From: Rebecca Temmer (ratemmer.lists@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Oct 26 2005 - 19:16:49 BST
Hi Platt,
You said:
Many people have given up smoking because it's considered anti-social.
Same goes for hard liquor, wine being the more socially acceptable.
Psychedelics had their day in the 60's. They are no longer considered the
"in" thing to do. So I'm not convinced they have enormous social benefits.
The fallout from their widespread use in the 60's indicates the opposite.
Rebecca:
This is vaguley related to what you said above, but it's kind of a non
sequiter... anyhow, I was sitting in the pavilion in the park the other day
on my way home from school and having a smoke of one description or
another... and i was thinking about drugs and alcohol and such. And I
remember Pirsig writing something about drugs having 'high biological
quality'... and low social quality... (damned if i can't find the text in
Lila), and I was thinking that that relation is wrong. Drugs have very LOW
biological quality and HIGH social quality. Cigarettes are pretty gross,
physically - they make you sort of nauseous if you don't smoke all the time,
they (apparently) give you cancer, and that's not high biological quality.
We smoke cause it's cool -- mostly for social reasons. Same with alcohol.
You don't really have high biological quality there either - alcohol is
poison. It's the social quality you get from drinking (the social lubricant
effect). Some of these things are becomming more or less 'officially'
accepted, but let me tell you where I'm from smoking is definitely socially
accepted and even encouraged (that whole Tobacco country thing). And the
popularity of drinking hasn't gone down too much that I can see...
Just a thought. I'm sure there will be more where that came from (at least
i'm hoping there will be :)
Rebecca
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