At the office the other day, we were discussing the legalization of marijuana. The primary argument in favor of it was that resistance to it was futile. People were going to smoke pot and there was no point fighting it.
So why don't we all live like Caligula or any other libertine from history? You can go back in time and find eras where personal gratification was greater than it is today. If Man's natural state is one of submitting his will and ambitions to the gratification of his bodily desires, how is it possible that we would live with less abandon than some time in the past?
If resisting our desires was a waste of time, wouldn't the march towards libertine perfection be unimpeded?
Associated question: If prostrating ourselves to sexual and chemical indulgences was the pinnacle of human evolution, how do you explain the recent successes of nations like China and India where such actions are not the norm?
5 comments:
What I see as the big problem, is the distinction between the benefits of *training yourself* to resist temptations, and the whole issue of the government trying to *force* you to resist temptations.
Do I think that individuals benefit from resisting the temptation to smoke pot? Yes. Not only do people who resist the temptation not suffer from any downsides of smoking pot, but they also gain valuable practice in resisting other temptations.
Does the government making pot illegal actually give the same benefit? I don't think it does. It looks to me that what it actually does is teach people that the government is there to save them from themselves, and that any temptations will be whisked away so that they don't need to worry their little heads about them. Which in turns breeds the idea that "It's not illegal, and therefore it must be moral/ethical/harmless/otherwise OK".
And as a second issue, I think making a lot of poorly-enforced laws is generally corrosive to the rule of law. It breeds contempt for the legal system when people routinely break the law and get away with it.
In thinking about this further, I'd suggest that legalizing pot and providing extensive social spending for the "less fortunate" is an extremely toxic combination. Self control is enhanced by having to deal with the consequences of your actions. When the government reduces the consequences as much as possible, then government-enforced control becomes necessary.
So govt. enforced consequences, eg jail time and it's associated costs both direct (providing room and board to pot smokers) and indirect (disqualifying them upon release from jobs and travel), is a less toxic combination how exactly?
Aon, getting baked is an unproductive thing to do. If you remove all consequences from it, more people will do it. We first removed the consequences by providing basic social services. Had the pothead had to provide them for himself, there would be a negative consequence to getting baked. Right now, the biggest negative consequence is the law. If we remove that, too, then nothing stops the underachiever from getting baked every day.
Well, on Friday night I drank about a dozen stubbies of beer (the real stuff, not that American...fluid).
Under the Volstead Act I would have been liable to the same punishments as a pot smoker today, in fact worse given the prison conditions at the time.
On Saturday morning I got up and did a bit of work, did some gardening and generally occupied myself productively.
I know from experience that had i smoked a joint or two instead of drinking beer, nothing would have been different, unless I'd been seen by a nice friendly policeman. Then the two paths would have diverged significantly.
I've never figured out why Americans are always so in favour of freedom, unless it's someone else's freedom.
Capcha: scouse. (n) A Liverpudlian.
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