Originally published on Facebook 18 January 2013.
This essay arrives in a highly particular place, but it will take a while to get there. I promise that it’s worth the slog.
When I was in college I was best friends with a kid named Gene. Now, the friendship ended extraordinarily badly under circumstances I have described in an on-line essay called, “The Man Who Didn’t Lie To The Cops,” but I am serious when I say that for a while Gene and I were buds. The main reason we became strangers is that while we both experimented, in this our first year away from parental supervision, with recreational drugs, I eventually backed off and he did not — a decision that ultimately made him dangerous to be around.
Gene loved music and movies, but while he was getting high regularly he had special criteria for what constituted good works in both formats: to wit, it was deep if you appreciated it more while high. He said also that drugs were beneficial because it made you appreciate those works more. I pressed him on this: what about stuff that has an inherent value that doesn’t require a chemical assist? He said that stuff was empty; only the materials that improved under the influence, and therefore gave him a reason to place himself under the influence, were truly profound.
Now, I was as eager to get buzzed before A Clockwork Orange as he was, but I resisted his solipsism, which was best summarized as Drugs are Good Because They Enhance Experiences That Are Only Worthwhile If They Seem Better While Using Drugs.
It became clear to me that he was praising drugs as a filter that in fact filtered out everything that didn’t relate to drugs.
It struck me as a primitive form of algebra. Drugs Plus Movies With Great Visuals Equaled Movies Whose Visuals Looked Better Under The Influence of Drugs. I knew from Algebra that one way to find the value of a constant was to remove the superfluous variables on both sides of the equal sign, and to me that ultimately meant removing the drugs and arriving at Great Movies Equal Great Movies. Or Drugs Equal Drugs. The variables may have interacted, but they did not alter each other’s values.
The circular logic struck me as tremendously unbalanced, a sign that drugs were being celebrated for their own sake, in a manner that demonstrated where the true priorities lay. I ultimately decided I didn’t want anything to do with that kind of thinking.
And over the years I applied it to other arguments.
Beer. To me it tasted like shit. I was advised that if I drank a lot of it despite how sick it made me I could learn to appreciate it, with the result that I could…drink beer. I scratched my head and said, No Net Gain. Beer as a filter. It filtered out all concerns but more beer.
I’m a gambler. Very small time, I assure you. I go to the casino. I drop forty or sixty dollars or walk away with a hundred. I find it fun. But I am aware of the trap. What happens if I walk away with a lot of money? Well, I can buy myself a treat — but if I find myself thinking, great! That means I can afford to gamble, then my variables have fallen out of balance. Gambling becomes a filter. It filters out all concerns but more gambling.
I am not in any of these cases being a puritan about this, merely attacking the trap of circular thinking. You want to relax with pot once in a while, be my guest…but not because it makes you a better pot smoker. You can drink, but not because it makes you a better drinker. You can gamble, but not because it makes you able to keep gambling, indefinitely. All of these are cases of faulty, redundant algebra. The filter, removing all considerations but itself.
It’s the algebra, the faulty filter, that’s the problem.
If the algebra is unbalanced, you are unbalanced. You might even be seriously unbalanced. It is possible, quite possible, that you’re insane. You can’t handle these particular variables and keep the equation functional. Others might be able to. But indulging in this kind of thinking proves that you are the problem.
Got it? Not attacking pot. Not attacking alcohol. Not attacking gambling. Not attacking any other enthusiasm that can be applied to this principle. Just the kind of equation that exists in its own little universe, and unbalances everything, to the point of derangement. Got that?
Okay.
Here we arrive at the essay’s point.
“WE NEED GUNS!”
“Why?”
“TO STOP THE GOVERNMENT FROM TAKING AWAY OUR GUNS!”
“Why!”
“TO FIGHT TYRANNY!”
“Where do you see tyranny?”
“TAKING AWAY OUR GUNS!”
“But there are any number of countries that live in perfect freedom, and have gun control…”
“THEY’RE NOT FREE!”
“Why not?”
“THEY CAN’T HAVE GUNS!”
“Did you hear that some maniac shot up a school and killed twenty children?”
“THAT’S TERRIBLE! IT MIGHT MAKE THE GOVERNMENT TRY TO TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS!”
“That’s your first thought? Really?”
“THE ONLY SOLUTION IS MORE GUNS!”
Circular algebra. The filter that removes all considerations, but itself.