New at Reason
Ron Bailey considers the case of the psycho-pharmaceutical industry's desire to construct a more authentic you.
Comments to "New at Reason":
jackanapestarian | January 22, 2008, 3:47pm | #
Batman?Bob from Drugstore Cowboy | January 22, 2008, 3:54pm | #
"Most people don't know how they're gonna feel from one moment to the next. But a dope fiend has a pretty good idea. All you gotta do is look at the labels on the little bottles."sage | January 23, 2008, 12:33pm | #
You can't understand the user's mind,But try with your books and degrees.
If you let yourself go and open your mind,
I'll bet you'd be doing like me.
And it ain't so bad.
Windtell | January 23, 2008, 12:40pm | #
Please tell me that this guy is at least anti:ritalin, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, etc..
I think the true Me is one depressed psycho. I'm glad I don't have to meet him :)
zig zag man | January 23, 2008, 12:51pm | #
I'll stick to cannabis, wake me up when it's legal.Elemenope | January 23, 2008, 1:00pm | #
I don't know. There are a lot of things about a person's personality that that person themselves doesn't like; maybe they get angrier and say things they regret, or are not patient, or make judgements too soon or not soon enough. Maybe they are slutty, or shy, or socially awkward.If personality could be tweaked with precision, I don't see much problem with an adult doing it to themselves. If a person wants to become more trusting or less possessive, I can imagine it helping a lot more social relationships than it could hurt. I of course see serious problems with it being done to children, or to people against their will, and so long as a technology exists of course it will be abused.
A concern might be that it would deemphasize the proper development of good character, but character in many cases is simply mastering nasty predispositions and encouraging better ones, and filling in the gaps with ritual politeness. If bravery or diligence came in a bottle, I imagine society would have to reevaluate its placing of value upon the intentions of people when judging their actions.
Quiet_Desperation | January 23, 2008, 1:06pm | #
I want the pill that stops me from increasingly feeling like I just dropped in from a parallel universe. I can't even watch or read the news anymore. I'm the same species as all these other people? Really?brotherben | January 23, 2008, 1:09pm | #
The book referred to looks like an excellant read for a christian with an inquiring mind like me. Thank you Mr. BaileySugarFree | January 23, 2008, 1:14pm | #
There is no real "you," just layers of lies, omissions and evasions you create to interact with a world full of people trying to interact with you based on their own sets of lies, omissions, and evasions.If drugs like these make it easier to transition between the false fronts of your public face, or tweak that public face so that it is more consistent or easier to manage, then what's the problem?
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In Eliot's terms, drugs like these just give us more time.
Elemenope | January 23, 2008, 1:15pm | #
Well, I didn't mean to Nick. I meant only that some people wish they were less so (and some wish they were more) and if a regiment of pills could retool a person's sex drive or propensity to flirt or respond to flirting, then it would allow people who are trained or genetically predisposed to be sluts to try out being frigid, and vice versa.I don't see that as a bad thing.
NeonCat | January 23, 2008, 1:15pm | #
Philip of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great, said "Philip drunk is not Philip sober." Considering how damn near everything we consume affects us, how can one tell which is the authentic self? I guess you could go on a month-long fast of all chemicals, refined sugar, spicy food, etc., then eat a well-balanced meal washed down with plenty of water (not too much, don't want water intoxication) and that would be pretty close to who you are without any psychopharmaceutical influences.I guess that the real issue, as it is so often, is choice. If we have the tools to change ourselves, does someone else have the right to object? Does someone else have the right to change us against our will? Personally, I agree with Timothy Leary's two commandments for the Psychedelic Age.
Warty | January 23, 2008, 1:20pm | #
I guess you could go on a month-long fast of all chemicals, refined sugar, spicy food, etc., then eat a well-balanced meal washed down with plenty of water (not too much, don't want water intoxication) and that would be pretty close to who you are without any psychopharmaceutical influences.I guarantee you would rather be around me after the meal than before. Hungry me is a prick.
Since we are machines made of meat, and everything we do alters the chemical balance of our meat, I would say that the question of "who you are without any psychopharmaceutical influences" is meaningless.
old RA | January 23, 2008, 1:30pm | #
When I worked in a medical school's anxiety clinic 20 years ago, a company named Reid-Rowell was working on something called neuroleptics, aerosole based medications that would calm down (not knock out) groups of people if introduced into an air supply. I remember that they were talking about using it during prison riots or some such.Anyone hear anything about that?
Neu Mejican | January 23, 2008, 1:37pm | #
Quiet_Desperation,I want the pill that stops me from increasingly feeling like I just dropped in from a parallel universe.
That would be your basic anti-psychotic
SugarFree | January 23, 2008, 1:49pm | #
aerosole based medications that would calm down (not knock out) groups of people if introduced into an air supply.It was weaponized and marketed under the trade name American Idol.
J sub D | January 23, 2008, 1:53pm | #
For ~100,000 years hananity has been stumbling blindly towards the future, our destiny if you prefer. Any new technology, social structure or environment provides us with new problems (usually unforseen) and new solutions (also usually unforseen). The pharmaceutical and gengineering genies are out of the bottle and will change more than any of us can forsee. I have concerns (realistic? paranoid?) about governmental control of mood altering drugs so I'd recommend caution.When stumbling blindly it seems prudent to make our way forward slowly. But go forward we must. We can't stand still, and only disaster will send us backwards.
brotherben | January 23, 2008, 2:09pm | #
it's the so called hannatization of mankind?Taktix® | January 23, 2008, 2:15pm | #
aerosole based medications that would calm down (not knock out) groups of people if introduced into an air supply...this will help calm you down. Thank you for eating at Carl's Jr. Carl's Jr.: Fuck you! I'm eating!
Old RA | January 23, 2008, 2:21pm | #
Ahh, here's an article on neuroleptics.Elemenope | January 23, 2008, 2:32pm | #
Old RA --That isn't an article so much as an online scare pamphlet.
Fluffy | January 23, 2008, 2:43pm | #
The real issue here, as it is in the steroids debate, is the issue of suffering. Or, more precisely, the way in which western thinking equates suffering and earning.To a certain sentimental way of thinking, the person who labors intently to overcome limited talents to achieve some end has "earned" their accomplishment more than the person who has greater natural gifts and can accomplish difficult things easily. This "Special Olympics" theory of value skews our thinking about most bioethical issues.
All that the advances we're discussing will do is make certain things easier to accomplish. The authors Bailey is quoting presumably have no problem with a person overcoming their own shyness through counseling, or reflection and meditiation, or through submitting oneself to painful public episodes to insure oneself to the fear of others, etc. Changing oneself in this way is perfectably acceptable. It's only if you can change yourself with a medical treatment that it becomes ethically questionable. Just as it's OK to get big muscles by exercising four hours a day, but not OK to get them by getting a shot and exercising one hour a day. The only reason I can see for this is because humiliating oneself until you forget your own shyness is difficult, and taking a pill is easy. The one method of change is therefore morally OK, and the other one isn't, because of the differing levels of suffering involved.
BakedPenguin | January 23, 2008, 2:44pm | #
LMNOP - the article reads like it was written by psychiatrist Peter Breggin, or someone like him. (He's a non-Scientologist, btw).Neuroleptics are pretty bad drugs, and over-prescribed (libertarian boilerplate here). At any rate, the three Warnings at the bottom of the page aren't hyperbole, they're empiric findings on people who have taken neuroleptics.
Sean W. Malone | January 23, 2008, 2:55pm | #
Preface: I believe that everyone has the right to decide for themselves what they will or will not put in their own bodies...That said - what's wrong with being a little jealous? Or a little angry sometimes?
Why would we want to live in a white-washed, sterilized, non-confrontational world? Sounds fantastically boring to me...
Troubleshooter | January 23, 2008, 3:01pm | #
Why would we want to live in a white-washed, sterilized, non-confrontational world? Sounds fantastically boring to me...Pass the Soma...
First Little Pig | January 23, 2008, 3:04pm | #
Authentic you? I would think that if you don't like stage fright and want to pop a pill to eliminate it, then you are being fully "authentic".Am I "authentic" when I cut my hair or shave my face? I should say so: I am no Nazarene. Yet my natural self continues to grow unwanted hair. hmmm..
I have a friend who used to have uncontrolled facial tics. First impressions for him were exceedingly difficult and most people thought him kind of "weird" because of them. The wife and I had not seen him in a couple of years (we moved) and I had heard about a new pill he was taking to get the matter under control.
When he visit recently my wife could hardly believe it. And he's much happier for the transformation. Is he a more authentic him now? I think so.
JNR | January 23, 2008, 3:33pm | #
I'm not aware of any scientists or major religious groups that advocate the idea that our bodies are perfect and therefore need no alteration...in fact I thought that was one thing we were all in agreement on. You know, that our lives are not always great and we want to improve them. Religions tell us to improve our lives through ceremonies and meditation, and sometimes even diet (a la Buddhists or Jews or Mormons). Scientist make similar cases for therapy, diet, exercise, and parmaceuticals.The more I think about the more I think any quest for 'authenticity' involves willful alteration of the self.
David Owens strikes me as quite the luddite.
Kdog | January 23, 2008, 5:03pm | #
There is no reason why the development of these drugs would be a bad thing. They are merely a tool for helping us to do what we have been trying to do by force of will alone for so many eons.Incidentally, I see no reason why drugs that help couples become more intimate would not also be developed.
Condenser | January 23, 2008, 5:17pm | #
Seems like another academic twisting himself into knots in an effort to show that more freedom somehow equals less freedom.ERS | January 23, 2008, 6:05pm | #
Actually, there is nothing in the Qur'an about dishonor killings. In fact, they pre-date Islam by centuries and are un-Islamic. They are believed to have their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. They have more to do with culture than with faith.Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
The Bearded Hobbit | January 23, 2008, 9:46pm | #
.. who needs any drugs to alter your personality?? .. try going without a decent night's sleep for a few months .. you are not a normal person by any means .... Hobbit
The Gaunt Man | January 24, 2008, 10:34am | #
So am I not the real me because I take a mood stabilizer? Despite the fact I am happier, healthier, better able to maintain relationships, etc?"Can you see the real me preacher?
Can you see the real me doctor?
Can you see the real me mother?
Can you see the real me?"
-The Who, "The Real Me"
JLE | January 26, 2008, 3:40pm | #
This argument is, at its origin, quibbling over the definition of "authentic."The compact OED says authentic is "of undisputed origin" and certainly if I change myself chemically via legal or illegal drugs than I know *exactly* what the origin of that change is.
I don't wonder after six shots of whiskey how I managed to get drunk.
Sherief | January 28, 2008, 9:29am | #
I think the notion of necessary fixed points is a profound one, one that many of us might not give any thought to (because it is so fundamental to how we create meaning), until someone articulates it. Religion's staying power has been in providing these frameworks for meaning, but as the number of agnostics and atheists increases every year, we have to wonder what the place of religion in a post-modern society is. I share the concerns of Bailey and other post-ers here and approach the idea of sophisticated neuro-active drugs very carefully. While divine-inspired religions will take something of a back seat in the future, I think we all have to individually form our own secular religions of morals and practices through the use of reason. What other choice do we have? Would we want anything else?Lastly, I think this is what Foucault was worried about in his criticism of psychiatry. It was the framework of diagnosis that was too harsh in his opinion that was very pernicious - it made people feel as though their authentic selves was wrong or maladaptive, it can change the norm of what a "good" person is. After all, the culturally supplied idea of a good, productive person informs all of our behavior.
milkshake | January 28, 2008, 11:40am | #
"The tests came back negative so the problem could be psychosomatic - I will prescribe you Cymbalta and I will see you in two weeks"In two weeks the patient comes back smiling like a sunshine. "So how do you feel today?" "Wonderful, doc - just wonderful! Thank you - I used to be so depressed, you changed my life!"
"So your bed-wetting problem has gone away?"
"No, no, I am still wetting at night - and I am very happy about it!"
Chris | January 28, 2008, 9:42pm | #
Er, side effects, anyone?It's amazing to me that in all this airy, slightly giddy speculation about "personality optimizing," there's absolutely no discussion about the incredible number of serious, often dangerous medical side effects that accompany use of SSRIs and other mood brighteners.
It's just a fantasy to think that pharmacology is going to come up with a more-perfect, stress-free remedy for all the complex emotions that make us human. Why replace them anyway? Stop playing God! Instead, pay just a little attention to the serious medical consequences of all the meds that millions of Americans have taken. Maybe that will undo some of the damage they've already caused.
Having experienced somebody who was suffering from bipolar disorder, I can tell you that the short-acting SSRIs like Celexa do not combine well with bipolar patients and bipolars misdiagnosed and treated for depression is too common occurence. Every goodamned psychologist with MS degree can now do "behavioural therapy" augmented by dishing out the SSRIs (because they are so "safe") and then we get a troubled kid turning into a frank manic phase and in rage driving a car into a crowd of people or shooting out the whole class. HMOs love to hire witch-doctor psychology therapists because they are lot cheaper than psychiatrists.
Paul | January 29, 2008, 11:04pm | #
"Pharmacy of the Future" is something of a red herring. Owens' essay actually deals with taking science to its logical conclusion - once science has discovered everything there is to know about nature, body, and mind, what is left to form the basis of human decision making? The "Pharmacy of the Future" is just putting meat on Owens' question.Where I think Bailey goes astray with his review is in denying Owens his "fixed points that are needed to make decision making possible at all". The title of Owens' essay is "Disenchantment" - by this he refers to how science disenchants the world by removing such "fixed points". The implication then is that these "fixed points" are - enchantment. Hardly anything as stable as Bailey's literal reading. And in that sense, Bailey describes for us how humans have always maintained such fixed points:
"We are constructing the scaffolding and the edifice as we go along. Sometimes whole wings which housed us for a long time must be dismantled and rebuilt to fulfill our new requirements."
Owens' main concern is that a total scientific understanding of nature, body, and mind may put an end to this process; that is, rob us of our humanity. When Owens takes science to its logical conclusion, it can be downright spooky:
"The body is a machine that is there to serve our purposes. Once we know how this machine works, we can treat it just as we would our car or house."
Apparently, such logical conclusions have a long history (dating back at least to Hume, who Owens uses to bolster his own) - "The world puts no value on the life of a human being; only human beings do that".
Another way to phrase Owens' question is: In a world where scientific knowledge of nature, body, and mind is total and value-free, what will be left for human nature to value? And on this question I'll have to side with Bailey's optimism: we're human - we'll figure something out ;-)
dan retoff | January 30, 2008, 5:41pm | #
There is a difference between genuine religious beliefs and sanctioned stoning of fornicators by people who claim religious authority to doing so. I seem to remember hearing something to the effect that the philosopher who made this statement was considered to be fairly well grounded in ethics and religious belief.siobhan | January 30, 2008, 8:55pm | #
He says "On the other hand, given everyone's interest in the preservation of their bodies, one point that is fixed is that murder is wrong"I think that's wishful thinking.
Individuals murdering individuals is still considered wrong and punished on a case-by-case basis, but government sanctioned killing of the troops of other governments or anti-government organsiations is never punished and often seen as a natural part of life....
NikFromNYC | February 1, 2008, 6:50am | #
This is ancient history, except the Pharmaceutical industry wants its tither. Candy Flipping is taking Ecstacy followed by Nexus (2CB). In old days it was just chewing cocaine when you drank too much booze, so you wouldn't get too weird. Pot getting you down? Sleep it off with a double dose of Ambien. Girl being unfaithful? Caveman her and get in a fist fight that you throw the first punch of, with her happily married professor. Oops. Lay low a few weeks.The question isn't whether we can instinctively or experimentally tweak our consciousness. It's whether it will be outlawed or not. Why?
Because scratch the surface of "dial-a-mood" and you find one mood that society has already MAINTAINED worse jail sentences than for violent criminals or rapists: religious ecstasy and actual free thought creativity.
In the old school, this was blamed on hawkish warlike leaders who needed kids working to make more bombs and design better nukes. But now that those have already been invented, it just basic "old guy" constipation of the Right, meaning those who didn't get laid in the 60s, so never really noticed that the who did get laid turned into weird pacifists and New Agers, but actually most turned into classic 80s era 'yuppies."
I was once a chemist. I wanted, like Plato, like AI researchers, like well, *me*, to figure out how consciousness WORKED. I could not do so. Such interests were the "kiss of death" of an academic career. So it was left to the pharmaceutical industry to get to work, and they did a pretty good job, and continue to do so, but they cover up every "general acting" agent they discover.
Beh. These little tweaky things will change your daily life about as much as the latest $100K jetpack. What is needed is a "chemical vacation" which, upon landing back on Earth, eh hum, makes you enter into the economy with more sober rigor than you ever even could have imagined before.