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