τί τό σοφόν; ή τι κάλλιον -- What good is cleverness?

This year I spoke about drug policy at #EGA2011, exploring the tensions around our right to inebriate our selves, and proposing how regulation might create a better space for us to exercise that right as adults.

*sigh*

Two years ago I spoke about poetry and "culture under the influence".

Prohibition causes real harm! I look forward to a better future when I can stop fretting about drug policy and can let my mind and heart dance again, and even stumble, deliciously.

Here are my speaking notes from EGA2009. In dry summary, I argued that:

• Despite its claims to being a universal method for gaining knowledge, science only gives us fragments of knowledge out of context that can inform, but not calculate, political and other important decisions.
• Poets—“the true legislators of the world”—are another source of knowledge.
• Some poets tell us to drink wine as a consolation; others warn against wallowing in our comfort zones. Some poets drink in order to write poetry; poetry can itself be a sort of inebriation—a cultural tavern.
• Another way of drinking focuses on the palate: we can drink to delight our senses and to enhance our sensitivity: to grow “new organs of perception”.
• Science promises a knowledge for controlling; Goethe’s way of science offers a knowledge that empowers.
• Paying attention to and even enjoying sensual experiences is not the same as succumbing to our appetites. Indeed, cultivating our sensitivity is a way of creating freedom within the tragic constraints of our appetites.

http://tinyurl.com/vanKeulen2009b-DrinkingPoetry

I also wrote a short article for that year's conference journal, which includes links to a bunch of inspiring stuff I read while preparing my talk.

http://tinyurl.com/vanKeulen2009-DrinkingPoetry

Becoming more sensitive is not just a commitment to one’s self, and a personal pleasure: it is also a political gesture.

Regulating the irregular -- my talk at EGA2011

What a big weekend! So many presentors, including Fire and Earth Erowid, Keeper Trout, 6 other international speakers, and dozens more from across Australia. And as always, an amazing audience of hundreds of lively curious people from around the world, gathered to discuss entheogenic* practices and cultures.
* We call a psychedelic drug an entheogen when we use it as a tool to facilitate direct spiritual experiences. Some of us revere some plants and chemicals as spiritual guides or teachers.

At EGA2011, I facilitated a discussion panel called "Beyond evidence-based policy" in which we explored whether+how we might talk about values in the drug policy debate, rather than just about evidence.
http://www.entheo.net/panel/beyond_evidence_based_drug_policy

I also talked about our right to inebriate ourselves. I argued that:

• we have many reasons to try to end prohibition
• ending prohibition requires more regulation, not less
• specifically, a new schedule for inebriants might be useful
• asserting our right to inebriate ourselves exposes tensions around the status of adults and what makes a good life, and
• expert knowledge can inform but not calculate political decisions.

Here are my speaking notes. I was the last speaker in the Main Dome, on Monday at noon. After me, the banquet!

http://tinyurl.com/vanKeulen2011-On-Inebriation