participating in the the miscalculations, falsifications, and error, and rather than waiting for a new Galileo to come along and point out the steaming piles of horseshit we maintain, we can do what Galileo did and smash the boundaries that prevent us from seeing the truth. The communication-technology hammer is in place, and the writing is on the wall. The epistemological and ontological foundations are crumbling and rather than reinforcing the foundations, something that can only delay the inevitable, we should jump on the boat and do what needs to be done now before before somebody else comes along and embarrasses us to the point where we will never recover from the embarrassment. I don’t know about you but as a scientist the last thing I want to be reduced to is the lonely “you must have faith in us” lament of our spiritually discredited forefathers. I got into this to discover the Truth and I want to be known for that.  I want us to correct our errors, expose the ideology, undermine the justifications, and take  back the scholarly and scientific highroad. There are no excuses. Modern communication technologies have advanced to the point where we can now speak without mediation, outside of classrooms, and without worrying about the stodgy gatekeepers who police the boundaries of our discourse, and we should do so. I don’t think we should wait. If we do we just might find ourselves in the same boat as the priests before us, struggling to maintain legitimacy, and begging those who trusted us to “just have faith.”

The reason for our success?

Social context!

Despite what the psychologists want to tell you, we have found that the primary cause of most psychological distress is to be found in the toxic parental/social/work environments of the clients we treat, conditions that hurt the individual and that often require the development of pathological mechanisms of coping and defense. It is not pretty, and it is not simple, but it is, we have found, always treatable especially when the client is motivated, open, and willing to listen to advice and guidance.

So why am I telling you this? Well, for a couple reasons. Reason one is to point out one possible career path for people interested in Sociology. It is true that I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, but with my sociological expertise and insight I make an extremely effective psychological counselor. So if you are a Sociology student, or if you are interested in becoming one but have held back because you’ve also got an interest in psychology, never fear! You can combine both.

The other reason I’m telling you this is motivational. We often get people in our psychological practice who want more out of their life. They are working in this job or that job, find it oppressive and stultifying, want to get out and move up, would like to get post-secondary training of some sort, but can’t seem to find it within them to make the move forward. The are stuck not because they are stupid or incompetent, but because their developmental background has left them without the psychological foundations and self confidence to take on what (for them) are seemingly insurmountable goals. And it’s not just that they feel they can’t do a university course! They also feel they can’t handle the debt burden of the student loan, or the lost income, or the time away. From the absence of basic study skills to the black-emotional-pit of low self-esteem to the insurmountable walls of student finance, it’s just too much, too soon, too fast.

So what do we do? Well, I’d like to say treatment is simple but it is not.  Treatment involves a gentle process of undoing repressions, rebuilding self esteem, helping with study skills, even pointing out the financial, political, and social class realities of this planet that are oppressive and stultifying (for example, did you know that the education you get in K12 is different depending on the social class background of the school you are in?). It is one part career counseling, one part psychological counseling, one part sociological sophistication, one part parenting (to replace notable absence of good parents in their own life), and one part guidance and support. It does pay off, if the clients that we’ve had who have moved onto post-secondary work are any indication, but it does take work, effort, and trust.

And the biggest obstacle?

Not the abuse, not the damage, and not even the misconception. The biggest obstacle is the belief, instilled by parents and teachers, and perpetrated by our own popular culture, that it all comes down to genetics, karma, grace, or talent. Truth be told it has nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with you believing in yourself.

References

Anyon, Jean (1980). Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work. Journal of Education, 163: 1. [hhttp://www.sociology.org/?p=680]

These books are both different. You may be surprised to learn that neither of the books require (or even advise) total abstinence from alcohol, and both strip out the heavy duty demonization and moralization that often goes a long with this disease (like you are someone weak and deficient because you are an alcoholic). Instead they advise, in an open and sensible manner free of the prohibition like frenzy that often surrounds this social problem, change in diet, lifestyle, and attention to whatever social or emotional pathologies may encourage addictive behavior. Recognizing that alcohol, like other addictive substances, provides an endorphin rush (i.e. they make your brain feel good), the books develop treatment strategies that deal with that. Treatment  involves a pharmacological intervention that interferes with the uptake of endorphins in the brain (thus robbing you of the feel good properties of alcohol) and dramatically reducing craving over time. The book authors claim success rates as high as 80% which is incredible considering how difficult addictions are to treat. I haven’t seen these treatments in action yet, though I do have a client who I’m hoping will try them out. They do, however, seem highly promising, and they are backed by serious scientific research.

alchohol treatment

Now as a sociologist I usually don’t buy into biological or genetic explanations of anything.  For me traditional psychology has too narrow a focus and it misses a lot of key causal factors when it approaches psychological dysfunction. I understand the power that advertising, the media, and our social groups have to determine our behavior and personality so from my sociologically sophisticated perspective, even something as “genetic” as IQ isn’t really genetic at all, but social. Still, what I found most interesting about the books from a sociological point of view was the emphasis on the relationship between alcohol and endorphins, a biological process.  Endorphins of course are the natural “feel good” drugs in your brain. Similar to morphine, the body releases endorphins in responses to both positive and negative stimuli.  Stress and pain cause endorphin release, but also laughter and orgasm. In addition, long distance running has long been associated with endorphin release (the so called “runner’s high”). Endorphins are the body’s “feel good” system and lack of endorphins may lead to depression. Drinking alcohol is a way to encourage endorphin release in the brain.

But why do you need alcohol to encourage endorphin release if it is released by other activities?

So what are you going to do about this? Well, if there is an addiction present the implications are clear, you have to break the chemical association and change your environment so your body is not so overwhelmed that it needs additional medication. We now know how to break the chemical association in the brain (both books reviewed here provide a solution). The harder part is cleaning up our social environments; but at least now you know where to start looking.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I was born into a Catholic family and when I was a young, defenseless, trusting child needing lots of love, attention, and positive regard, I had to listen to Catholic priests (and by extension my mom) tell me what a rotten, stinking, low life loser I was. Begotten from a long line of low life losers going all the way back to that witch Eve who tricked the weak Adam into eating the forbidden apple, the priests told me that I was little better than cosmic dust. Sitting in the pew in a long line of the faithful I listened to “the man” standing behind the pulpit tell me that yes God loved me but even so, if I didn’t apologize for something I never did (i.e. original sin), straighten up, and do what I was told (i.e. follow orders/commandments) I’d be cast into a burning fire where I would suffer unimaginable torment forever and ever amen. I was bad, I was evil by nature, dirty, sinful, cosmic chaff, and only by dint of hard work, grace, submission and terror of authority (disguised as respect) could I ever redeem myself and be rewarded with a place in God’s exclusive little private club he arrogantly called “heaven.”

Glad I got that out.

Honestly, I believed the lies of Church for almost a decade of my young life. The priests were convincing after all. They had special robes, wore special rings, stood behind special podiums, and quoted from a fancy, big book they called “the bible.” I was young, I was small, I was weak, I was impressionable and boy did they impress me.

I believed them because I was a child and I trusted the adults.

I believed them because they said they knew the Truth.

I believed them because they said if I didn’t believe them, and I didn’t do exactly what I was told, God would burn me in hell for all eternity.

Anyway, when I was a teenager I gave up that lie. I realized, even if I couldn’t verbalize it, how twisted the priests stories were. It was psychological and emotional abuse by any other name, and so I walked away from it. Of course, still young and uninformed I didn’t give up belief altogether. As a young man I walked right out of religion and right into the hallowed halls of my local university where, caving into the same need to believe, I heard pretty much the same thing from my professors as I had heard from the priests. Sitting in a chair in a line of the faithful I listened to “the man” standing behind the lectern telling me that I was little more than a dirty rotten ape, violent and irredeemable, descended from a long line of similarly rotten and violent apes, driven by Freudian instinct and acting out my disgusting sexual and aggressive tendencies to the detriment of all around me. According to Freud if it wasn’t for repressive society I’d eat my own children if given half a chance. According to science I was worthless, I was violent, I was dirty. I was evolutionary chaff and only by proving myself worthy/strong in some ridiculous evolutionary struggle would I be deserving of reward, and would my “genes” pass on to the next generation.

Sound familiar?

Now honestly, I believed the stories of science a lot longer than I believed the lies of the Churches. The priests of science were more convincing after all. They had special robes, wore special rings, and stood behind special podiums where they impressed upon me the depth and breadth of their learned nature by quoting from not ONE big book, but from many. It was an impressive display of erudite, empirical, edification and what can I say, I was young, I was small, I was weak, I was impressionable and boy did they impress me.

I believed them because I was a young student and I trusted the erudite professors.

I believed them because they said they knew the Truth.

I believed them because they said if I didn’t believe them, and repeat exactly what they said on my final exams, I wouldn’t pass their tests and I’d just end up working poor, or worse, destitute on the streets.

And besides, I wanted to believe.

I wanted to know.

I wanted to have answers to all the big questions that had plagued my mind since I was a young lad and so I believed what the priests of Science said. And besides, the priests of Science did seem to have it in the bag more than the priests of the Church.

They said, don’t trust any other authorities but us!

They said, be empirical.

They said, be logical.

They said, observe and report.

And for the longest time everything was kosher. I didn’t trust authority (unless it was backed by an advanced graduate degree), I tried to be empirical, I strove for logic, and I observed and reported and in all that activity the story that I had been told about human nature by the priests of Science, despite its weird similarity to the church version, seemed to be accurate.

But then I had children, and I observed them, and the more I observed them more I became confused because what I was observing didn’t make any sense.

It didn’t fit into what I “knew” to be true.

For example, I had been told by priests of the Church and Science that my children were greedy and violent little scoundrels, little more cosmic rejects, descended apes, that I had to repress and control and train and enslave otherwise everything would go to hell.

But I didn’t see that in them.

Take greed as an example.

I’d been told by priests and scientists that I was greedy by nature. Original sin and evolution had made it so that I always wanted more. It was my fundamental spiritual flaw, the product of an evolutionary struggle. It was put their by God “the father” to test me or, if you are of a more scientific bent, put their by Mother Gaia to give me evolutionary advantage. However it got there, everybody agreed it was there. So, if I accumulated more and more while others around me had less and less, well all I was doing was responding to my “true” inner nature, proving my worth in the eyes of God, and winning the struggle to survive.

The man with the most toys wins, right?

That’s what I was told so, when I had kids, I expected to see this behavior from them, greedy little monsters that they were. But honestly, I didn’t see it. As it turns out, and much to my Catholic and scientific surprise, my kids don’t have a greedy bone in their body. I look and look and look but I cannot find it. In fact, it appears quite the opposite. Rather than worrying about having more, more, more, their primary concern is with absolute equality and they expend an incredible amount of psychological and emotional energy trying to manifest that equality.

It’s true!

If one thinks the other has a bit more ice cream, or a little more chocolate, or has received a little more love, or a little more attention, all hell breaks loose.

I see it every day.

If my children do not achieve absolute equality in all things, they fight until they do.

And to them it doesn’t matter how small the inequality. When I make Ichiban noodles (sometimes ignoring the fact that it contains MSG) and if one of my kids feels that the other has even one more noodle, or one ounce more broth, they scream, they grab, they protest, they cry ,they wail, the gnash their teeth, they kick, and they complain until they feel absolute equality is established, at which point they happily slurp down their noodles.

As a parent it is frustrating as hell, not to mention confusing.

If happiness and contentment only exists in our home when everybody is included and treated equally, where is the greed and the selfishness?

Is there something wrong with my children, I wonder.

Are they abnormal?

Are they broken?

Have they violated their divine or natural nature, as defined by the priests of this world?

Personally, I think not.

Personally, I think they are doing just what they were wired to do, strive for equality and justice.

Egg on the faces of the priests if you ask me.

Now as a parent there’s two things I can do in this situation. I can accept the facts that my kids want absolute equality and give them that, or not. If I accept the fact then I give them equal love, equal treats, and equal treatment. If I accept that then I won’t privilege the boy over the girl, the first born over the last, or the stronger one over the weaker one. If I do that, if I honor what appears to be to be the natural/spiritual/divine order of things, then everything is calm and everybody is happy. But if I don’t do that, if I violate the powerful instinctual need for equality, or the divine inner self that says “love me and honor me equally,” bad things begin happen. The kids fight and scream, they begin competing for attention, they begin hording whenever they can, and the whole household descends into fetid, funky, pathology which can only be managed with repressive controls and which descends, by degrees, into the earthly representation of hellish suffering.

And as any parent with eyes open will tell you, I’m not over exaggerating.

The drive for equality and fair treatment is powerful and when not honored, a disturbance in the force, results. When that happens, when instincts and nature are violated, repression, indoctrination, and violence are the inevitable outcomes. I yell at my kids, I tell them life isn’t fair, I banish them to their rooms for being so “unreasonable” and “demanding,” I send them to church where the priests justify, or to school where the teachers indoctrinate, and I ask them again and again, “why can’t you just ‘get it’.” In this process their natural drive for equality is suppressed and oppressed and eventually, despite abortive and comical attempts at adolescent rebellion, they learn to accept the lie, but at a serious cost, I believe. When your natural instincts towards equality are violated, pathology results. Just look at the United States, one of the most unequal countries in the world and one where psychopathology is out of control.

You can check it yourself in the statistics.

Crime, drug addiction, eating disorders, obesity, and a culture soaked in anti-depressants and anti-psychotics must lead us to question the moral, philosophical, and scientific foundation of our view of human nature.

I mean really…

You don’t need me to point it out.

Unless you want to write off the growing pathology with a magical sweep of your hand you have to consider the possibility that we’re doing something wrong.

Of course I’m speculating here.

It is a big causal leap from a violation of our natural instincts for equality (wow, doesn’t that sound like a sacrilege on so many levels) to the toxic emotional and psychological soup of modern day society, but it’s an interesting hypothesis don’t ya think?

Not to mention totally, yranoitulover.

But so what?

And who cares?

Personally, I think (and feel) the idea that we might have a natural “instinct” for equality deserves a lot more attention I mean, what if the spiritual and scientific structure of our modern moral and cosmological sensitivity is nothing more than a carefully contrived justification for inequality and privilege?

What if it’s just a case of the priests telling the peasants to accept their lot.

You know, divine Right of Kings and God wants it that way or the rich deserve what they get because they are stronger, faster, more capable than you.

Inequality is natural and inevitable, God likes it and its good for the evolutionary scramble, so deal with it.

I believe the idea is worthy consideration and if you ask me its at least as significant and revolutionary as the notion that the Sun doesn’t revolve around The Earth and if true will require a pretty significant recant and revision of a number of academic disciplines. I know it sounds outrageous, improbable, even impossible, but lo and behold it’s already happening. View the video in this article and watch the author of a 1970 book RECANT the dubious science that led him to coin the term “alpha male.” As a sociologist I must ask, was it pure ideology after all?

As for me, I’m not buying it anymore. I can see with my own eyes. Watching my little children I see that it’s at best a horrendous scholarly mistake and at worst a big fat lie. Of course, reading this short article you may not be willing to go so far but at the very least you should raise some questions. Better yet, think and observe for yourself and come to your own conclusions. And remember, just because some priest said it, or some scientist said it, doesn’t make it so. You have to understand, from the the recent recanting of the term Alpha Male to all the ignored researched on the negative impact of competition, it would seem that scientists are as ideological and error prone as everybody else.

Foreclosures.

Debt.

And now even the poor, destitute, handicapped, and even the aging veterans are being hung out to sacrifice.  If the government doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, says Obama, people are going to die.

It’s getting ugly! People are losing everything and no amount of infrastructure spending, foreign trade, or economic growth seems able to fix it. The U.S. economy is dying a slow death and we seem helpless to do anything and hopeless that anything might be done.

But what is the problem, after all? Trillions of dollars are floating around the global economy, more money than this world has ever seen before, and none of that can be made to work in the U.S. economy.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Where has all the money gone?

Well, think back to just before George Bush left office.

Remember what happened?

Panic in the [Wall]Street.

Desperation at the bank.

Global economic collapse was just around the corner they said!

“Quick,” said Bush. “Give the bankers all the money and that will fix it.”

Ya right.

Despite every single developed country falling in line and handing public funds over to private bankers, it didn’t fix it. The economies still chug along and the common folk still struggle to hang on to the things that they’ve worked for.

So what’s up with that?

Well, according to Michael Sharp it has everything to do with debt, accumulation, and greed. The problem isn’t that the economy is broken, or that money is evil, or that we can’t find a way to work things out so everybody has job, and everybody can be happy and prosperous. The problem is, like Warren Buffet (one of the richest men in the world) recently said in a NY Times article, some people have control and they are using that control in greedy accumulation that, far from benefiting the global economy actually undermines it. According to Michael Sharp the destruction of the economy is inevitable because of a fundamental flaw in the way we organize exchange and the nice thing is (if there is anything nice about this), you don’t need a PhD in economics to understand what is going on or figure out what we need to do. As Michael Sharp says, it’s not rocket science, just basic economic common sense.

I read Michael Sharp’s book ‘The Rocket Scientists Guide to Money and the Economy: Accumulation and Debt’ about two months ago.  I found Michael to be one of the most accessible writers I have ever come across and a seriously potent story teller.  It is so refreshing to find someone who explains complicated economic matters in such a logical, clear, self-evident and understandable way.  Economists are so good at talking over our heads and confusing people.  I can’t even understand most of them and I have been trained in the economic discipline. I found Michael’s book to be very well informed but a simply presented argument and story that explains the main problems with our economic system.  He is also one of the only people I have found who has highlighted the broader social consequences (for everyone) of individualistic money accumulation behaviours.   His work has helped me to clarify my own thinking and fit together a whole lot of different things that have been troubling me and filled in some big gaps too.  I am now in a much better position to articulate my own ideas that build on his, and I have begun to do so.  So you might say that his book has empowered me.  I’m sure it will do the same for many other ordinary people, and hopefully some economists too.  They could also learn a lot about how to write and communicate from Michael Sharp. Maura Andrew – M.A. Economics Student, South Africa

If you want to learn more, check out his book Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy: Accumulation and Debt.  It’s not an academic book in the traditional sense but it is a powerful story about the nature of economics and the trouble we have managed to get ourselves into. It is grist for the intellectual mill, enlightening beyond measure, and a testament to the power of the pen, even if I do say so myself.

I recently read an astounding article on Marijuana (Jiang, et. al, 2005). As it turns it out, cannabis is implicated in neurogensis or the generation and regeneration of brain cells in the hypothalamus. In layman’s terms, consuming pot encourages your brain to grow (or at least the hypothalamic portion of it). Even more astounding is that this is in direct opposition to other drugs like alcohol, nicotine, opiates, and cocaine which have been demonstrated to suppress hippocampal neurogenesis in adult rats (Jiang, et. Al, 2005). Even more astounding still, if I could really be more astounded at this point, is that this brain regeneration is linked to antidepressant and antianxiety effects, something you pay the big pharmaceutical companies big bucks for.

But that’s not the end of this story. I was so fascinated by what I had read that I had to know more. So, I looked up the functions of the hypothalamus. Turns out the hypothalamus is hugely important. It regulates the physical unit. The hypothalamus regulates bodily temperature, feeding behaviour, circadian rhythms, and is also implicated in the emotional and sensory systems of the body. It plays a role in the sex drive, arousal (in particular autonomic “fight or flight” responses) and expression and communicates directly with the body’s endocrine (hormone) system. The hypothalamus is an important piece of your body’s brain and it very cool that cannabis can help with the regeneration of hypothalamic nerve cells.

But why would we need to regenerate hypothalamus cells? Well, as it turns out, the hypothalamus (like other parts of the brain) is easily damaged by stress, and this is particularly true of children and adolescents. Of course this raises the question about the experience of childhood stress which, it must be said, isn’t any good. As children and teenagers we all experience relatively high levels of ongoing stress. It is a social truism justified, at least when I was in undergraduate school, by the psychologically stamped lunacy that some levels of stress are actually good for you. Of course, it does not matter how many teachers and psychologists might have said it, stress is not good for our children. You may be able to make a case that minor and controlled stress might be functional for adults, but in the sensitive brain development periods of childhood and adolescence, stress (like poison) is particularly damaging to the mental and emotional development of the child.

So I ask the question, what kind of stress did I experience as a child and how might that have damaged my physical brain? Well, from the beatings with sticks that I got from my mom to the abuse of teachers to the incredible and demeaning stress of competition and constant comparison I have to say my life as a child was pretty stressful. Because of the general lack of concern and empathy on the part of the adults all around me, I spent a lot of time worrying about what was going to happen next (chronic stress) and it is just this kind of chronic stress that impacts, in a negative way, brain development. And sadly, my childhood wasn’t, by comparison, that bad. I know others who experienced profound emotional, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse for extended periods of time at the hands of parents, teachers, and loved ones.  What can I say about that except psychologists are beginning to see that stress and abuse leads to neurosis, psychosis, and even schizophrenia. Obviously, something to be avoided. Sadly, something we all accept.

At this point you will perhaps understand why I was so astounded by the articles I read. In a world where our societies advocate stress, pressure, competition, and violence as if it is a good thing for us, in societies where the very act of existence is likely to damage our physical units, here was a naturally occurring substance that potentially provided a cure for this disease we call modern life. From anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects to actual neurogenesis, this was a long way from the paranoid fantasies of government propagandists who drink their martinis and smoke their fags while proselytizing in an anti-empirical way about the evils of substance that seems to function exactly opposite of the way they suggest.

Of course, I am speculating at this point. It is long way from neurogensis in the brain of a rat to the miraculous healing effects of cannabis postulated here, but I think it is something to consider. After all, natives have been using entheogens like Peyote and ayahuasca. for centuries and, despite some weirdness on the part of Harvard psychologists in the sixties, LSD and other entheogens seemed to show great promise in curing intractable addictions like alcoholism. Not that I’m advocating LSD as a therapeutic. I think they called it acid for a reason. But still, keep an open mind and ask some hard questions; when our mental and physical (not to mention emotional and spiritual) health may be at stake, we don’t want to allow ourselves to be led down the garden path by people who do not know, or who let their own fears cloud their ability to objectively assess and think. As Sociologists, Psychologists, students, and researchers of all stripes, what are we waiting for? It is time to stop letting fears, misconceptions, and government propagandists set the boundaries of our research interests. It is time to take a look at the potential healing properties of cannabis and other naturally occurring entheogens.

At the very least pause and re-consider.

Rather than demonizing cannabis, take a good hard look at the real devils of modern society – stress, alcohol, nicotine, opiates, cocaine, methamphetamines, and other brain damaging activities and substances are the premier choices of the stressed out and damaged addicts of this world, and for a reason. They all function like Soma, further deadening the nervous system and hiding us from the very damage we seek to heal. It is true, we may still argue the benefits of entheogens and the jury may still be out on Cannabis, but the same cannot be said of these other drugs. We’ve known for decades just how bad they are. In our struggle to overcome the bondage and damage of system socialization, these are the real devils of this hellish capitalist world.

References

Jiang, Wen, Zhang, Yun, Xiao, Lan, Cleemput, Jamie Van, Ji, Shao-Pint, Bai, Guang, and Zhang, Xia (2005). Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogeneis and produce anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 115. [http://www.jci.org/articles/view/25509]

Kleiner, Kurt (2005). Marijuana might cause new cell growth in brain. New Scientist: October. [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8155-marijuana-might-cause-new-cell-growth-in-the-brain.html]

See Also

SpiriWiki Entheogen Page – http://www.thespiritwiki.com/index.php/Entheogens

Child and Teen Brains Very Sensitive to Stress, Likely a Key Factor in Mental Illness – http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/005410.html

Does Stress Damage the Brain – http://www.benschweitzer.org/WORK/stress/Bremner-does%20stress%20damage%20the%20brain.pdf

Wikipedia page on Hypothalamus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamus

Study Finds No Link Between Marijuana Use And Lung Cancer – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm

Writing right

So you want to be a good writer?

You want to express yourself in words?

You want to grab the reader by the short hairs and connect with them at a deep level?

You want to take that expensive education and do something useful with it?

Well then, listen up. The first thing you want to do if you want to write well is set your intent. Ask yourself  the question, why am I writing and then turn your answer to that into a formal statement of intent. It is not that hard and it can be very effective in directing the development of your wordsmithing ability. For example, when I ask myself the question “why am I writing,” my answer is to communicate, teach, and educate. When I write I write to communicate. I write to grab the reader, to get their attention, and to turn their attention to something that I think they might be interested in. I also write to educate (I’m a teacher after all) and inform.

Once I have an idea of why I write then, whenever I sit down to write, I remind myself of why I’m sitting down to write. This is important. I find that when I do that the intent forms a sort of envelope over what I’m doing and influences what it is I’m saying. When I remember my goal is to communicate and educate I am far less likely, for example, to complicate my writing with excessive EPMO. Similarly when I remember I am here to teach and educate I’ll keep things simpler and more interesting.

Now, this might seem like a whole lot of common sense and in a way it is.  Language teachers will tell thee to “know they audience” and this is close to what I am saying here. Nevertheless, extending the standard language stipulation in this way is, I believe, necessary and the reason is simply that if you are training to become an academic, if you are a undergraduate or a graduate student, then you are not being trained to educate and communicate.

You might think you are.

You might believe that all that essay writing and term paper composition is training you to communicate with others but if you think that you would be quite wrong.  Outside of the English department, the only thing you are learning to do as a student of the academy is confuse people and be proud of it. If you publish in a journal article it is not the quality of writing that counts, it is how few people can understand what you’re saying. And the fewer the better it seems. The more obscure, complicated, and convoluted your writing, the better, smarter, more worthy of consideration you must be.

It’s true.

Pick up your average academic journal and the information contained in it is useful and meaningful to only a handful of people worldwide, and those people all have to have expensive post-secondary degrees.

Call that writing to obfuscate, or writing to impress, or writing to pump your left brain ego, or writing to prove your worth as a professor, or whatever, but don’t call it writing to communicate. It is everything but that.

But then, this should not come as a surprise because it is exactly what you are trained to do.

Consider this.

Whenever you write a term paper in school you are not writing to communicate, you are writing to impress the person with the power to mark.

Isn’t that true?

The goal isn’t to write well, or to be creative, or to think critically, or to communicate effectively is it? The goal is to impress your professor or (after you graduate) your journal editor, peer review committee, and so on. Whether you realize it or not, that’s what you learn and in that process expression, communication, and connection with your reader go straight into the academic toilet  to be flushed away with the three-ply sheets of rampant EPMO.

But you can change this and the first step is to identify why you write and write with that intent in mind.

Are you writing to impress the reader of your prose?

Are you writing for a good grade?

Are you writing to pass muster or to slide past the journal gatekeepers?

Then that’s going to reflect itself in the way you write.

However, if that is not why are you are writing, if your goal is to reach out and connect with somebody, then remind yourself that is what you want to do and start your communique from there. It may take a while to shed the prosaic detritus of our academic indoctrination, but you can do if you try.

Tell us, "what's on your mind today"

In 1948 George Orwell wrote the novel 1984, a novel about a dystopian future society where total control of thought and action was the name of the game. A docile worker population, a subdued under class, and constant and uninterrupted war meant total submission to The System. The whole thing hinged on thought control and the elimination of thought crime. According to George there were a number of ways thoughts could be controlled, from the ongoing revision of history and reality to the surveillance of the population. The goal was to use “psychology [and] surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who are capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.^{” (ref)}

So, “what’s on your mind?”

Share with us.

Tell us!

What are you thinking today?

Submit to observation!

Don’t want to?

Find that a little creepy, maybe even a little scary?

We understand!

The trick in surveillance and observation, the secret of the Panopticon is, as Jeremy Bentham pointed out, to hide the surveillance from the prisoners (ref).  If you don’t know you’re being watched then, as the saying goes, what’s gonna hurt you.

So, “what’s on your mind today?”

Share with us.

Tell us.

It’s not that we’re observing you, it’s that you are sharing.

Expose yourself to the world and never mind that Google bought Doubleclick and now everything you do online becomes  a permanent record of your life. And never mind the fact that by “using our software” you consent to the transfer of your data to the U.S. of A. and the unlimited “processing” of said data by nobody in particular.  Never mind the fact that is is possible to link every click you make with every online profile you build.

Never mind that every time you login your data is collected, collated, connected, and your path through this life dutifully logged and archived.

Accept our cookies and relax!

No no, don’t turn around.

Don’t look away.

It’s just a social network after all, there’s no such thing as global surveillance and besides, you have nothing to hide, right?

So tell us, “what’s on your mind.”

Share with us your likes and dislikes.

Let us follow you around a bit.

If you listen to subsersive rock and roll, we’d like to know.

If you liked that critical social documentary you saw on Netflix, by all means tell us.

Saccharine and non-threatening entertainment keeps you docile, that’s good!

That’s what we like to see.

So don’t be afraid.

We’re only here to help and we can’t do that unless you tell us, “what’s on your mind today?”

I just put my kids on the school bus.

I had to talk to to the bus driver this morning about some of the other kids. Turns out my kids are being picked on by others on the bus. One person says “raise your hands if you think ‘so and so’ is stupid” and everybody raises their hands. One other child calls my daughter a “vagina picker” and one kid likes to trip people as they go by.

So, I talk to the bus driver, relate the story, and he looks at me and says, it’s really not that bad.

*Cough, cough, * I sputter, not sure what I heard I say “what?”

He repeats.

“It’s not that bad.”

So I correct him.

“No, it is bad.”

“It’s emotional abuse.”

“It’s name calling.”

“I’ll pull my kids off your bus.”

“I’ll keep them home.”

“Oh OK, I’ll talk to them,” he says.

Frustration.

Anger.

Shock.

What is it about our bleeping culture that makes it OK for children to be exposed to abuse?

I mean really, it’s not a huge moral or intellectual leap to see that its wrong.

Can you imagine if I walked into that bus, looked at the kids and said “raise your hands if you think your bus driver is an idiot!”

Shock.

Open mouths.

Dr. Mike lying on the ground, punched out by irate bus driver who I’ve just insulted.

Its shocking to think I would do that to another adult, but it is everyday “normal” when kids do it to each other.

As a sociologist I have to ask, why is that? Why we do let our kids beat up on each other like that when we wouldn’t tolerate for an instant the same behavior from an adult.

Well, for one reason, we excuse.

We justify it.

We think its OK.

“Kids are kids?” right?

“Boys will be boys,” correct?

Roll out the same old excuses and then walk walk away with self satisfaction, but those are just excuses.

Here’s a thought experiment for you.

Go to work, find the geekiest co-worker, stand him up in front of everyone and then ask everyone around you to raise their hands if you think he’s stupid.

I don’t have to spell it out.

It is easy to see.

If I did that I would be bullying my coworker.

If I did that I would be engaged in some pretty nasty  emotional abuse.

Its is inconceivable that we could do that at work, in a restaurant, on the street, and even more so to think we’d get away with it.

But if a kid does that, no big deal.

Why?

Because we don’t see it as emotional abuse when a kid does it.

When I talked to the bus driver today, he didn’t think my kids were being abused.

“It’s not that bad,” he says.

And he’s not the only one who would minimize that situation so…

Why?

Why don’t we see it when our kids are being abused?

We do we justify?

We do we excuse?

Why do we minimize?

Now that’s a good question and one worthy of some serious sociological attention.

Why do we allow our children to do that to each other?

Well, I think there may be a couple of reasons for that.

For one, maybe we’re doing it to our kids and therefore don’t want to see it as abusive. I work with abused people and a large part of their stories involve physical, emotional, and psychological abuse perpetrated by their parents.

Screaming, yelling, slaps, name calling.

Putting the child down.

Making it feel bad.

Going to work with a pleasant smile.

Coming home, doing it again.

Perhaps if we called a rose a rose on the bus, and in the school, and in the church, and on the street, the carefully constructed facade of how we’re all such good parents would begin to crumble.

Perhaps if we saw the Truth on the bus, we’d see the Truth in our homes.

And maybe we’re not ready to look at the Truth.

And maybe we’re too uncomfortable to think it.

For two, when you think about it, covering up reality is what we’ve been trained to do.

Take a look at your childhood.

How many of you had parents that hit you, or called you names, or made you feel stupid, beat you, put you in a corner, shoved you in the basement, or yelled at you all the time.

And how many of you minimize the abuse you experienced?

Don’t you remember how bad it made you feel when you were a child?

Don’t you remember the tears, the anguish, the desperate longing for love, and the self loathing that you experienced?

Of course you don’t.

Male or female, you were told to stuff it in, pretend it wasn’t bad, and (when people came over) pretend you lived in a happy family.

And that’s what you did.

“Quit being such a baby.”

“Quit feeling so bad.”

“Go to your room until you smarten up.”

Get out of my face until you stop feeling the pain.

GROW UP for God’s sake! (wow, now if that isn’t using using God’s name in vain, I don’t know what is).

“Smile and be real good or else because we’ve got company coming.”

Ah!

That’s it.

Grownups don’t feel

Grownups don’t hurt.

Grownups pretend!!

And besides, you don’t want to remember because to do so it would make you feel like that hurt child once again, and you don’t want to feel like that hurt child.It’s just to ugly a felling and you don’t want to have anything to do with those ugly feelings you once had because if if you admitted the abuse on the bus…

If you saw it for what it was…

Then you’d have to admit that maybe your childhood wasn’t as good as you thought.

Then you’d have to take a hard look at the parents who engaged in the actions.

Then you’d have to admit you’d been the victim of abuse.

Then you’d have to remember and if you did then who knows where that might lead.

You whole world might come crumbling down.

And goodness, you don’t want that, do you?

So instead of confronting reality let’s selfishly pretend that child abuse is OK, OK?

Let’s call it spanking, and not assault.

Let’s call it discipline, and not verbal abuse.

Let’s say “it’s not so bad after all,” and go on with our lives and sacrifice yet another generation to the world and the wheel.

Or not.

I guess we could pout a stop to it in our lives, and the lives of others right now.

But that will take courage, fortitude, and the strength to look at the lives we live and say, “hey, that’s wrong.”

We all a choice. It’s up to you I guess what happens next I guess.