3. Unnatural
As popular as the preceding arguments, is the one that taking drugs is ‘unnatural’. This argument is put forward by many groups:
- by members of sects and sub-sects, to whom ‘natural’ is ‘what God said’;
- by ‘political conservatives’, for whom ‘natural’ means ‘what our grandfathers did’;
- by ‘atheist scientists’ for whom ‘natural’ is ‘what current lab research shows’;
- also by people who sit with crossed legs, stick their tongues to the roofs of their mouths, count their breaths, and support the war against drugs on grounds that humans have no use for ‘artificial substances’ from the ‘outside’.
As if spaghetti, tea and eyeglasses are not artificial substances from outside. Humans are not self-contained closed systems. We are open systems, constantly exchanging substances with the ‘outside world’. When people speak of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ practices, they assume that they know what ‘natural’ is. From what I gather from clever books, a natural state for a human is to go around naked, eat berries, kill animals with its teeth, eat everything raw, communicate with grunts and howls with other humans, and, if lucky, die of old age around 20 something. Everything we humans do today, and have done for thousands of years, is unnatural. It is the opposite of natural – ‘artificial’. Teeth chew what they were not designed to chew, the digestive system digests what it was not designed to digest, the air, the sounds, the body itself, is very very rarely in a ‘natural’ position. Our environment reflects in a warped way our biology, but in no way is it the original ecological niche which we occupied when we were ‘natural’.
Artificiality is made possible by the existence of human society which is based not on inherited information (like the societies of bees, ants, wolves, elephants) but information acquired through symbols, through mediums like conversations, books, pictures... Whenever we humans are faced by a choice between different practices and situations, we can never, while living in a society at least, be choosing between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, but between different kinds of ‘unnatural’. Just like talk of ‘maintaining a natural balance’ is logically invalid, so is talk of ‘unnatural practices’. A balance which is natural maintains itself. A balance which is maintained by humans is artificial. Therefore, when a balance is maintained by human efforts it can not be natural – it is artificial. No natural balance maintaining ecologist or contemplator likes to admit this, because to them ‘natural’ equals good and ‘artificial’, ‘unnatural’ – bad. Most people are in the same mental trip, calling natural what they consider good, and unnatural what they consider bad. Which is ‘only natural’.
Of course taking drugs is unnatural. But so is working in a bank, drinking coffee, washing teeth and wearing socks.
Being put into prison or a mental home is certainly not ‘more natural’, than smoking marijuana. Living naked in the forest is natural. And even if I am completely wrong, and driving a car or using electricity for light is indeed by some sick logic far more natural then smoking a plant or injecting its extract – why should this be a question of such magnitude as to put me into jail or mental home? Why should anyone the hell care if what I do is natural or unnatural? Because I anger the gods? But I don’t believe in your gods! So in the end it is all a question of punishing me for not believing in your gods? But, if I am a danger by not believing in them, if I make them less real or powerful by not believing in them – how pathetic are they? How pathetic are you? And if I don’t affect them – then why do you or they care?
Some people would wave a holy book at me, and say that I was in fact created by ‘the Lord’, and therefore am his property, and to not do with myself what he commands me to do is a crime. What can I say?
I don’t believe you actually talk to this Master and know what he wants – you are lying;
I don’t believe he exists at all in the way you describe him– rather he is a symptom of your mental illness;
If he does exist in the way you describe him, and does tell you what you say he does – he can kiss his property goodbye, because it has just declared independence;
If I am wrong – I’ll get what I deserve after I die. This is between me and him. It’s none of your business.
Your business is what happens on the outside – if I steal, kill or rape. What happens on the inside – this is so not your territory.
As popular as the preceding arguments, is the one that taking drugs is ‘unnatural’. This argument is put forward by many groups:
- by members of sects and sub-sects, to whom ‘natural’ is ‘what God said’;
- by ‘political conservatives’, for whom ‘natural’ means ‘what our grandfathers did’;
- by ‘atheist scientists’ for whom ‘natural’ is ‘what current lab research shows’;
- also by people who sit with crossed legs, stick their tongues to the roofs of their mouths, count their breaths, and support the war against drugs on grounds that humans have no use for ‘artificial substances’ from the ‘outside’.
As if spaghetti, tea and eyeglasses are not artificial substances from outside. Humans are not self-contained closed systems. We are open systems, constantly exchanging substances with the ‘outside world’. When people speak of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ practices, they assume that they know what ‘natural’ is. From what I gather from clever books, a natural state for a human is to go around naked, eat berries, kill animals with its teeth, eat everything raw, communicate with grunts and howls with other humans, and, if lucky, die of old age around 20 something. Everything we humans do today, and have done for thousands of years, is unnatural. It is the opposite of natural – ‘artificial’. Teeth chew what they were not designed to chew, the digestive system digests what it was not designed to digest, the air, the sounds, the body itself, is very very rarely in a ‘natural’ position. Our environment reflects in a warped way our biology, but in no way is it the original ecological niche which we occupied when we were ‘natural’.
Artificiality is made possible by the existence of human society which is based not on inherited information (like the societies of bees, ants, wolves, elephants) but information acquired through symbols, through mediums like conversations, books, pictures... Whenever we humans are faced by a choice between different practices and situations, we can never, while living in a society at least, be choosing between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, but between different kinds of ‘unnatural’. Just like talk of ‘maintaining a natural balance’ is logically invalid, so is talk of ‘unnatural practices’. A balance which is natural maintains itself. A balance which is maintained by humans is artificial. Therefore, when a balance is maintained by human efforts it can not be natural – it is artificial. No natural balance maintaining ecologist or contemplator likes to admit this, because to them ‘natural’ equals good and ‘artificial’, ‘unnatural’ – bad. Most people are in the same mental trip, calling natural what they consider good, and unnatural what they consider bad. Which is ‘only natural’.
Of course taking drugs is unnatural. But so is working in a bank, drinking coffee, washing teeth and wearing socks.
Being put into prison or a mental home is certainly not ‘more natural’, than smoking marijuana. Living naked in the forest is natural. And even if I am completely wrong, and driving a car or using electricity for light is indeed by some sick logic far more natural then smoking a plant or injecting its extract – why should this be a question of such magnitude as to put me into jail or mental home? Why should anyone the hell care if what I do is natural or unnatural? Because I anger the gods? But I don’t believe in your gods! So in the end it is all a question of punishing me for not believing in your gods? But, if I am a danger by not believing in them, if I make them less real or powerful by not believing in them – how pathetic are they? How pathetic are you? And if I don’t affect them – then why do you or they care?
Some people would wave a holy book at me, and say that I was in fact created by ‘the Lord’, and therefore am his property, and to not do with myself what he commands me to do is a crime. What can I say?
I don’t believe you actually talk to this Master and know what he wants – you are lying;
I don’t believe he exists at all in the way you describe him– rather he is a symptom of your mental illness;
If he does exist in the way you describe him, and does tell you what you say he does – he can kiss his property goodbye, because it has just declared independence;
If I am wrong – I’ll get what I deserve after I die. This is between me and him. It’s none of your business.
Your business is what happens on the outside – if I steal, kill or rape. What happens on the inside – this is so not your territory.
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