Even though we
have clearly proven that society works best when everyone in it is
unhappy and violently disagrees with everyone else - we now encounter
a logistical problem. Somehow or another we have to get along with
each other anyway. This is a terrific inconvenience for all involved
and every society spends the vast majority of its time wrestling with
the difficulties of getting people to cooperate even though evolution
has designed them to be both wrong and out of sorts with everyone
else.
If you pay
close attention, you will notice that this general principle accurately
mirrors the realities of daily life to an astonishing degree. Day
in and day out people get on your nerves, do things differently, disagree
with you for no apparent reason, and yet you try diligently, as best
you can, to survive amongst them, get along with them to the degree
you are capable, all while maintaining a busy schedule of being wrong
about a number of things you wish you were right about.
These two realities,
the differences of others, and our own awareness that we are occasionally
capable of being wrong about things even when we are doing what we
want to, rule our lives. We wouldn't be able to survive all this stress,
and quite frankly, sometimes it seems touch and go, except that evolution
has kindly implanted a large number of functions in our brains and
hearts that make us want to get along with other people and be in
a society even when it makes us chronically unhappy. Evolution makes
us lonely without other people. It makes us a get a kick out of them
sometimes. It makes us fall in love with them. It makes us want to
mate with them, and it makes us attached to our kids. It makes us
fear for our safety if we get too far out of the mainstream, it makes
us want to conform, cooperate, agree, go along, get with the program,
survive, be nice, overcome our flaws, admit our errors, kiss and make
up, put up with and tolerate. It makes us want to be loved, liked,
admired. It makes us want to achieve, to do good, participate in society,
get ahead, be part of the crowd, hang out with each other and socialize,
and even go to raves and experience blissful feelings of goodwill
and pleasure. We don't all have these motivations in equal measure,
but we have them. Evolution knows, and by extension so do we, that
without Other People we are fried, and it is worth getting along with
them somewhat, even if it does get a bit irritating and there is all
that violent disagreement to contend with. It works for us to cooperate
in our collective wrongness, and we go along with the system. We
don't, quite frankly, have much of an alternative.
This need to get
along impels us to develop customs and ways of doing things subject
to mutual agreement. These customs, by special order of evolution,
don't make any sense and don't bear any real relationship to reality.
We say 'hi' or 'yo' or 'what's up with that?' because we've accidentally
informally agreed that this is what everybody we know does. We eat
with a fork instead of bending low over our plates and trying to just
inhale the food with suction power. We don't do this because forks
are sensible or a better way of eating things - we do it because it's
the custom and it's like totally embarrassing in a fork-based society
not to know how to eat with a fork. You could eat just as effectively
using a tiny shovel - but you don't because that would make you seem
weird. In a chopsticks based society, you better know how to eat with
chopsticks or people are going to give you a very hard time.
The less sense
a custom makes - the more upset people will get when it's violated.
This is a rule of evolution. Because the purpose of a custom is
to help people get along - and violating it is like saying in a big
loud obnoxious voice 'I DON'T WANT TO GET ALONG.' People hate
that shit, people who violate useless customs - because let's face
it - on a variety of levels, none of us wants to get along. We do
it anyway. It's just enraging when people violate our stupid customs
- it's rude! We hate that!
Evolution wants
us to disagree on things that are important - so we will derive the
correct Average Answer, and agree on things that aren't - so that
we will get along. Thus people in some cultures have to wear clothing
that totally covers them up - or sit on their knees for formal occasions,
take a siesta, speak English, work 40 hours a week, invite people
into their homes to be hospitable even though they are tired and don't
want to see them, respect their elders even if they are damn annoying,
go to church - just a million things. The only requirement evolution
has in this regard is that the customs not be actually necessary on
their own merits. That they be stupid. Yet whatever these customs
happen to be among a particular clump of people, they will believe
fervently that these things are extremely important and represent
the only right to live and they will offended, threatened, and panicky
if told that in reality their customs are stupid and unnecessary.
Because while any given custom is stupid - the practice of having
customs is necessary. And so people will put up with all kinds
of uncomfortable, dangerous and unnecessary shit - for the greater
good of getting along.
Although many
customs are charming and harmless, this need to have customs is not
necessarily an ideal situation in many respects, examined on a case
by case basis. But it's a part of human nature and it extends to opinions
- and practices - such as condemning hallucinogenic drugs on the basis
that they are hallucinogenic. There is nothing necessary about this
condemnation in and of itself; there have been a fair number of cultures
that actually required hallucinogenic experiences for initiation
into the dominant religion.
So part of the
legal attitude towards ecstasy in America has to do with the fact
that it has never been part of the customs in this country to approve
of such substances. In fact, it is a local custom, dating back to
those damnable Puritans to discourage their use. Condemning
certain kinds of drugs is a local custom. Habitual, unnecessary,
and hard to get rid of. Because as we saw above, nothing gets its
claws into a society like an irrational custom. This element of the
prevailing attitude towards drugs being a local custom explains
why it can actually seem like drug use is a matter of moral right
and wrong. Because the violation of custom is inherently experienced
as a moral issue, an issue regarding the right way to live so that
all can agree to live in harmony in spite of the fact that everybody's
nerves are being ground to a pulverized fine dust by abrasive contact
with the people we are all agreeing to live in harmony with.
This is part
of the reason why people are stuck in their ways as you put it. But
there's a bit more to it than that. The Average Answer function plays
a part too. Because the truth is, most customs are onerous, and a
few people, exercising their Violent Disagreement module, are going
to complain about them. This is good and healthy and it allows customs
to change over time, in spite of the fuss they kick up as they are
on their way out.
The reason customs
can change over time, in spite of society's excessive attachment to
them, is because, underneath it all, people instinctively understand
the Average Answer principle. The tendency of most people, most of
the time, is to move their answers toward the middle. Because they
know this is where the Average Answer is likely to be, and this is
where they are most likely to be closest to being right. People with
very strong preferences or temperament issues on a given matter take
up the extreme positions and everyone else tries to scooch along towards
what looks like the middle to them. This tendency to scooch toward
the middle, the Average Answer in a given clump, helps society work,
and helps us all get along. When we scooch toward the middle, we are
less likely to be drastically wrong, completely ostracized, and totally
humiliated.
This has implications
for drug policy. Let's break this down step by step so we know
exactly what we are doing here and what the logical implications are.
Step 1: Being
wrong. This is everybody's natural first step and we all adhere
to it unless by accident we hit upon a lucky guess and are inexplicably
right about something.
Step 2: If
the issue is important, deploy violent disagreement until general
grumpy milling about produces an Average Answer that almost everybody
can live with, even though hardly anyone actually wants to.
Step 3: If
the issue is unimportant, adopt general agreement and install
it as a Local Custom in which everyone can be wrong together as a
sign of good will and fellowship.
Step 4:
If it's not entirely clear whether an issue is important or unimportant,
we have these options.
prettyfedup.com