LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,833
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Not part of your immediate experience, no. But it was a part of the world you grew up in regardless of whether or not you personally saw it. That much is clear.
And headhunters lived in Papua when I was growing up too, but that doesn't mean headhunting was any part of the world I grew up in.
There was no society of people I had any contact with, acquaintance with, or exposure to in which drunkenness or drug abuse were socially-encouraged. A culture in which drunkenness is celebrated and encouraged, in which drugs are considered some kind of boon to creativity, is completely and utterly irrelevant to the one in which I was raised, just as the culture of Papuan headhunters is completely and utterly irrelevant to mine. That much is clear.
And forced to choose between the two, I'd go with the headhunters.
I'll come right out and say that I'm not someone who believes in cultural relativism. Not at all. I think a culture that promotes and encourages substance abuse of any kind is degenerate, and I'm not afraid to stand up and say so. A culture that looks at drunkenness and drug abuse with a wink and a nudge and a chuckle is degenerate. The saloon culture of 1900 and the bootlegger culture of 1925 and the dope culture of 1968 and the booze and drug culture of today were and are degenerate. I make no bones about being judgemental on these points. If you *aren't* judgemental about such things, you're part of the problem.
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