> Drug-use lay at the essence of the rebellion of the Sixties. In
1962,
> there was no "drug culture." Persons barely knew what marijuana was. Then,
> gradually, persons began to smoke marijuana. Drugs were not a response to
some
> "discourse." The use of drugs arose spontaneously as a reaction to inner
psychic
> needs.
I see what must either be a set of flawed assumptions or an internal
contradiction. Either:
1. When you speak of an "inner psychic need" you operate under the
assumption that subjectivity is prior to power (ie that there is some
psychic need inherent humans that forces them to expand their view of
reality beyond what is culturally inhereted). There are several flaws in
this assumption. First, the subject has no inherent nature prior to power.
This is probably Foucault's most essential discovery. Look for example to
the very different ways in which child sexuality was treated in ancient
Greek and modern western societies. The discourses of pedophilia and
pedarastary elicit very different sexual practices. It seems obvious from
this and many other studies Foucault undertook that it is wrong to say that
people would have some inherent psychic urge which had nothing to do with
the discourses of society.
2. If you do not assume that subjectivity is prior to power, then you agree
that discourses constitute our subjectivity. Thus any response to the
constitution of reality in mainstream culture would be a response to a
system of discourses. The rise of resistance in response to a dominant
exercise of power seems to be the best explanation.
It is merely a blind assertion that some "psychic needs" magically arose
from nothing.
> It is not so much a question of escaping "the gaze." It is escape
the
> DESIRE TO GAZE, that is, to see what everyone else is seeing, partake of
the
> shared reality principle. Marijuana represents a space within where
culture and
> discourse cannot so easily penetrate.
What? They were seeing what most people were seeing. If there was a single
reality principal and people desired some sort of collective experience or
reality, what was lacking in the mainstream reality principal. I think
there was (and is) a desire to see something *different*. This desire to
escape dominant reality principals (which you admit were socially
constructed, thus the product of systems of discourse) can easily be seen as
the rise of forms of resistance to these discourses. At the same time, your
last assertion (which I read as meaning drug use was meant to escape all
culture) cannot be supported by the historical facts either. Look at the
rise of communes, the great communal imperatives of the drug culture (free
love, brother/sisterhood, etc). Fundamental within this drug experience was
the desire to form a new culture, using drugs to radically redefine one's
nature to reality.
Your analysis seems to be largely grand theorization with little basis in
historical fact.
1962,
> there was no "drug culture." Persons barely knew what marijuana was. Then,
> gradually, persons began to smoke marijuana. Drugs were not a response to
some
> "discourse." The use of drugs arose spontaneously as a reaction to inner
psychic
> needs.
I see what must either be a set of flawed assumptions or an internal
contradiction. Either:
1. When you speak of an "inner psychic need" you operate under the
assumption that subjectivity is prior to power (ie that there is some
psychic need inherent humans that forces them to expand their view of
reality beyond what is culturally inhereted). There are several flaws in
this assumption. First, the subject has no inherent nature prior to power.
This is probably Foucault's most essential discovery. Look for example to
the very different ways in which child sexuality was treated in ancient
Greek and modern western societies. The discourses of pedophilia and
pedarastary elicit very different sexual practices. It seems obvious from
this and many other studies Foucault undertook that it is wrong to say that
people would have some inherent psychic urge which had nothing to do with
the discourses of society.
2. If you do not assume that subjectivity is prior to power, then you agree
that discourses constitute our subjectivity. Thus any response to the
constitution of reality in mainstream culture would be a response to a
system of discourses. The rise of resistance in response to a dominant
exercise of power seems to be the best explanation.
It is merely a blind assertion that some "psychic needs" magically arose
from nothing.
> It is not so much a question of escaping "the gaze." It is escape
the
> DESIRE TO GAZE, that is, to see what everyone else is seeing, partake of
the
> shared reality principle. Marijuana represents a space within where
culture and
> discourse cannot so easily penetrate.
What? They were seeing what most people were seeing. If there was a single
reality principal and people desired some sort of collective experience or
reality, what was lacking in the mainstream reality principal. I think
there was (and is) a desire to see something *different*. This desire to
escape dominant reality principals (which you admit were socially
constructed, thus the product of systems of discourse) can easily be seen as
the rise of forms of resistance to these discourses. At the same time, your
last assertion (which I read as meaning drug use was meant to escape all
culture) cannot be supported by the historical facts either. Look at the
rise of communes, the great communal imperatives of the drug culture (free
love, brother/sisterhood, etc). Fundamental within this drug experience was
the desire to form a new culture, using drugs to radically redefine one's
nature to reality.
Your analysis seems to be largely grand theorization with little basis in
historical fact.