“The invocation of ‘evil’ in the language of the nineteenth century Temperance Movement and the twenty-first century war on drugs is more than a trivial coincidence. To secularists, the word ‘evil’ may be synonymous with ‘very bad.’ But to the religiously inclined, evil can represent the unified and active force of Satan in opposition to all that is good. Defining a problem as an unqualified evil makes it that much easier to draw normative boundaries and crack down on those who fall on the wrong side of the divide—the evildoers. As a moral crusade, prohibition is a fight against evil, a shining path to the pearly gates. The problem with this position, both practically and theologically, is that drugs are chemicals without a moral agenda. Even drugs that are undoubtedly bad are not evil.” Peter Moskos, Cop in the Hood p.160

Moskos’ experiences in the Baltimore city police department make for entertaining reading, but his academic approach to the drug war misses the forest for the trees. While drugs are indeed simple chemicals with no intrinsic evil, drug addiction is a spiritual crisis that engenders evil actions. Addiction (from the Latin “religious devotion”) is evil because it opposes life. The drug addict abandons society, rejects his or her obligation to others, and escapes his or her own feelings. If we want to live in a functional society, we can never decriminalize all drugs.

Alcoholism is evil. Alcohol is not. The reason that alcohol is legal is that its addiction is harder to slip into: hangovers, social pressure, and alcohol’s own potency each ensure that an addict must work hard to become enslaved. It takes a lot of despair to drive drunk to work at eight in the morning. Not so with opiates, for instance. That high is easy, and there is no hangover. Physical dependency begins without the desperation that drives a drunk. Opiates satisfy consumer society’s injunction to enjoy better than any product because they are chemicals: they directly increase enjoyment in a reliable way, and often become available in easy installments of $10.00.

So what should we do? Instead of a war on drugs, perhaps we should wage a war on addiction. The “normative boundaries” of a war against evil have their motivational purpose: as Donald Barthelme once wrote, “Fear is the great mover, in the end.” We should fear addiction and condemn drugs. But Moskos is right to insist that a carceral state isn’t the proper vehicle for the war.

Related to drugs in Baltimore, an article in the NYRB: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/14/life-wire/ that discusses the TV show the Wire would have benefited from a more careful viewing.

For example:


[Chris and Snoop] open Season Four using a nail gun—a nod, perhaps, to Cormac McCarthy’s cattle bolt—to kill young black men (number one males, in police terminology).
-they use a silenced gun, this is not a nod toward McCarthy.

For a feminist heroine the show has only the quite imperfect Detective Kima Greggs, and only because in her strength, humor, passion for work, and apparently secure hold on her biracial identity and lesbianism, she is slightly better than almost anyone else.

-so Rhonda and Marla Daniels don't count?

There was once a generation of Americans who fought in a world war. They were called the greatest generation because they were sexist, racist, and weren’t afraid to say that they believed in community norms. These included sneaking a kiss and ‘smear the queer.’ You could find out more if you asked your older brother.

Then their children, the baby-boomers, began to grow up and the older generation became alcoholics.

For the greatest generation, your friends were secretly more important than yourself. This has its pluses and minuses. But their kids never fought in a war together, they just watched it on TV.

The baby-boomers were so resentful for that, they bought whatever they could to express it. Doyle, Dane, and Bernbach.

Then the greatest generation surrendered. The baby-boomers just wanted to enjoy life, was that so wrong?

The thing about it was that no one knows how to enjoy anything unless someone explains it to you. Even sex.

Community norms became the province of big companies, who created far more stringent and exclusionary rules than anything possible just after the world war. I call these the secret rules, because they are properly ideological (as in, ‘they do not know it, but they are doing it’).

But the problem was that communities based on buying things only talked to each other about buying things, layout/design, and enjoyment. They didn’t know how to deal with something like domestic abuse unless it could be put into syndication. They liked buying things because it didn’t hurt. You always feel better an hour after watching Schindler's List.

The rules of the greatest generation hurt a lot.

As the century went on, social mores became further and further defined by the new secret rules, until everyone was impossibly free. You can’t deny it. One secret rule is this: you will always feel stupid talking about the things most important to you.

This site is annoying. In the FAQ, it states: "We live in a culture where advertisers directly influence and in some cases control and create the culture at large. Honesty of the writing is affected when corporate interests are paying the bills." Note that the owl has closed its eyes.

Blogging is not the creation of culture. There is no knowledge in shorthand observations and accumulated links. Instead blogs feed consumption by always pointing outward, toward more images, books, feelings, and ideas. Maybe some readers dig deep through these signals and come to appreciate new forms of art - but then, it's not the blog that's doing the work. Indeed, blogs are essentially one-person advertising agencies, who prove the value and intelligence of an author by recommending the right things.

Anyway, most corporations are far too clever to advertise on low-rent blogs. It seems that pyramid schemes and discount clothing retailers buy more Google Ads than anything on the NYSE.

If you don't want your blog to enable consumption, delete it. And if your blog is meant to display family photos or other private content, no one is there to look at the ads in the first place.