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Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

theatlantic.com

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Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#831

Post by bratbag »

nonethewiser wrote: post #767
cal85 wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. Can you clarify who you actually mean here by neoliberalism? It seems a very loosely defined ideology. Do you just mean ‘the mainstream West’, or something more specific? It’s a strange -ism. It’s very vague in definition, and no one ever professes to be a member of it, yet it is ostensibly an id…

> It’s very vague in definition, and no one ever professes to be a member of it, yet it is ostensibly an ideology. And I only ever hear it used with a pejorative subtext, which is interesting. Is there a name for the phenomena? Its almost like a strawman but not really. I actually think the OPs comment was fair a d not maligning, but this is a real rhetorical trick. Perhaps not exactly the same but it makes me think…

"I'm not a fundamentalist just a hypocrite who picks and chooses which truths are fundamental to suit my own agenda"

is not the strong argument you might think it is.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#832

Post by throwaway77384 »

vjk800 wrote: post #826
K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

> Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. In places with diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures (i.e. all modern cities) there is no social contract. Apart from murdering people, there are very few things that people agree are universally good or bad, and thus the behaviour moderating effect doe…

> In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful.

Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#833

Post by grncdr »

rewmie wrote: post #795
graeme wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was in the comment you’re replying to. It covers your reply > Devaluing shame instead of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed As the other comment said, you’re also discussing “being shamed” whereas the original comment is about “feeling shame”. Similar but far from identical.

> As the other comment said, you’re also discussing “being shamed” whereas the original comment is about “feeling shame”. Similar but far from identical. No, not really. OP clearly advocates for "the need of an authority figure" to force his personal views onto others he feels are lacking in the way of morals. OP's puerile take on "shame" is just a thinly veilled desire to oppress everyone and anyone around them that…

The OP actually said something nearly opposite to that…

> Without shame, many people unfortunately need an authority figure to step in and moderate their behaviour.

This is an argument against relying on authority figures to replace the role of shame and implicit social contract. I honestly don’t know how they could have made that more clear than when they continued with this:

> It will likely result in people reaching for a paternal “strongman” figure and a subsequent slide into (probably) fascism.

Again, the argument is that _without_ shame and a shared social contract, the replacement by explicit state authority to moderate harmful behaviors drifts towards fascism.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#834

Post by dragonwriter »

javajosh wrote: post #611
K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

It presents an interesting problem for those "left behind" who value shame, self-restraint, and other unpopular virtues. The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. I think that's true, but it's a plan B - plan A should be to fight hard to not lose those values in the first place. It's appalling that public discourse about systemic issues ha…

> The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture.

That has nothing to do with neoliberalism, which is an economic ideology. I guess its metaphorically connected if you interpret it as a market of subcultures, but that's a pretty strained metaphor, not a real connection to the ideology.

> It's appalling that public discourse about systemic issues has entirely displaced talk of personal responsibility. It's appalling that a positive openness to alternative lifestyles has extended to an absurd dropping of ALL standards.

Its apalling that public discourse has seen grounded criticism and fact-based debate replaced with ludicrous strawmen and hyperbole in which any connection to reality is so distant and minute as to be undetectable like this.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#835

Post by PakistaniDenzel »

throwaway77384 wrote: post #832
vjk800 wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. In places with diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures (i.e. all modern cities) there is no social contract. Apart from murdering people, there are very few things that people agree are universally good or bad, and thus the behaviour moderating effect doe…

> In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.

> Reads: People hid their drug use successfully.

Reads: Someone who can't comprehend that a lot of people actually don't want to do drugs.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#837

Post by p91paul »

blackoil wrote: post #761
nonethewiser wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. > I don't need more people being shamed for being gay Well he never said anything about being gay. Perhaps you’re reading some other concerns into his comment. Imagine two worlds where there is no murder. The first has no murder because no one feels inclined to murder. The second has no murder because there are very strong rules which stop people who…

It doesn't work selectively, if society can shame you into not taking drugs it will do so everything else non-confirming. In my society not valuing individual freedom girls have/had been shamed into not wearing jeans/skirts, going out for night movie show or even cutting hairs.

In your society girls go around in underwear? nice!

Sorry, I really had to :)

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#838

Post by altacc »

runako wrote: post #176
tlogan wrote: post #121

I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll s…

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults Is this true? The US consumes a lot of hard drugs, but my perception is that most users not have their lives fall apart as a result. Curious if there are estimates on the % of e.g. cocaine users who are recreational vs those who eventually end up on the street as a result of their use.

No, it’s not true. 13% of Americans over 12 are recent drug users but 13% of Americans aren’t living on the streets due to drug abuse.

https://drugabusestatistics.org/

And let’s not forget that the drugs that are considered ‘bad’ & illegal are done so totally arbitrarily. Alcohol is the drug with the most negative effects on society but is culturally, politically and legally acceptable whilst something like LSD, with very low rates of harm, is considered a hard drug and very illegal.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#839

Post by pantalaimon »

PakistaniDenzel wrote: post #835
throwaway77384 wrote: post #832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.

> Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. Reads: Someone who can't comprehend that a lot of people actually don't want to do drugs.

Not sure how it’s in the US, but in the small village where I came from (and that fits OPs description) alcoholism was rampant

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#840

Post by vjk800 »

throwaway77384 wrote: post #832
vjk800 wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. In places with diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures (i.e. all modern cities) there is no social contract. Apart from murdering people, there are very few things that people agree are universally good or bad, and thus the behaviour moderating effect doe…

> In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.

"No-one" was a bit of a hyperbola; there was a known "drug gang" of three people who we were warned not to interact with when we were children. These three drug users were known by everyone and I'd really be surprised if there were significantly more people using any kind of illegal substances; back in the 90s it was just not that easy to hide stuff in a town of 3000 people. Also, where the hell would you even get drugs? From the three people drug gang (who presumably were buying their stuff from a bigger city 50 kilometers away)? In that case you would be seen to interact with them, which would immediately raise some doubts.

I suppose it's possible that there were some other people besides this three people gang at least trying illegal substances, but it was still marginal enough to been a complete non-problem. Alcohol, however, was different; it was legal and socially accepted and many people had a problem with it.

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