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July 05, 2009
History Lessons (Personal)
Once I discovered that the major attraction of the “high” produced by inhaling, but not by eating, herbal cannabis is a rather predictable user-controlled anxiolytic state, I was in a position to understand why it had become so popular with “leading edge” baby boomers who began trying it in large numbers in the mid-Sixties. A related understanding was why the youthful excesses of the first “hippies” had frightened their parents into giving “Tricky Dick” Nixon a narrow victory in the pivotal 1968 Presidential Election.Beyond that, I was also in a position to use drug initiation and YOB data supplied by pot applicants to support a view of recent history quite different from that long insisted upon by the DEA, NIDA, and other drug war supporters with obvious agendas.
All of which introduces a related idea about History: in its broadest definition, it’s a strictly human study, but starting in the early 18th Century, History's reach was gradually extended retrograde to permit detailed study of eras long predating the arrival of our species. The disciplines responsible: Geology, Paleontology, and Archeology, didn’t even exist until 18th Century observers became curious about the marine fossils they began noticing on mountaintops; yet by the early Nineteen-Sixties, we had arrived at a coherent Tectonic Plate Theory that not only explains modern Geography, but is also entirely compatible with the Evolutionary Theory that began developing with Darwin’s 1831 visit to the Galapagos. Through intensive study of Genomics, a science made possible after the molecular structure of DNA had been elucidated in 1951, we now have a better understanding of human evolution, migrations, and current behavior.
Nevertheless, it’s still not difficult to find other viewpoints, some of which adamantly oppose any scientifically informed time line that conflicts with scripture, and others seeking to place a more “scientific” spin on traditional religious beliefs.
Given the fact that most living humans still support, and are bound by, belief systems that don’t accept either Tectonic Plate Theory or Evolution, one can postulate that our species’ greatest challenge may be developing a decision making mechanism able to substitute for the destructive quasi-military competition that may now have also become our modern (human) world’s de facto determinant of survival.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at July 5, 2009 08:08 PM