Right-Wing Psychedelia: Case Studies in Cultural Plasticity and Political Pluripotency

Recent media advocacy for the nascent psychedelic medicine industry has emphasized the potential for psychedelics to improve society, pointing to research studies that have linked psychedelics to increased environmental concern and liberal politics. However, research supporting the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a shift in political beliefs must address the many historical and contemporary cases of psychedelic users who remained authoritarian in their views after taking psychedelics or became radicalized after extensive experience with them. We propose that the common anecdotal accounts of psychedelics precipitating radical shifts in political or religious beliefs result from the contextual factors of set and setting, and have no particular directional basis on the axes of conservatism-liberalism or authoritarianism-egalitarianism. Instead, we argue that any experience which challenges a person's fundamental worldview—including a psychedelic experience—can precipitate shifts in any direction of political belief. We suggest that the historical record supports the concept of psychedelics as “politically pluripotent,” non-specific amplifiers of the political set and setting. Contrary to recent assertions, we show that conservative, hierarchy-based ideologies are able to assimilate psychedelic experiences of interconnection, as expressed by thought leaders like Jordan Peterson, corporadelic actors, and members of several neo-Nazi organizations.

The legacy of Sir Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd in Zimbabwean public life history

This article investigates the contribution of white liberal politics of an ex-missionary New Zealander, Sir Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd (from 1953 to 1958), on the development of Southern Rhodesia towards becoming an independent state. It outlines the contribution he made towards the progress of black Zimbabweans in a number of spheres. It arouses interest in contemporary Zimbabwean religious and political discourses. Todd held a hybridity of roles in transitional politics from the blunting settler racism to the sharpening of African capability on multi-racial democracy important for our debate on the decolonisation of southern Africa. He was a rhetorically gifted radical paternalist who adopted reformist policies to advance both the African cause and his prophetic vocation. He suggested technocratic solutions that could reorganise and diversify political and economic options.Contribution: This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) on the wider literature on Todd’s biography and African policies in view of his Christian vocation towards changing conditions of socio-economic, political-religious and technological-technocratic solutions to contemporary African independence. He was a man of his times living and working in an increasingly problematic context guided by the Christian principles in which he was reared. He is the ‘father of faith’ in the Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (COCZ), and leaves us pedagogical lessons on human security, gender equality, church governance and human well-being that require review within the contemporary Christian fraternity.

“Bad/good politics” as a concept of political science

The article contains the author’s suggestions how to use terms “good politics” and “bad politics” as theoretical tools of political study. The author provides rationale for assigning a meaning to these terms allowing political scientists to tackle applied and theoretical tasks – to explore and interpret conflict situations between two bases of liberal and democratic process, in particular, i.e., on the one hand, its formal structure invigorating the process’ participants to address political challenges with the help of democratic institutions and technologies, and, on the other hand, political actors’ understanding that their chances to use these institutions and technologies in order to gain personal and public profit are rather low. Methodological potential of “good politics” and “bad politics” terms is explained on the example of solving two issues. The first one is revealing the source of liberal politics’ ability to embody the progress of modern civilization without significant institutional and functional changes. The second one implies defining the level of legitimacy of liberal and democratic politics without using economic term “efficacy” within its political study.

Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom. I argue for a different approach to bioethics, and work towards a new way to conceive of ethical relations in healthcare – one that does not presume a sovereign subject as the basis of dignity, personhood or democracy. Instead, I am critical of the narrow instantiations of reason, autonomy, and freedom, which, more recently, have been co-opted by a troubling neo-liberal politics of the self. Thus, I am critical of current trends in medical ethics, often running in tandem with corporate-governmental models of efficiency, accountability, and so-called evidence-based best practices. As an example of such market-driven conceptions of subjectivity, I discuss the paradigm of "self-care." Self-care shores up the traditional view of the self as a free agent. In this sense, self-care is looked upon favourably by mainstream bioethics in its focus on autonomy, while healthcare policy endorses this model for ideological and economic reasons. To contrast this, I propose a different model of care together with a different model of selfhood. Here I develop and apply Foucault's late work on the "care of the self." In this understanding of "care," I suggest that we might work towards an ethical self that is more commensurable both with recent theoretical views on subjectivity and – more pressingly – with the challenges of emergent biotechnologies. I end this paper with a discussion on ethical parenthood, which offers a practical reading of the "care of the self" in relation to new reproductive technologies (NRTs).

Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom. I argue for a different approach to bioethics, and work towards a new way to conceive of ethical relations in healthcare – one that does not presume a sovereign subject as the basis of dignity, personhood or democracy. Instead, I am critical of the narrow instantiations of reason, autonomy, and freedom, which, more recently, have been co-opted by a troubling neo-liberal politics of the self. Thus, I am critical of current trends in medical ethics, often running in tandem with corporate-governmental models of efficiency, accountability, and so-called evidence-based best practices. As an example of such market-driven conceptions of subjectivity, I discuss the paradigm of "self-care." Self-care shores up the traditional view of the self as a free agent. In this sense, self-care is looked upon favourably by mainstream bioethics in its focus on autonomy, while healthcare policy endorses this model for ideological and economic reasons. To contrast this, I propose a different model of care together with a different model of selfhood. Here I develop and apply Foucault's late work on the "care of the self." In this understanding of "care," I suggest that we might work towards an ethical self that is more commensurable both with recent theoretical views on subjectivity and – more pressingly – with the challenges of emergent biotechnologies. I end this paper with a discussion on ethical parenthood, which offers a practical reading of the "care of the self" in relation to new reproductive technologies (NRTs).

Constitutionalism, Liberalism, and Democracy

This chapter describes the tension between democratic decision-making procedures and constitutional judicial review. It shows that the liberal values that justify a democratic self-government may also vindicate some limits on majoritarian decision-making procedures, but not necessarily in the form of the current constitutional regimes. The chapter argues that constitutional courts are not a necessary feature of a liberal regime. It also acknowledges that democratic decision-making has many defects. These defects concern the fate of persistent vulnerable minorities, the tendency towards short-sightedness, a similar tendency to downplay people's rights and liberties for the sake of greater economic gains or in the force of external threats, and finally the dangers of populism and anti-liberal politics gaining ground within a democratic system. The chapter then depicts courts as essentially conservative institutions which are not — and cannot be — as counter-majoritarian as depicted by legal scholars, mainly because their legitimacy and the acceptance of their decisions depends on the people. It contends that the acceptance and efficacy of judicial review is context dependent, but that some fights still need to be fought in the political, not the legal arena.

Son of the Heartland

Anderson’s parents come from academic families in Indiana. Phil and his sister Grace grew up in Urbana, Illinois because their father was a plant pathologist at the University of Illinois (UI). Mother Elsie demanded academic excellence and respect for others. Father Harry was a model of integrity, a fact displayed during the so-called Krebiozen affair. The Depression affected the family relatively little and Phil acquired his lifelong liberal politics from a UI social group called the Saturday Hikers. At age twelve, he accompanies his family to Europe (a sabbatical for his father) where they observe the rise of Nazism. Phil attends and excels at the University High School where he enjoys math, tennis, and speed skating, but not physics. He wins a National Scholarship to attend Harvard University with a plan to major in mathematics.

Leigh Hunt, The Story of Rimini (1816), title page and first page of Hunt's dedication to Byron

There was good reason for Hunt to dedicate his poem to Byron. For one thing, Byron helped him secure John Murray as a publisher--and for another, the name "Byron" attached to almost any publication, regardless of quality, was an excellent sales tool. Rimini, with its bodice-ripping apparatus, would probably have sold reasonably well even without the dedication. Murray was repelled by Hunt, regarding him as a money-grubber with unacceptably liberal politics.

LIBERAL FREEDOM, THE SEPARATION OF POWERS, AND THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE

Contemporary critiques of the administrative state are closely bound up with the distinctively American doctrine that republican freedom requires that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers be exercised by separate and distinct branches of government. The burden of this essay is to argue that legislative delegation and judicial deference to the administrative state are necessary, or at least highly desirable, features of a democratic separation of powers regime. I begin by examining the historical and conceptual roots of the separation of powers doctrine, paying particular attention to the unique way in which it was adapted to fit the American case. I then examine three concerns that the resulting constitutional system raises about the republican freedom of those who are subject to it—which I call the accountability, legitimacy, and stability concerns—and argue that the administrative state is a useful, albeit imperfect, tool for reducing the unavoidable tension between these concerns. The thrust of this discussion is to push us away from “in principle” objections to the administrative state, and back toward the kinds of prudential considerations that are associated with ordinary liberal politics. More importantly, the aim of the essay is to encourage sober reflection on the real dangers that face the American constitutional system under current circumstances.