In Brain & Belief I had some favorable things to say about Ritalin. I gave a sort of ‘pharmaceutically correct’ version of its present usage when, in fact, I am uncertain that its use in either children or adults is fully justified. Ritalin, like many other drugs in our ordained pharmacopeia, is less drug than sociological nail. So in questioning the drug I am necessarily questioning social structure.

With Ritalin and its use as a treatment for ADHD I think we face a sociological problem more than a clearly biological one. The sociological problem we face is that of standardization. Our industrial ethics, in which ‘quality control’ has become an unconscious mantra, prescribe a commonness to any product or commodity. A thing is to be standardized, fixed, and kept within certain performance parameters. This is extremely important for things like engine blocks and Swiss timepieces but probably not the best model for a human being. Yet, more than ever, we have come to regulate human development, indicating what is appropriate for all people, all of the time. Nothing could be so dangerous to the entire human experiment than an acceptance of an industrial ethic for the development and fruition of the species.

I find it very sad to think that the present human population is many times larger than any population in the past (and probably greater now, than the sum of all human populations from the beginning of our species to around 1500 AD) and enjoys a quality of life on average that is much higher than what elites could enjoy until the Modern era yet, at the same time, perhaps the most uncreative and least free of all human populations. Thinking of my own cohort—those brought up in affluence, highly educated, utterly free compared to almost any group before the present—it is outrageous to think how narrowly both I and all of my friends live. Controlled by a sort of ‘inner warden’ we work very regular hours, in predictable professions, enjoy accepted means of entertainment and pleasure, and generally benumb ourselves from the vastness of the possible human experience.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, to become an adventurer, an itinerant monk, or a social revolutionary implied genuine risks to one’s person. Starvation awaited those who could not generate some wealth for themselves, death awaited those who might penetrate a little known jungle or attempt an interaction with an exotic group of people, and prison or hanging was sure to be the monarch’s response to someone who might suggest an alternative lifestyle, religion, or political structure. These were dangerous endeavors! Nowadays, anyone I know, anyone of my friends, could easily set out to points unknown, lose all of his money and either secure some service via a credit card or a money wire. Anyone I know could go on the streets without an item besides his clothes and be pretty sure he could get a meal at a homeless shelter or through the panhandled winnings of other’s charity. Anyone I know could live with three women (or men), or start a commune, or profess a new faith, or start an incendiary political newspaper and absolutely no harm would come to him from governmental authorities. Now, out of all the hundreds of people I know, either well or casually, out of all my intellectual, highly-educated friends, out of all my acquaintances for whom—practically speaking—anything is possible, is there a single monk, political revolutionary, mendicant philosopher or sage? No. A simple no. If I lived in Athens during the classical age I could count numerous cases of each of these categories (and more!). If I lived in Paris during the 19th century I could assure myself of such relationships. If I lived, basically, at any other time and place besides now, I might find lots and lots of examples of truly creative people living truly alternative lifestyles. Yet I do not live in these places and times. I live in the present, a rich and powerful present, a present that should be identified with limitless numbers of creative types experimenting with wholly new ways of understanding themselves and the world. But the present is not this way. In the present, among other things, a child who cannot sit still through his math class is recommended medication so that he might better attend to his teacher’s mind-numbing formulas.

Ritalin, for many, is a psychic leash. It is one more way for modernity to squelch anything eccentric and creative. It is a way for parents to assure themselves that their children will follow no interesting, and perhaps solitary, path but will develop all the requisite skills to be a dogma-imbibing physician, a money-grubbing attorney, or a number-obsessed CPA. Why, of all times and places, is ours the most predictable, the most boring, the most life annihilating? Why, when the sheer numbers of our species is so high, do we have the most circumscribed patterns for life and for vocations and avocations?

One thing is certain in this era: we must rely on powerfully psychoactive compounds to keep ourselves from going crazy. If we cannot sit still for hours upon hours we must have some kind of problem. If we cannot be obsessed with case law and our financial statements then we must have an attention disorder. If we are direly depressed because our life lacks any creativity or adventure then we possess a genetic fault, a chemical imbalance of the brain. If we snort and smoke everything we can get our hands on to escape the present then we must have a habit-forming personality or are perhaps bipolar. Are we all crazy for believing this?

The human species developed for millennia in a vast range of challenging environments which required every ounce of our creativity and character. But now we have put all of this energy, all of these terawatts of human dynamism, and ramped them down to a circuit-interrupted household safe alternating current of 110 volts, running at 60 cycles. We cannot tolerate the occasional spike nor any alteration in the frequency of conduction. If these things occur we need more circuit breakers and more thickly shielded cable. Perhaps a GFCI outlet. If everything is not wired to code then it must be ripped out.

Now it is not wrong to want our children to be like others. It is painful to be different and it is risky to pursue a profession that may not get for you that sparkling SUV or that predictably stable spouse. But in a world of plenty we either need to start experimenting with more creative social patterns or continue starving in fields of heavy grain, bellies bloated from overconsumption, but blood anemic from lack of nutrients.

Since I published Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul over a year ago (June 2004), I've wanted to add material, share comments, and open a public forum to discuss the text. So here it is!

To begin, the book has found its audience and I've generally heard good things from readers. The brightest responses were in regards to the third part of the book (my old fraternity brother from Stanford, Jeff Ellingson, was especially laudatory in regards to this section). This is especially gratifying since this is the section which I invested with my most personal ideas. The first section, on the history of the soul, is a review of many excellent scholars who have delineated the history of the soul in one culture or another (cf. Weston LaBarre, E.R. Dodds, Jan Bremmer). The only thing necessary was to bring these ideas together to provide a broader historical scale to the development of the soul in the Western world. The second part serves as a review as well, combining the various findings we have from the neurosciences (biology, psychopharmacolgy, injury studies, etc.) so that a modern conception of the brain and mind could be presented. It was the third part, then, with ideas about the psychology of belief, thanatology, and existential psychology that I found most exciting to write and that I felt had more of my personal stamp on it than the others.

But in spite of good reviews and positive feedback, the backlash has been felt as well. Hardly a month passes that I don't hear from a fundamentalist of some stripe or another rejecting the heretical ideas of the book and proffering me to take Jesus into my heart and get back on the straight and narrow. The following is from a reader who was none too pleased with my writings:

I have just read several lines from your new book and may I say, you are probably one of the loneliest, lost individuals I have ever come across! Why would you want to share such depressing, doom invoking thoughts with any one? Do you not understand the world in which you live is already on the brink of collapse, full of grief stricken people who cling to their faith as the only hope for survival? I can only pray for your soul, of which you deny having, and hope God will see you as a chemically un-balanced person with grandiose thoughts that your damaged brain came up with and forgive you. I feel you may need Prozac, if you really believe your brain is all there is! As they say, Misery needs company and......you are misery personified, my dear fellow.

I particularly delight in the Prozac comment since it so nicely entangles ideas of brain and soul which, after all, is the basic theme of Brain & Belief. The staggering idea, that chemicals can affect one's 'soul,' should always be jarring. For in this epiphany we recognize that thousands of years of psychology based on an idea of the soul have, in the space of a century, yielded to notions of chemically influenced brain cells. I always welcome such critical feedback because 1) these responses indicate that people read the book and worry (which is a natural reaction to these ideas, I think) and 2) I find them amusing. I don't 'look down' upon people out to save my soul (which I hope, optimistically, is based on love for others) but I do scoff at the simplicity of the 'magical formula' brand of faith: namely, reciting some species of abracadabra (which is a bastardization of terms used in the Latin Mass by common folk) in order to gain eternal life.

I once fell under the spell of this joyfully simple brand of salvation. I wrote more about this fundamentalist conversion experience on my webpage (A Very Personal Aside), you can read about that here (http://www.johnjmcgraw.com/lost%20books/The_Lost_Books.html). What I see in such formulas is an echo of the loyalty pledges that ancient tyrants required of their subjects. In fact, so much of fundamentalism seems to reside on a foundation of medieval sociology. And the fundamentalist interpretation has lots to build on: Christianity as a whole seems poised on this ancient sociology. Consider a popular title of God--'Lord'--and consider the all-important idea of 'faith.' Faith is a trust in something for which your senses have no testimony. I have spoken with so many 'people of faith' and the unspoken message I've heard is that one places one's loyalty in God and in Jesus and all the challenges against this only serve as opportunity to 'prove' one's faith. I can't recall where in the New Testament it is written, but somewhere it is said that God reproves those he loves most--so that they can better prove their faith in him. Isn't this 'test' reminiscent of the medieval tyrants (or perhaps tyranny in any time and place)? Stalin performed such tests often enough to see who was 'really with him' versus who was only giving lip service. Saddam loved these tests of loyalty as well. And in the loyal subject such tests ingrain a certain psychology, namely a psychology of paranoia. "When am I being tested?!" And perhaps ugliest of all, such an atmosphere engenders the terrible psychology of 'us and them,' the in-groups and the out-groups. Soon enough, everyone who isn't on your side and who doesn't share your faith in all of its specific formulations becomes a challenger. They are part of the team out to trick you and cause you to fail in your test of faith. In many versions of Christianity and Islam the world soon gets divided into the camp of the Lord and the camp of Satan, everyone challenging your belief gets labeled as one of Satan's minions. And this, too, this whole dualistic cosmology with our loyal camp and their infidel camp, seems so indicative of ancient days. In such days loyalty was certainly important. If the other camp won you would likely be crushed. When kingdoms were battled over the losing side had a great deal to lose! Imagine a world in which the Persians beat the Greeks: all of Greek culture might have been changed forever, democracy a vague footnote in the grand history of the Achaemenids. To struggle and fight with all of one's energies was a matter of life and death in those days. To commit treason and fight with the other side was a capital offense. Such sentiments I feel to be an important part of faith systems today. But are they relevant any longer? Are they perhaps destructive now? In a 'global village' (yes, my teeth grind on that one too) is such a psychology downright dangerous? Must not brutal ‘us and them’ perspectives give over to a more diplomatic take (‘we're all in this together’)? I prefer the latter, though I may be one of the more optimistic thinkers who believe that a more united world is indeed possible. But within such a world are powerful camps of dogmatic folks who are damned sure that they are right and anyone disagreeing with them is wrong. So, then, these archaic ideas about souls, about 'The Lord,' and about loyalty (faith) ties in very powerfully with our current political realities and our future as an international community. Such factors are always under the surface in Brain & Belief.

As you can see, tangents will be a common theme on this blog. The flow of a river will give over to eddies and whirlpools in a fluid discussion of these very important issues. A book is no medium for such discourse but a blog is ideal. So let's journey down the river together, like Huck Finn on his raft, and see what we come across, by and by.