In the XX century, mankind managed to «get over» several types of drugs — at the beginning of the century they invented to treat morphine addiction with cocaine and heroin, in the middle of the century they tried to find harmony with society and with themselves with the help of LSD and barbiturates, today the warpath has been taken up by substances that increase efficiency and cognitive abilities.
However, all generations can be characterized not only with the help of the «main novel», but also with the help of drugs, it is interesting to know what was earlier: first a person had a desire to find answers to questions, or these questions were formed by the popular drug of the time?
However, all generations can be characterized not only with the help of the «main novel», but also with the help of drugs, it is interesting to know what was earlier: first a person had a desire to find answers to questions, or these questions were formed by the popular drug of the time?
Few people's views on drugs have changed as dramatically as Aldous Huxley's. Born into an upper-class English family in 1894, Huxley caught the «war on drugs» of the early 20th century, when two extremely popular substances were banned a few years apart: cocaine, sold by the German pharmaceutical company Merck as a treatment for morphine addiction; and heroin, sold by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer for the same purpose.
The timing of the emergence of these prohibitions was no accident. In the run-up to the First World War, politicians and newspapers had whipped up hysteria about «dope fiends» whose abuse of cocaine, heroin and amphetamines supposedly demonstrated that they had been «enslaved by a German invention», as noted in Tom Metzer's The Birth of Heroin and the Demonization of the Dope Fiend (1998).
In the interwar period, eugenics flourished, both from Adolf Hitler and from Huxley's older brother, Julian, the first director of UNESCO and a well-known advocate of eugenics. Aldous Huxley imagined what would happen if the authorities used drugs as dishonorable means of state control.
In Brave New World (1932), the fictional drug soma was given to the masses to keep them in a state of silent joy and contentment («All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol — and none of their disadvantages», Huxley wrote); there are also several references to mescaline (not tested by the writer at the time of the novel's creation and clearly not approved by him), which makes the book's heroine Linda stupid and prone to nausea.
«In return for the freedom taken away, the dictatorial regimes of the future will provide people with chemically induced happiness that will be indistinguishable from the present on a subjective level. The pursuit of happiness is a traditional human right. Unfortunately, the pursuit of happiness seems incompatible with another human right, the right to liberty» — Huxley wrote in The Saturday Evening Post.
In the days of Huxley's youth, the issue of hard drugs was inextricably linked to politics, and speaking out in favor of cocaine or heroin was seen by politicians and popular newspapers as almost supporting Nazi Germany.
«In return for the freedom taken away, the dictatorial regimes of the future will provide people with chemically induced happiness that will be indistinguishable from the present on a subjective level. The pursuit of happiness is a traditional human right. Unfortunately, the pursuit of happiness seems incompatible with another human right, the right to liberty» — Huxley wrote in The Saturday Evening Post.
In the days of Huxley's youth, the issue of hard drugs was inextricably linked to politics, and speaking out in favor of cocaine or heroin was seen by politicians and popular newspapers as almost supporting Nazi Germany.
But then, on Christmas Eve 1955 — 23 years after the publication of his novel «Brave New World» — Huxley took his first dose of LSD, and everything changed. He was ecstatic.The experience inspired his essay «Heaven and Hell» (1956), and he introduced the drug to Timothy Leary, who openly defended and championed the therapeutic benefits of mind-altering substances. In time, Huxley aligned himself with Leary's hippie politics — ideological opposition to Richard Nixon's presidential campaign and the Vietnam War — largely because of his positive experiences with these kinds of substances.
In Island (1962), Huxley's characters live in a utopia (rather than the dystopia presented in Brave New World) and achieve peace and harmony by taking psychoactive substances. In Brave New World, drugs are used as a means of political control; in contrast, in The Island, they act as medicine.
What can explain Huxley's change of heart from drugs as an instrument of dictatorial control to a way to escape political and cultural pressures? Indeed, taking the question more broadly, why were drugs universally despised at one time but praised by intellectuals at another?
In Island (1962), Huxley's characters live in a utopia (rather than the dystopia presented in Brave New World) and achieve peace and harmony by taking psychoactive substances. In Brave New World, drugs are used as a means of political control; in contrast, in The Island, they act as medicine.
What can explain Huxley's change of heart from drugs as an instrument of dictatorial control to a way to escape political and cultural pressures? Indeed, taking the question more broadly, why were drugs universally despised at one time but praised by intellectuals at another?
Have you not noticed the roughly decade-long rise in popularity of certain drugs that almost disappear and then reappear years later (e.g., cocaine)? Among other things, how have drugs erased or, conversely, created cultural boundaries? The answers to these questions add color to almost all modern history.
Taking drugs has a tight window of effectiveness for the cultures in which we live.The popularity of certain drugs has fluctuated over the past century: cocaine and heroin were popular in the 20s and 30s, LSD and barbiturates replaced them in the 50s and 60s, ecstasy and cocaine again in the 80s, and today productivity- and cognitive-enhancing substances like Adderall and modafinil and their more serious derivatives. If we follow Huxley's train of thought, the drugs we take at certain times may have a lot to do with the cultural era.We use and invent drugs that fit the needs of the culture.
Taking drugs has a tight window of effectiveness for the cultures in which we live.The popularity of certain drugs has fluctuated over the past century: cocaine and heroin were popular in the 20s and 30s, LSD and barbiturates replaced them in the 50s and 60s, ecstasy and cocaine again in the 80s, and today productivity- and cognitive-enhancing substances like Adderall and modafinil and their more serious derivatives. If we follow Huxley's train of thought, the drugs we take at certain times may have a lot to do with the cultural era.We use and invent drugs that fit the needs of the culture.
The drugs that have shaped our culture over the previous century are at the same time helping us to understand what was most desired by each generation and what they most lacked. Current drugs thus address a cultural question that demands an answer, whether it be a thirst for transcendent spiritual experiences, productivity, fun, a sense of exclusivity, or freedom. In this sense, the drugs we take act as a reflection of our deepest desires, the imperfections, the most important feelings that create the culture in which we live.
To be clear: this historical study deals primarily with psychoactive substances, including LSD, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, barbiturates, anti-anxiety drugs, opiates, Adderall and the like, but not anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen or painkillers such as paracetamol. The latter drugs are not mind-altering substances and therefore do not play a major role in this article.
The substances discussed also touch on the boundaries of law (but the taboo nature of a substance does not in itself prevent it from being central to a particular cultural moment) and class (a substance used by a lower social class is no less culturally relevant than substances preferred by a higher class, although the latter are better described and in retrospect are seen as having «higher cultural relevance»). Finally, the category of substances in question addresses therapeutic, medical and recreational uses.
To understand how it is that we create and popularize drugs that fit the culture of the time, take cocaine, for example. Widely available at the very beginning of the 20th century, cocaine was legislated for free distribution in Britain in 1920, and two years later in the United States.
«The enormous popularity of cocaine in the late nineteenth century had much to do with its 'strong euphoric effect. Cocaine energized a culture of resistance to Victorian norms, to strict etiquette, helping people perform 'without the consequences' of the barely emerging modern era, the rise of the social democratic movement»
— says Stuart Walton, an «intoxication theorist» and author of Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication (2001).
After Victorian moralism was defeated, social libertarianism gained popularity, and the number of supporters of anticlericalism increased dramatically after World War II, America and Europe forgot about cocaine. Until, of course, the 1980s, when cocaine was required to address new cultural issues. Walton explained it this way: «Its return in the '80s was based on the exact opposite social trend: total submission to the demands of finance capital and stock trading, which highlighted the resurgence of entrepreneurial selfishness in the Reagan and Thatcher eras».
Another example of how a drug became the answer to a cultural question (or problem) relates to suburban American women who became addicted to barbiturates in the 1950s. This segment of the population lived in the grim and oppressive conditions that are now known thanks to the denunciatory books of Richard Yates and Betty Friedan.
As Friedan wrote in The Mystery of Womanhood (1963), these women were expected to have «no hobbies outside the home» and to «self-actualize through passivity in sex, the superiority of men, and the care of maternal love». Frustrated, depressed, and nervous, they numbed their senses with barbiturates to conform to norms they could not yet resist.
In Jacqueline Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls (1966), the three main characters became dangerously reliant on stimulants, depressants, and sleeping pills-their «dolls» — to cope with personal decisions and especially sociocultural frameworks.
But the solution that prescription drugs provided was not a panacea. When substances could not easily solve the cultural issues of the period (e.g., helping American women escape the paralyzing emptiness, a frequent element of their lives), alternative substances, often seemingly unrelated to the situation at hand, were often a possible option.
— says Stuart Walton, an «intoxication theorist» and author of Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication (2001).
After Victorian moralism was defeated, social libertarianism gained popularity, and the number of supporters of anticlericalism increased dramatically after World War II, America and Europe forgot about cocaine. Until, of course, the 1980s, when cocaine was required to address new cultural issues. Walton explained it this way: «Its return in the '80s was based on the exact opposite social trend: total submission to the demands of finance capital and stock trading, which highlighted the resurgence of entrepreneurial selfishness in the Reagan and Thatcher eras».
Another example of how a drug became the answer to a cultural question (or problem) relates to suburban American women who became addicted to barbiturates in the 1950s. This segment of the population lived in the grim and oppressive conditions that are now known thanks to the denunciatory books of Richard Yates and Betty Friedan.
As Friedan wrote in The Mystery of Womanhood (1963), these women were expected to have «no hobbies outside the home» and to «self-actualize through passivity in sex, the superiority of men, and the care of maternal love». Frustrated, depressed, and nervous, they numbed their senses with barbiturates to conform to norms they could not yet resist.
In Jacqueline Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls (1966), the three main characters became dangerously reliant on stimulants, depressants, and sleeping pills-their «dolls» — to cope with personal decisions and especially sociocultural frameworks.
But the solution that prescription drugs provided was not a panacea. When substances could not easily solve the cultural issues of the period (e.g., helping American women escape the paralyzing emptiness, a frequent element of their lives), alternative substances, often seemingly unrelated to the situation at hand, were often a possible option.
Judy Balaban began taking LSD under a doctor's supervision in the 1950s, when she was not yet thirty. Her life seemed perfect: daughter of Barney Balaban, the wealthy and respected president of Paramount Pictures, mother of two daughters and owner of a huge house in Los Angeles, wife of a successful movie agent who represented and was friends with Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck and Marilyn Monroe. She considered Grace Kelly a close friend and was a bridesmaid at her royal wedding in Monaco.
As crazy as it sounds, life gave her almost no pleasure. Her privileged friends felt the same way. Polly Bergen, Linda Lawson, Marion Marshall - actresses married to famous movie directors and agents — complained of a similar overarching dissatisfaction with life.
With limited opportunities for self-actualization, with obvious demands from society, and the bleak prospects of living on antidepressants, Balaban, Bergen, Lawson, and Marshall began therapy with LSD intake. Bergen shared with Balaban in a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair magazine, «I wanted to be a person, not an image».
As Balaban wrote, LSD provided «the possibility of wielding a magic wand». It was a more effective response to the problems of modernity than antidepressants. Many of Balaban's culturally marginalized contemporaries felt the same way: 40,000 people are known to have undergone LSD therapy between 1950 and 1965. This was within the law but unregulated, and almost everyone who tried the approach claimed it was effective.
LSD met the needs not only of suburban housewives, but also of gay men and men unsure of their orientation. Actor Cary Grant, who cohabited with the charming Randolph Scott for several years and was the husband of five different women for about five years each (mostly while living with Scott), also found deliverance in LSD therapy.
Grant's acting career would have been destroyed had he become openly homosexual; like many of the aforementioned housewives of the time, he found that LSD provided a much-needed outlet, a kind of sublimation of the torment of sexual desire. «I wanted to free myself from my pretense», he somewhat veiledly shared in a 1959 interview. After attending more than a dozen LSD therapy sessions with his psychiatrist, Grant admitted, «At last I have almost achieved happiness».
In today's culture, perhaps the most important demand to which drugs are responding is problems of concentration and productivity as a consequence of the modern «attention economy», as defined by Nobel laureate economist Alexander Simon.
The use of modafinil, created to treat narcolepsy, to sleep less and work longer, and the abuse of other common attention deficit drugs like Adderall and Ritalin for similar reasons, reflect an attempt to respond to these cultural demands. Their use is widespread.
In a 2008 Nature magazine survey, one in five respondents said they had tried cognitive enhancement drugs at some point in their lives. According to a 2015 informal survey by The Tab, the highest rates of use are found in top academic institutions: students at Oxford University take these drugs more often than students at any other UK university.
These cognitive enhancement drugs help «to disguise the banality of work in two ways. They put the user in a state of extreme excitement while convincing him or her that the high comes from the success of the job» — Walton explains.
As crazy as it sounds, life gave her almost no pleasure. Her privileged friends felt the same way. Polly Bergen, Linda Lawson, Marion Marshall - actresses married to famous movie directors and agents — complained of a similar overarching dissatisfaction with life.
With limited opportunities for self-actualization, with obvious demands from society, and the bleak prospects of living on antidepressants, Balaban, Bergen, Lawson, and Marshall began therapy with LSD intake. Bergen shared with Balaban in a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair magazine, «I wanted to be a person, not an image».
As Balaban wrote, LSD provided «the possibility of wielding a magic wand». It was a more effective response to the problems of modernity than antidepressants. Many of Balaban's culturally marginalized contemporaries felt the same way: 40,000 people are known to have undergone LSD therapy between 1950 and 1965. This was within the law but unregulated, and almost everyone who tried the approach claimed it was effective.
LSD met the needs not only of suburban housewives, but also of gay men and men unsure of their orientation. Actor Cary Grant, who cohabited with the charming Randolph Scott for several years and was the husband of five different women for about five years each (mostly while living with Scott), also found deliverance in LSD therapy.
Grant's acting career would have been destroyed had he become openly homosexual; like many of the aforementioned housewives of the time, he found that LSD provided a much-needed outlet, a kind of sublimation of the torment of sexual desire. «I wanted to free myself from my pretense», he somewhat veiledly shared in a 1959 interview. After attending more than a dozen LSD therapy sessions with his psychiatrist, Grant admitted, «At last I have almost achieved happiness».
In today's culture, perhaps the most important demand to which drugs are responding is problems of concentration and productivity as a consequence of the modern «attention economy», as defined by Nobel laureate economist Alexander Simon.
The use of modafinil, created to treat narcolepsy, to sleep less and work longer, and the abuse of other common attention deficit drugs like Adderall and Ritalin for similar reasons, reflect an attempt to respond to these cultural demands. Their use is widespread.
In a 2008 Nature magazine survey, one in five respondents said they had tried cognitive enhancement drugs at some point in their lives. According to a 2015 informal survey by The Tab, the highest rates of use are found in top academic institutions: students at Oxford University take these drugs more often than students at any other UK university.
These cognitive enhancement drugs help «to disguise the banality of work in two ways. They put the user in a state of extreme excitement while convincing him or her that the high comes from the success of the job» — Walton explains.
In this sense, today's popular drugs not only help people work and make them more productive, but also allow them to make their self-esteem and happiness increasingly dependent on work, reinforcing its importance and justifying their time and effort. These drugs respond to the cultural demand for increased performance and productivity not only by allowing users to concentrate better and sleep less, but also by giving them reasons to be proud of themselves.
The flip side of the cultural imperative of productivity is reflected in the demand for increased convenience and ease of relaxation in everyday life (think Uber, Deliveroo, etc.) — a desire satisfied by pseudo-drugs of dubious efficacy like «binaural beats» and other creation-altering sounds and «drugs» easily found on the Internet (in the case of binaural beats, you can listen to melodies that supposedly put the listener in an «unusual state of consciousness»).
But if modern drugs are mostly responding to the cultural demands of the attention economy — concentration, productivity, relaxation, convenience — they are just as much changing the understanding of what it means to be yourself.
First and foremost, the way we now use drugs demonstrates a shift in our understanding of ourselves. So-called «magic pills», taken for a limited time or one-off for specific problems, have given way to «permanent drugs», such as antidepressants and anxiety pills, which need to be taken constantly.
«It’s a significant shift from the old model. It used to be, 'I'm Henry, I'm sick with something. A pill will help me become Henry again, and then I won't take it.' Now it's, 'I'm only Henry when I take my pills.' If you look at 1980, 2000 and today, the proportion of people taking these drugs is going up and up» — says Coles.
The flip side of the cultural imperative of productivity is reflected in the demand for increased convenience and ease of relaxation in everyday life (think Uber, Deliveroo, etc.) — a desire satisfied by pseudo-drugs of dubious efficacy like «binaural beats» and other creation-altering sounds and «drugs» easily found on the Internet (in the case of binaural beats, you can listen to melodies that supposedly put the listener in an «unusual state of consciousness»).
But if modern drugs are mostly responding to the cultural demands of the attention economy — concentration, productivity, relaxation, convenience — they are just as much changing the understanding of what it means to be yourself.
First and foremost, the way we now use drugs demonstrates a shift in our understanding of ourselves. So-called «magic pills», taken for a limited time or one-off for specific problems, have given way to «permanent drugs», such as antidepressants and anxiety pills, which need to be taken constantly.
«It’s a significant shift from the old model. It used to be, 'I'm Henry, I'm sick with something. A pill will help me become Henry again, and then I won't take it.' Now it's, 'I'm only Henry when I take my pills.' If you look at 1980, 2000 and today, the proportion of people taking these drugs is going up and up» — says Coles.
Is it possible that permanent drugs are the first step in drug use to reach a posthuman state? While they do not fundamentally change who we are, as anyone who drinks antidepressants and other neurological drugs on a daily basis realizes, it is as if our most important sensations begin to be dulled and clouded. To be ourselves is to be on pills. The future of substances may go this way.
It is worth looking back here. In the last century, there was a close relationship between culture and drugs, an interaction that demonstrated the cultural directions in which people wanted to move — rebellion, submission, or total escape from all systems and constraints.
A close look at what we want from today's and tomorrow's drugs allows us to understand the cultural issues we want to address. «The traditional model of a drug actively accomplishing something with a passive user. Is very likely to be replaced by substances that allow the user to be something completely different» — says Walton.
Of course, the ability to escape completely from oneself with drugs will materialize in one form or another in a relatively short period of time, and we will see new cultural questions potentially answered and asked by drugs themselves.
The patterns of drug use in the last century give us a strikingly accurate look at the vast layers of cultural history in which everyone from Wall Street bankers and downtrodden housewives to students and writers take drugs that reflect their desires and respond to their cultural demands. But drugs have always reflected a simpler and more permanent truth.
Sometimes we wanted to escape from ourselves, sometimes from society, sometimes from boredom or poverty, but always we wanted to escape. In the past, this desire was temporary: to recharge our batteries, to find refuge from the worries and demands of life. Recently, however, drug use has come to mean the desire for a long-term existential escape, and this desire borders dangerously on self-destruction.
It is worth looking back here. In the last century, there was a close relationship between culture and drugs, an interaction that demonstrated the cultural directions in which people wanted to move — rebellion, submission, or total escape from all systems and constraints.
A close look at what we want from today's and tomorrow's drugs allows us to understand the cultural issues we want to address. «The traditional model of a drug actively accomplishing something with a passive user. Is very likely to be replaced by substances that allow the user to be something completely different» — says Walton.
Of course, the ability to escape completely from oneself with drugs will materialize in one form or another in a relatively short period of time, and we will see new cultural questions potentially answered and asked by drugs themselves.
The patterns of drug use in the last century give us a strikingly accurate look at the vast layers of cultural history in which everyone from Wall Street bankers and downtrodden housewives to students and writers take drugs that reflect their desires and respond to their cultural demands. But drugs have always reflected a simpler and more permanent truth.
Sometimes we wanted to escape from ourselves, sometimes from society, sometimes from boredom or poverty, but always we wanted to escape. In the past, this desire was temporary: to recharge our batteries, to find refuge from the worries and demands of life. Recently, however, drug use has come to mean the desire for a long-term existential escape, and this desire borders dangerously on self-destruction.