Seriously, though. DMT or psychedelics in general are not enough (sadly) to cure chronic chud-dom, I think they actually can inspire a leftward political drift. Or at least help begin to erode a reactionary worldview. They're well known for inducing a sense of empathy and connectedness which are anathema to any right-leaning politics. Like you know the term 'ego death'? That's probably not an experience someone should have who wants to maintain the kind of selfish and self-serving outlook necessary to lean towards fash.
I mean, it's more than just an accident that the powers of capital and the status quo always take such an interest in criminalizing psychedelics. Even beyond using them as a way to control and suppress ethnic minorities and erase their culture, that is.
All that said, obviously there are still plenty of hardcore liberals who've had more than a few trips and are still terminally infected with brain worms. And it's not like there don't exist outright fascists who have tripped at some point either. But seriously, you'll find far, far fewer of them than you would leftist psychonauts, at least in my experience. I'd absolutely consider psychedelics and dissociatives some of the stepping stones towards a more radical perspective for myself.
Also Joe Rogan and the Reichsbürger / sovereign citizen hippies i've ran into at goa parties. Esoteric fascism is, sadly, still a thing, has been a thing for ages and i'm afraid it will only gain more traction now that the fash have another functioning pipeline via Q. That development worries me a lot, i'm often wondering what i'll run into in the psytrance scene once the Covid situation is over.
See Prussian hardcore chud Ernst Jünger as what's probably the best example for a far-right psychedelic user - lionized killing the French in WW1, became a protegé of the nazis in WW2. Classic Prussian militarist and ultra-nationalist. When the allies bombed nazi-occupied Paris, he went up on the roof of the German embassy, watching the city burn through his champagne glass, pretending to be Nero. That guy was pen pals with Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD. Jünger had already experimented with mescaline in the inter-war period. He later got to try LSD and synthetic psilocybin straight from Hofmann's lab. It did nothing to stop him from being a chud.
So, i was at this semi-private goa party out in the German woods a few years ago. Some people had rented a cabin there, put up some speakers and a bar, and everybody was having a good time. I was chatting with a local DJ, white dude with dreads, looked as if he hadn't slept since 1997, and he was on a barely intelligible rant about his ex. Out of fucking nowhere, he starts talking about the Hague Convention and how that means he is eligible to receive 1700 € / month from the occupational government because he's "a combatant".
That's a popular dog whistle among the Reichsbürger - they believe that Germany isn't real and that the actual government are still the allies. They're very similar to the sovereign citizens in America, tend to range from right-libertarian to openly fash, have a massive overlap with the conspiracy / Q scene and recently the anti-mask scene as well.
I quickly got out of that conversation, but later found out that guy also posts about how great Hitler's social policies where.
People say the same thing about BJJ and being an asshole. Because you have a bunch of other people big and small crushing you while you learn, you become humble - even using the word ego over and over. What do you know? Plenty of assholes on the other side! Maybe some 1 dimensional people just really, really can't stand losing, but that's not representative of the top of the bell curve.
I think of it as leading a horse to water. If you see something sublime with DMT, it might open the door to caring about people more than money line, but not necessarily. If you get choked out by a 16 y/o in BJJ, you might talk less and listen more, but not necessarily. If you were raised hating the Democrats (and who could blame them) and you think politics is a singular line - a little bit of euphoria isn't going to unravel who you are as a person.
It took me a series of epiphanies and earnest engagements with data, debate, theory, and history to end up on the Chapo subreddit. And I wasn't ever a chud - just a lib with a chip on my shoulder about war and drugs. Maybe a YouTube algorithm that reccomends HasanAbi VODs would be a better pipeline than drugs would ever be.
I don't necessarily disagree with most all of that (despite not knowing what BJJ was until just now looking it up). But that's why I made it clear, repeatedly, that psychedelics alone are certainly not enough to rid someone of firmly-held bad political views. But I still think that they are never going to hurt (i.e., cause someone to become more of a chud) but rather have a reasonable chance of helping a person consider other, broader, more humanistic perspectives. Basically, I think the use of psychedelics will have a real tendency to inspire the kind of thinking necessary for a leftward shift. I'm not claiming this would happen for everyone, and even for those it does, it's not likely to be a sudden and diametric change.
If you were raised hating the Democrats (and who could blame them) and you think politics is a singular line - a little bit of euphoria isn’t going to unravel who you are as a person.
Ok, there are a few things to say about that...
First of all, psychedelics may or may not be euphoric. In fact they can be extremely dysphoric sometimes. It can even be argued that "bad trips" would be more likely to have transformative effect on the user. It's not the feeling strange pleasure or 'seeing pretty colors' that are really going to give someone new insights into their view of the world. Again, it's more about the completely different, broader perspectives afforded by psychedelic use, among other effects, that could have a chance of shifting the politics someone identifies with. Also, none of that is about "unraveling" who someone is "as a person," but rather planting seeds of consideration. Someone raised hating leftists isn't likely to have some sudden epiphany and immediately start agitating for revolution after doing LSD and ketamine, and I never implied otherwise. But instead, that person might here and there start thinking about the narrow lens they've been using to look at the world, and questioning how distorted it may be. Psychedelics are very good at helping a person with that because they essentially force a person to look at the world through a very different lens if only for the duration of a trip.
Maybe a YouTube algorithm that reccomends HasanAbi VODs would be a better pipeline than drugs would ever be.
Ok, that I really do disagree with. A chud could watch all your favorite leftist videos over and over and be totally unswayed if they don't have the mindset to consider a different perspective than the one they're used to. Psychedelics on the other hand, by definition, put people into a mindset where they can only see perspectives other than what they're used to.
When your musings get pieced apart by the person you were agreeing with :bruh-moment:
Perhaps I was a bit reductionist on the subject on entheogens by calling it a euphoria. Sorry, comrade. I hope my takeaway message was a riff off of what you were saying insofar that the drugs by themselves won't make a leftist, even if that's what the Nixon administration wanted people to believe.
Oh hey, it's all good! No need for apologies. The points you made are perfectly valid and yeah, also gave me a chance to better explain (or ramble on about) my reasoning for touting psychs. :heart-sickle:
Seriously, though. DMT or psychedelics in general are not enough (sadly) to cure chronic chud-dom, I think they actually can inspire a leftward political drift. Or at least help begin to erode a reactionary worldview. They're well known for inducing a sense of empathy and connectedness which are anathema to any right-leaning politics. Like you know the term 'ego death'? That's probably not an experience someone should have who wants to maintain the kind of selfish and self-serving outlook necessary to lean towards fash.
I mean, it's more than just an accident that the powers of capital and the status quo always take such an interest in criminalizing psychedelics. Even beyond using them as a way to control and suppress ethnic minorities and erase their culture, that is.
All that said, obviously there are still plenty of hardcore liberals who've had more than a few trips and are still terminally infected with brain worms. And it's not like there don't exist outright fascists who have tripped at some point either. But seriously, you'll find far, far fewer of them than you would leftist psychonauts, at least in my experience. I'd absolutely consider psychedelics and dissociatives some of the stepping stones towards a more radical perspective for myself.
Counterpoint Steve Jobs
Also Joe Rogan and the Reichsbürger / sovereign citizen hippies i've ran into at goa parties. Esoteric fascism is, sadly, still a thing, has been a thing for ages and i'm afraid it will only gain more traction now that the fash have another functioning pipeline via Q. That development worries me a lot, i'm often wondering what i'll run into in the psytrance scene once the Covid situation is over.
See Prussian hardcore chud Ernst Jünger as what's probably the best example for a far-right psychedelic user - lionized killing the French in WW1, became a protegé of the nazis in WW2. Classic Prussian militarist and ultra-nationalist. When the allies bombed nazi-occupied Paris, he went up on the roof of the German embassy, watching the city burn through his champagne glass, pretending to be Nero. That guy was pen pals with Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD. Jünger had already experimented with mescaline in the inter-war period. He later got to try LSD and synthetic psilocybin straight from Hofmann's lab. It did nothing to stop him from being a chud.
Sovereign citizen hippies in Goa? Tell me more.
So, i was at this semi-private goa party out in the German woods a few years ago. Some people had rented a cabin there, put up some speakers and a bar, and everybody was having a good time. I was chatting with a local DJ, white dude with dreads, looked as if he hadn't slept since 1997, and he was on a barely intelligible rant about his ex. Out of fucking nowhere, he starts talking about the Hague Convention and how that means he is eligible to receive 1700 € / month from the occupational government because he's "a combatant".
That's a popular dog whistle among the Reichsbürger - they believe that Germany isn't real and that the actual government are still the allies. They're very similar to the sovereign citizens in America, tend to range from right-libertarian to openly fash, have a massive overlap with the conspiracy / Q scene and recently the anti-mask scene as well.
I quickly got out of that conversation, but later found out that guy also posts about how great Hitler's social policies where.
Spmething something material conditions.
People say the same thing about BJJ and being an asshole. Because you have a bunch of other people big and small crushing you while you learn, you become humble - even using the word ego over and over. What do you know? Plenty of assholes on the other side! Maybe some 1 dimensional people just really, really can't stand losing, but that's not representative of the top of the bell curve.
I think of it as leading a horse to water. If you see something sublime with DMT, it might open the door to caring about people more than money line, but not necessarily. If you get choked out by a 16 y/o in BJJ, you might talk less and listen more, but not necessarily. If you were raised hating the Democrats (and who could blame them) and you think politics is a singular line - a little bit of euphoria isn't going to unravel who you are as a person.
It took me a series of epiphanies and earnest engagements with data, debate, theory, and history to end up on the Chapo subreddit. And I wasn't ever a chud - just a lib with a chip on my shoulder about war and drugs. Maybe a YouTube algorithm that reccomends HasanAbi VODs would be a better pipeline than drugs would ever be.
I don't necessarily disagree with most all of that (despite not knowing what BJJ was until just now looking it up). But that's why I made it clear, repeatedly, that psychedelics alone are certainly not enough to rid someone of firmly-held bad political views. But I still think that they are never going to hurt (i.e., cause someone to become more of a chud) but rather have a reasonable chance of helping a person consider other, broader, more humanistic perspectives. Basically, I think the use of psychedelics will have a real tendency to inspire the kind of thinking necessary for a leftward shift. I'm not claiming this would happen for everyone, and even for those it does, it's not likely to be a sudden and diametric change.
Ok, there are a few things to say about that...
First of all, psychedelics may or may not be euphoric. In fact they can be extremely dysphoric sometimes. It can even be argued that "bad trips" would be more likely to have transformative effect on the user. It's not the feeling strange pleasure or 'seeing pretty colors' that are really going to give someone new insights into their view of the world. Again, it's more about the completely different, broader perspectives afforded by psychedelic use, among other effects, that could have a chance of shifting the politics someone identifies with. Also, none of that is about "unraveling" who someone is "as a person," but rather planting seeds of consideration. Someone raised hating leftists isn't likely to have some sudden epiphany and immediately start agitating for revolution after doing LSD and ketamine, and I never implied otherwise. But instead, that person might here and there start thinking about the narrow lens they've been using to look at the world, and questioning how distorted it may be. Psychedelics are very good at helping a person with that because they essentially force a person to look at the world through a very different lens if only for the duration of a trip.
Ok, that I really do disagree with. A chud could watch all your favorite leftist videos over and over and be totally unswayed if they don't have the mindset to consider a different perspective than the one they're used to. Psychedelics on the other hand, by definition, put people into a mindset where they can only see perspectives other than what they're used to.
Perhaps I was a bit reductionist on the subject on entheogens by calling it a euphoria. Sorry, comrade. I hope my takeaway message was a riff off of what you were saying insofar that the drugs by themselves won't make a leftist, even if that's what the Nixon administration wanted people to believe.
Oh hey, it's all good! No need for apologies. The points you made are perfectly valid and yeah, also gave me a chance to better explain (or ramble on about) my reasoning for touting psychs. :heart-sickle: