ReageraMera

Romanticism broke down this age-old framework that went back to Plato and beyond. It was then that for the first time people became more interested in difference than in sameness, in the singular instead of the general. And hence in the unique self, ‘identity' and ‘authenticity'.

What does ‘authenticity' mean? It means being yourself. And it implies a duty. Namely the duty to either remain or become yourself, to remain or become authentic. For authenticity, is not something matter-of-course. It is difficult to remain or become authentic, remain and become oneself, especially in the modern world. It is much easier and a great temptation not to remain or become oneself, and just drift along with what others expect or demand of us.

There are two variants of this belief: a collectivistic and an individualistic variant. The collectivistic variant, which we find for instance in the German philosopher Johan Gottfried Herder, argues that peoples and nations  -Völker- should remain themselves, and should not copy and imitate the culture of other peoples and nations. If they do so, they will eventually lose their identity, and will no longer be authentic. If a Volk has already copied a lot from elsewhere, it should do its best to get rid of all these foreign, inauthentic elements, and become itself more. I will leave this collectivistic variant of Romanticism aside, because its influence on the cultural revolution of the nineteen-sixties and -seventies is slight.

It was the second, individualistic, variant of Romanticism that acquired a mass following in those years. This variant is not concerned with collective identity and authenticity, but with personal identity and authenticity.

Interestingly, the philosopher who expresses these views best is a man who was hardly read at the time: John Stuart Mill. Particularly On Liberty, a book published in 1859, reads as if the Romantic revolutionaries of the nineteen-sixties had had it in the pockets of their coats and jackets. It is a diatribe against what Mill calls ‘social tyranny', that is, the pressure put upon the individual to conform to existing social values, to custom and tradition. In conforming to these values, customs, and traditions the individual denies his own self -Mill uses the term individuality- and he is not authentic. He becomes like a ‘Chinese lady's foot'. So, being oneself presupposes that one turns away from the existing values, customs, and traditions in one's society, and lives only according to one's inner identity.

This of course raises the question how exactly one does that; a question that Mill ignores, but that is taken up by later thinkers. How does one live according to one's inner identity? How can one be authentic? First of all, one will have to find out what one's inner identity is. After all, not following custom and tradition merely tells you what not to do. It doesn't tell you what to do. To know that, you first need to know your identity, your true self. But that knowledge is not given at birth. So you will have to find out, you will have to discover it. How do you do that?

The problem became even more intricate once the idea of internalization acquired currency. If you have internalized many of society's values, customs, and traditions, the question arises what part of yourself it not really yourself, but society within your breast. How to separate the real self, from the imposed-upon-self?

Two ways or paths to self-knowledge are suggested by the various Romantic writers. Let us call them the path inward, and the path outward.

The path inward is the path of introspection. The idea is that one turns inward, and analyzes everything one encounters there, in order to find out whether it is an authentic part of one's true self, or rather foreign and therefore to be gotten rid of. Freudian psychoanalysis is a good example of this approach. 

The path outward is the path of experimentation. The argument here is that one can be oneself and lead an authentic life only by trying out all kinds of things, by experimenting, in order to find out what really matches with and fits in with oneself, to discover your real identity.  The way many people about sex today is a good example: if you want to know your sexual identity, you will have to try out every imaginable variant of sex first, and see if it clicks. Otherwise you will never know who you really are, deep down.

Now, let us turn to drugs again. What view of drugs follows from this Romantic way of perceiving the human condition? Again, as was the case with hedonism, a positive view. Drugs can help you achieve self-knowledge, and thus be of become yourself.

How? A first argument is derived from the idea of the path outward. You have to experiment with drugs, because -who knows- perhaps drugs are part of what you need to do to be yourself. Drugs may be part of your identity. The only way to find out is to actually try them out. And of course, you cannot stop after having tried one type. Because if that doesn't seem to match with your self, some other drug might. So you have to try them all.

A second argument is based on the idea of the path inward, that is, introspection. Now, introspection is not easy, witness Freudian psychoanalysis. That always takes years. One needs to discard layer upon layer of inauthenticity. The true self is hidden behind many walls of conscious and subconscious self-deception. Hence, a substance that opens -in Huxley's words- ‘the doors of perception' somewhat further is very helpful in finding, beyond the rubbish that comes from the outside, one's true identity.

Ladies, and gentlemen, the problem with this argument too, is that it is true. As long as you're a Romantic, drugs are an interesting option to discover your identity. And Romanticism is still a widely held moral ideology in our society. But as long as that is the case, people influenced by these ideas will take drugs.

Now, before closing off, I would like to introduce and rapidly discuss one more aspect of the matter. Namely public policy on drugs. Until now I focused on the reasons people have for using drugs. I traced these reasons back to certain moral ideas originating in the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and having become popular in the cultural revolution of the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies.

The issue, however, is not only why people use drugs but also how politicians and administrators approach these people in their public policy.

Public policy, like the use of drugs, is largely determined by the prevalent moral ideas within a culture. Since the cultural revolution of the sixties the prevalent moral ideas are those we discussed just now. They must have shaped public policy too. Especially in a country like my own, the Netherlands, which, of all countries in the world, was probably most influenced and changed by the new views. So, is public policy in the Netherlands shaped by the ideas of the Enlightenment and Romanticism?

Politicians and administrators are confronted with the use of drugs. The question then arises: what should we do about it? Should we prohibit it, or tolerate it? That leads to the further question? When should we prohibit something? At that point one is already in the middle of an important and complex philosophical issue. What do the Enlightenment and Romanticism say about prohibition? When should something be prohibited?

Let us first take a look a the Enlightenment. As we have seen, the older tradition regarded the desires as something inherently problematic, over which a close watch should be kept. In other words, the desires did not have a special status, they were not sacrosanct. If it was believed that a desire was bad or evil -and that was often thought- it was not difficult mentally simply to prohibit things related to the satisfaction of those desires.

For instance, the desire for sex was regarded as inherently problematic. It needed to be ordered by reason, otherwise it would lead to a lot of damage and misery. That meant above all that sex should be confined to sex within marriage, since marriage links sex up with loyalty and responsibility. Now, if this is your moral framework it is not difficult to prohibit for instance prostitution.

This changes drastically when the desires are given a special, sacrosanct status, as was done by the Enlightenment. If you believe that the desires are in themselves good, what ground do you have, as a politician or administrator to prohibit anything related to the satisfaction of these desires ? Only one: you will prohibit them if the satisfaction of a desire and hence the pleasure someone derives from it, directly brings about a greater pain in someone else. That is to say, when it directly harms someone else, who after all is equally entitled to maximize his pleasure and minimize his pain. The principle of public policy then becomes that anything anyone wants to do, alone or together with others, as long as they consent, and third parties are not harmed, should be allowed.

The effect on public policy of this new principle is tremendous. Prostitution for instance should no longer be prohibited. Why should it? Here's two people, one of whom desires sex, and the other money. If they can agree on the price, they have consent. Both willingly participate in the act, so there is no harm. Only desire and pleasure. Hence, prostitution is, if not good, at least morally indifferent and should therefore be allowed.

The same of course goes for the use of drugs. If someone wants to use them he should be allowed to do so, as long as he doesn't harm anyone else by it. Hence, the all important public policy question becomes: does something constitute harm to others? If so, prohibit it. If not, let it go.

It is quite clear that this is indeed the moral framework within which most Dutch politicians and administrators think and make decisions. There are still doubters, of course, who still think within the older framework. And the ‘law' is still somewhat ‘backward', as laws tend to be. But the tendency towards the modern, Enlightenment view is unmistakable. There are quite a view politicians and administrators now who believe that drugs -at least some drugs- should be legalized, since the use of them harms no third party.

If we consider the Romantic heritage the picture is roughly comparable. The older tradition saw nothing special in the unique self and its personal identity, since it believed that the differences between human beings are small in comparison to the similarities. Now, if everyone is more or less the same, good and bad must be more or less the same for everyone too. What makes you prosper and flourish, makes me prosper and flourish too. What makes you miserable, makes me miserable too.

Now, since the older tradition believed this, it was relatively easy to proclaim what contributes to the flourishing of a human being, and what not. A good marriage, for instance, children, a nice job, good friends, etc. etc. help us -everyone of us, since we are all more or less the same- to flourish. Being single, childless, jobless, without friends, or on drugs, on the other hand makes our life miserable. But if these things make us miserable, why shouldn't we try to reduce them to a minimum and stimulate these good things, also by public policy?

Then came Romanticism, maintaining that we are not variants of a theme, but all singular and unique. Incomparable to anyone else. Now, if that is true, good and bad must also be different for everyone. For what is good for you, may very well be bad for me, and the other way round, seeing that we are so different. But if that is true, what should a politician or an administrator do about things he personally thinks are bad, but may be good for someone else? Obviously, he should leave everyone alone, pursuing his own singular happiness, resulting from his own singular identity in his own singular way. Again, one reason for prohibiting anything is left: if this pursuit constitutes harm to others, who have the same right to such a pursuit.

So the grand philosophical principle behind much of public policy since the cultural revolution, the principle of modern politics per se, is the harm principle. This principle holds -let me repeat- that everyone should be allowed to do anything he desires, alone or together with others who consent to whatever is being done, as long as third parties are not harmed.

What does this mean for drugs policy? That is not so difficult. It means that as long as most politicians and administrators believe that the harm principle is the only justified principle of public policy, they will tend to think that drugs should be legalized.

Thank you.