pharmakons

i have been pondering a couple of pharmakons in a philosophical sense for some time and now a new one has cropped up…a pharmakon is something that is beneficial…a cure…up to a point…at some point, however, the beneficent effect turns toxic and the key…as with pharmaceuticals, is dosage…denial and community are the two original pharmakons i have been ruminating over…denial…we are all going to die…we all know this…and, to prevent ourselves from becoming some sort of edgar allen poe simulacrum we deny it…push it out of consciousness…ignore it to the point of forgetting about it…it lets us function in average everydayness without seizing up…something of a benefit…it can go too far…we can transfer that denial to other activities we should probably be more aware of…lie to ourselves so effectively that we mask our destructive behaviors and intentions ( both self and outwardly directed ) to the point we believe our own lies…become profound victims of doublethink…on one level we know what we are doing is destructive and on another actively ignoring that…conflicted…schizophrenic to an extent…addiction is an instance of denial becoming a toxic pharmakon where the only person seemingly oblivious ( and i am here to tell you they are not oblivious…they know…at least on a deeper level…what’s going on and it is a source of profound personal conflict…it is a difficult conflict to overcome…usually some sort of event that provides shocking, undeniable evidence of the depth and scope of the conflict is what is needed to overcome it…some do not survive the shock ) to what’s going on is the addict…denial gone haywire…community is another pharmakon…communities of like-minded people can be a wealth of support and a font of well-being for people…kurt Vonnegut maintained that loneliness was a plague in American life and that the preponderance of fraternal organizations, ( elks, moose, masons, etc. ) were a way of combating that plague and were therefor beneficial…i can agree with that to a point although nietzsche called solitude his “home” and de quincey wrote at length about the relationship between solitude and cogent thought…still...even an elk can find a moment or two to be alone…there can be too much in the way of group identification though…humans divide into groups…it’s what they do…tribes…villages…moose…and, no matter how benign the community is, the members consider their group just that much better than others…”we’re better” at one thing or another…”we do it right”…”they do things different there”…when community becomes toxic is when that “they” becomes “the other”…a scapegoat ( which, interestingly enough is another part of the philosophical definition of pahrmakon )…someone to blame for all your troubles…someone that needs to go…armenians…jews…bosnian muslims…tutsis…east timorese…the list goes on…and on…ein volk is a phrase that should be in utter disrepute…it isn’t...it’s toxic…it’s still around…it makes people think walls are a good idea…and gives them ideas about what to do when the walls ultimately fail…human adaptability is a new one on the list and one that has arisen lately…i would not have thought it that bad a trait…what is culture ( in the anthropological sense ) other than human adaptation to different environments and the intrinsic problem solving necessary for continued existence wherever you are…yet human adaptability can, if the changes are incremental enough, lead us to situations and behaviors that are not of necessity good ( here we tie into the “ein volk” from above )…here i am specifically thinking of economic change and adaptation…of late the manufacturing job i worked at for decades vanished in what can only be characterized as another casualty of consolidation of industries and an export of jobs…if not overseas then to less unionized localities…i was headed for retirement and have many economic variables under control ( like debt…fuck debt )…still I had wanted to wait a while yet before stopping altogether and found part time work for what will remain a nameless retailer at a wage rate considerably below where i was at a few months ago…this is not a crisis for me…that it is not nearly a living wage is not a disaster for me…i can’t help but wonder about the younger people that are working there however…this isn’t full time work…they can’t possibly be making ends meet here…one supposes they have other part-time jobs that are equally badly paid…it explains why so many youngsters are so angry…so why do they put up with it? i have a hypothesis which might survive rigorous testing ( or might fall apart like a house of cards…this is me we are dealing with here ) the current economic abuse of workers probably had its genesis with the wagner act in 1935 but it became more manifest with the nixon and carter administrations and accelerated through reagan and clinton through to the late stage capitalism we find ourselves in...a conscious and concerted crippling of social legislation and the ability of workers to organize collectively to bargain over terms and conditions of work (i am officially an “at will employee” who can be “ discharged ate any time, with or without cause and with no prior notice”…unions are heavily propagandized against because they would put a stick in the “at will” spokes…as well as raise wages across the board )…as well as deliberate exacerbation of social differences to deflect energy and consciousness that might be aimed at a critique of government policies and the underlying elitist philosophy that drives it…a deliberate destitution and marginalization of workers that would have driven our new deal democrat parents into the streets has been accepted ( if grudgingly and angrily ) by a generation because the change was incremental over a period of decades...what would have been a political problem for our parents and is for us has become a norm for our children and grandchildren...if your work-life starts out at $9/hour it’s what is…you don’t have a frame of reference ( beyond mom and dad’s and grandma and grandpa’s stories) that tells you things could ( and should ) be different…you adapt to the norm…acceptance…there is a strain of quietism about human adaptation that is unhealthy...it takes time but the social contract can be radically changed and the hegemonic culture can present it as the only logical end with no apparent alternative…there are alternatives…my best guess is that any substantive movement towards an alternative from below would be met with violent resistance from above…have a look around and filter what you see through a framework of pharmakons…tell me what you see…feel free to disagree...i could easily be mistaken…i am open to persuasion…i’m not a pushover though.