This book is said to uncover the absurd implications of materialism. Unfortunately, Kastrup misses the most absurd implications of all: 1) We live in an age when we prefer to shock the brains of the depressed rather than to let them use godsend medicine that would cheer them up. 2) We live in an age when we will let the depressed kill themselves with drugs but we will not let them cheer themselves up with drugs. 3) We live in an age when 1 in 4 American women are dependent upon Big Pharma's "scientific" drugs for life. These downsides are all due to the myopic reductionism of the modern materialist, who ignores the obvious in favor of the microscopic. Such scientists want objective proof that drugs work and are deaf to glowing user reports about drugs (not to mention the historical accounts which credit some of these drugs with inspiring entire religions!). Dr. Robert Glatter was typical of such materialist blindness when he asked in Forbes magazine in June 2021: "Can laughing gas help people with treatment resistant depression?" Answer: He's not sure!
What?! Of course laughing gas could help. But reductive materialism makes Glatter indifferent to all the laughter he hears from users, nor does he consider the fact that mere anticipation of occasional use would improve attitude. Presumably such evidence just comes from consciousness, which to the materialist is "just" an epiphenomenon, after all.
Such downsides appear whenever the Drug War ideology of substance demonization meets the materialist's disdain for conscious states of mind. Unfortunately, critics of materialism are either unaware of these connections or afraid to point them out. In fact, when I tried to make these points on Kastrup's discussion page, I was told to beat it. The moderator told me that I should find a "drugs" forum to discuss such things. That's how we normalize the Drug War and ghettoize its opponents. And so Kastrup takes the credo of materialism to court while refusing to use the most damning evidence against it: namely, the reductio ad absurdum that results from our society's current anti-patient drug policy. Not only does he thereby weaken his own thesis, but his silence about drugs helps to further normalize the Drug War by implying that the outlawing of mind-aiding medicines has no negative implications. He thereby joins the vast majority of other scientific and philosophical writers of our age who reckon without the Drug War, thereby implying that the unprecedented Christian Science prohibitions of our time can be taken as a baseline from which to deduce the truths about science and philosophy.
Book Reviews
Most authors today reckon without the drug war -- unless they are writing specifically about "drugs" -- and even then they tend to approach the subject in a way that clearly demonstrates that they have been brainwashed by drug war orthodoxy, even if they do not realize it themselves. That's why I write my philosophical book reviews, to point out this hypocrisy that no other philosopher in the world is pointing out. (Hey, if I thought I would ever be recognized in this lifetime, I would be humble and patient -- but it's clear to me that I'm to be largely ignored here-below until such time as I bite some serious dust, so you'll just have to put up with my horn-blowing, fair enough?)
They still don't seem to get it. The drug war is a whole wrong way of looking at the world. It tells us that substances can be judged "up" or "down," which is anti-scientific and blinds us to endless beneficial uses.
Of course, prohibitionists will immediately remind me that we're all children when it comes to drugs, and can never -- but never -- use them wisely. That's like saying that we could never ride horses wisely. Or mountain climb. Or skateboard.
The government makes psychoactive drug approval as slow as possible by insisting that drugs be studied in relation to one single board-certified "illness." But the main benefits of such drugs are holistic in nature. Science should butt out if it can't recognize that fact.
Materialist scientists are drug war collaborators. They are more than happy to have their fight against idealism rigged by drug law, which outlaws precisely those substances whose use serves to cast their materialism into question.
The addiction gene should be called the prohibition gene: it renders one vulnerable to prohibition lies and limitations: like the lack of safe supply, the lack of choices, and the lack of information. We should pathologize the prohibitionists, not their victims.
Drug warriors abuse the English language.
I knew all along that Measure 110 in Oregon was going to be blamed for the problems that the drug war causes. Drug warriors never take responsibility, despite all the blood that they have on their hands.
If we cared about the elderly in 'homes', we would be bringing in shamanic empaths and curanderos from Latin America to help cheer them up and expand their mental abilities. We would also immediately decriminalize the many drugs that could help safely when used wisely.
Folks point to the seemingly endless drugs that can be synthesized today and say it's a reason for prohibition. To the contrary, it's the reason why prohibition is madness. It results in an endless game of militaristic whack-a-mole at the expense of democratic freedoms.
In fact, that's what we need when we finally return to legalization: educational documentaries showing how folks manage to safely incorporate today's hated substances into their life and lifestyle.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, How Bernardo Kastrup reckons without the drug war: a philosophical review of 'Why Materialism is Baloney', published on August 11, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
You have been reading an article entitled, How Bernardo Kastrup reckons without the drug war: a philosophical review of 'Why Materialism is Baloney', published on August 11, 2023 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)