Comment by lo_zamoyski

Yeah. I see the merit of using properly dosed psychoactive drugs for the appropriate length of time to help restore normative function in difficult cases (e.g., major anxiety that impedes the function of reason, or stubborn depression). However, recreational or "spiritual" drug use is a real red flag. Hallucinogenic drugs might feel like they're granting you insight, but if they're not restoring normative function, then this is pure woo and superstition, no different from treating dreams as some kind of prophetic source of knowledge. They only simulate transcendence, but like virtual reality, you haven't actually left your couch, and you're not actually getting in touch with reality.

I worry that drug use is a kind of escapism, and evasion of what's actually wrong. A person with a genuine purpose and meaning in life is generally not interested in drugs. Usually, it's boredom or misery that makes drugs look attractive to people, and there is plenty of boredom and misery in rich countries. We're materially better off than we've ever been, arguably, but focusing on material prosperity is terribly reductive. Our culture has reduced human beings to isolated, atomic, consumerist, materialist individuals. We've defined meaning out of existence metaphysically, abolishing human nature in the process. We believe in homo economicus. Of course, those are beliefs, but reality continues to exert its influence regardless of what we believe, and when denied, exacts its revenge, expressed in unhealthy and deformed behavior and impulses.

In a strange way, drugs are a way of preserving this status quo. It may feel like you've broken free of something, because drugs act on emotion and emotions can affect perception, but in reality, they just entrench or deepen the problem. But only for a time. Eventually, something will snap, and often, this is not a pretty state of affairs, both on the individual level, but also more broadly at the societal level. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, experience is an expensive school, but humanity will learn in no other.