If this be reason, let us make the least of it!

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If this be reason, let us make the least of it!

an essay on the philosophy of George Santayana

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

December 30, 2024

2025 update

Update: June 06, 2025

Some thoughts on Santayana's "Life of Reason.¹"

I would first observe that human beings do not usually use reason to guide their lives. The long-term support for the logically fallacious Drug War, even by academics, is one of the best proofs of that statement. I find, moreover, that those who make a big show of using "Reason" are the ones to watch out for. They are the intolerant and combatant materialists of today who come to seemingly firm and concrete conclusions about the world, telling us that "this is so, according to science!" blissfully unaware that their "knowledge" is based on metaphysical assumptions, assumptions that can be rationally gainsaid ².

What assumptions? In our times, the "rationalist" typically assumes the veracity and sufficiency of reductive materialist principles, not just in the material realm but in the psychological and spiritual realm as well ³ ⁴ ⁵. It is this presumption that we have to thank for the psychiatric pill mill ⁶ ⁷ and the fact that drug researchers today cannot see any beneficial uses for drugs like MDMA ⁸ and laughing gas, even though common sense, history and anecdote cry out that these drugs have obvious positive uses ⁹.

This is not to disparage reason itself, but to raise an important qualification: namely, that what seems reasonable to one class of society can often be found to depend for its supposed rationality on highly debatable premises, indeed.

Nor am I sure that I want to live in a world wherein reason holds sway, at least not in the utopian manner that Santayana envisions in the following excerpt:

"If the passions arose in season, if perception fed only on those things which action should be adjusted to, turning them, while action proceeded, into the substance of ideas—then all conduct would be voluntary and enlightened, all speculation would be practical, all perceptions beautiful, and all operations arts. The Life of Reason would then be universal.¹⁰"

It sounds like a paradise for Dr. Spock of Star Trek, or for a timid and nervous conservative who has never learned how to dance. ("Most dances," quoth Santyana, "are somewhat ridiculous," which sounds to me like sour grapes.)

But the notion that emotions could ever be tamed by reason seems naïve, to put it mildly. And the idea that they should be seems debatable. It is psychological common sense that the experience of Dionysian ecstasy can have psychological benefits for the depressed and anxious. Moreover, the west itself had a history of cultivating ecstatic states for the purposes of mystical enlightenment. The psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries lasted for almost 2,000 consecutive years and inspired western thinkers such as Cicero, Plato and Aristotle ¹¹. As that latter philosopher reported, initiates came to the rites to experience truths, to feel them, not to "learn" them in any ratiocinative sense of that word.

And Santayana's insistence that "all speculation would be practical" is anti-scientific and anti-progress. It preemptively disallows our philosophical study of the worlds that William James encountered under the influence of laughing gas, or that indigenous people have encountered for ages with the help of plant-based psychedelic medicines. We cannot discuss these worlds with regard to utility or by correlating them with known things, as Santayana would have us do -- since these are entirely new worlds, at least to we intoxiphobic westerners. It is our job, as James claimed, to study these worlds, not to dismiss them a priori as unimportant and irrational ¹².

And yet Santayana says otherwise:

"We should not wish to know 'things in themselves.' What it concerns us to know about them is merely the service or injury they are able to do us, and in what fashion they can affect our lives.¹³"

Such a world view sounds like a science stopper to me. It is certainly a philosophy stopper. It sounds like the utterance of a closed-minded utilitarian ¹⁴ ¹⁵ .

Santayana here reminds me of "that guy" who will fix your plumbing leak in a heartbeat and will talk to you nonstop about socket wrenches, but if you talk to him about Socratic forms, his eyes will glaze over in a trice. He'll tell you, in effect, "Yes, but this has nothing to do with the price of tea in China!" Or, in more brutal terms: "Yes, but where's the money?! Is this stuff going to affect my bank account or not? If not, then why are you wasting my time?!"

Nor are Socratic forms dead. They may have a new relevance in helping us understand the counterintuitive world of quantum physics, as Bernardo Kastrup explains in his recent book on the metaphysics of the philosopher Schopenhauer ¹⁶.

And what about that Reason, which Santayana tells us "is universal in its outlook and in its sympathies"? How does that claim square with William James' insights based on his use of laughing gas?

"Our normal waking consciousness," wrote James, "rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.¹⁷"

I have no doubt that clever philosophers could square Santayana's views with that of James, perhaps by distinguishing rational consciousness from Reason, but I am concerned here with the tendencies of Santayana's utilitarian ¹⁸ focus to foster an unwarranted self-satisfaction in modern self-proclaimed "rationalists." The idea that reason should call the shots when it comes to mood and mentation has given rise to the hateful doctrine of behaviorism in the field of psychology. This passion-free viewpoint has blinded modern scientists to a myriad of obvious benefits to the use of substances that we call (or rather denigrate as) "drugs"¹⁹.

Behaviorism aside, the real experts on psychoactive drugs are empathic individuals who have used them themselves and can advise on drug use that would further the life goals of a specific living, breathing human being ²⁰. There is no role for rationalists here who purposefully remove all feelings from their moral calculus and pretentiously try to tell us what we should need in order to feel happy according to their Excel charts, never bothering to ask us about our goals in life and the amount of risk that we're willing to take in order to attain them.

This behaviorism renders scientists stupid. It is why materialists can tell us that laughing gas has no therapeutic uses, even though common sense screams out otherwise ²¹. In fact, laughing gas kits should be made available to the suicidal as we make Epi pens available to those with potentially deadly allergies. Instead, the FDA is attempting to treat the substance like any other drug, which is a slap in the face to the legacy of William James, not to mention to academic freedom itself ²².

Like many of the drugs that we have outlawed, laughing gas conduces to a spiritual understanding of the world in the user. And so the disdain for altered states that is implicit in Santayana's utilitarian philosophy is a very "convenient" disdain, indeed. It prevents the professed atheist from ever having to experience the world in a way that might alter his jealously circumscribed vision of reality.

The praise of reason in itself is not folly, of course. There are rational reasons why one should prefer Mahler's 3rd Symphony to "Push It" by Salt n Pepa. And a lack of reason has certainly sent some cultures into quirky dead-ends, as in the case of the cargo cults of the Pacific ²³. But even if there were a thousand such benighted cultures, they would pose no existential threat to humanity. Their people still love, laugh and cry like the rest of us.

Today's existential threats come from countries that consider themselves to be highly rational. They are the ones who claim to have placed Reason on a throne. The Nazis of World War II prided themselves on their rationality and efficiency. And the rational scientists of Russia and the United States have placed the entire world under a nuclear Sword of Damocles, one which may yet bring the world itself to an end -- or at least force it to reboot and start from scratch.

This is why feeling must come first in any comprehensive philosophy of life. It must have precedence over utility-oriented reason. And because feelings of mistrust and fear abound in the annals of human history, the true philosopher will have learned from this past. He or she will advocate the strategic use of entheogenic medicines to eradicate this cancer from the suffering patient, that species to whom we somewhat ironically refer as Homo sapiens. The fact that few philosophers make this suggestion is easy to understand, however. Drug war ideology has taught us from childhood that substances we have labeled as "drugs" can have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, ever. We are taught to consider them as evil in and of themselves. This, of course, is sheer superstition. But even if philosophers have risen above the omnipresent censorship to think otherwise, they are not in a hurry to say so since being honest on this topic entails great risk to reputation and career.

This is not to say that I dismiss Santayana's work out of hand. I do, however, find his disdain for metaphysics to be disturbing and short-sighted. As William James reports, the nature of human consciousness is far from understood and requires informed speculation, speculation informed by our experiences in altered states. Nor are the ultimate answers that we find on this subject likely to align with any common sense notion that we could deduce from the daily humdrum world around us to which Santayana would seem to limit us. Quantum physics tells us that the world we live in is very odd indeed ²⁴. In the words of quantum pioneer Werner Heisenberg, "Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.²⁵"

Finally, as suggested above, Santayana's focus on utilitarian motivation in Reason has to be considered in light of world history. In the last one hundred years, in particular, the west has exploited South American lands in the name of utility, running roughshod over the will of the inhabitants. We have criminalized their religion and the plant teachers that they used in sacred rituals. We have told them that their gods were phony and had them adopt Christianity, often on pain of death. And who were those inhabitants over which we rational people triumphed? They were the very people whom Santayana dismisses as 'savages,' a pejorative term that he uses no less than 21 times in his books on "The Life of Reason."

To paraphrase Patrick Henry,

"If this be reason, let us make the least of it!"

Author's Follow-up: December 31, 2024

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up

If this critique seems harsh, I would argue that it is no harsher than Santayana is toward the emotive world of "savages." Santayana's arguments are often subtle, however, so it would be wrong to dismiss him wholesale. I have no doubt that continued reading will provide me with valuable insights, notwithstanding the mischievous tendencies of his work as a whole, at least when read in this scientistic age of ours, governed as it is by behaviorist presumptions and technological triumphalism.

--

I was listening to Mahler's 3rd Symphony yesterday before publishing this essay and asking myself in what way we might consider it to be rationally superior to "Push It" by Salt n Pepa. In one sense, I think the answer is rather straightforward.

Like many listeners, when I first heard Mahler, I was confronted by a bunch of sounds, or rather noise. It took education, both musical and otherwise, combined with a greater experience of life, for me to finally begin to "get" Mahler's music, to finally begin identifying the many leitmotifs as they were presented and morphed throughout the work and understanding how they related to the composition as a whole.

This is basically proof in itself of the work's rational superiority for me since its enjoyment clearly requires the activation of more neuronal connections than does the work of a top-10 hit. This increased neuronal connectivity is, in turn, a positive good insofar as it not only allows one to appreciate Mahler's music, but it conduces to more flexible thinking and creativity in general.

And so when people say that they don't enjoy Shakespeare or Mahler, I think they are saying more about themselves than they might imagine. Nor am I getting on an esthetic high-horse here. I am often not in the mood for either Mahler or Shakespeare, but whenever I fail to appreciate them, I attribute that shortcoming to myself: to a lack of education and/or experience on my part, and/or the fact that I am currently distracted by mundane concerns.

This is why I refrain from dismissing Santayana wholesale, lest I thereby be unwittingly advertising my own neuronal shortcomings. I have instead focused on those problems with Santayana's philosophy that I can clearly deduce from the philosopher's own words, most notably his premature disdain for metaphysics and his tendency to dismiss the emotive life as "savage."

--

I might add that people make the same mistake when it comes to psychedelic medicine. Some people do not have profound experiences under the influence -- at least on some particular substances at some particular doses. And they are sometimes inclined to blame this on the substances themselves. But they may be betraying their own lack of "education," in the broad sense of that word, with such complaints. Set and setting does matter, and part of the setting includes one's education level and inherent neuronal capacities. So rather than complaining about their inabilities in this quarter, they should better do some soul searching and find how they can approach the experience with a better mindset.

That said, psychedelics can do some of the heavy lifting. But you've got to meet them halfway. This is true of drugs in general. Both folks who misuse them and folks who diss them tend to base their judgment on uninformed use. There is a big difference between sitting down to smoke opium ²⁶ with an open mind, humbly seeking creative enlightenment, and popping an oxy pill with the sole intention of "getting high," at least in so far as "getting high" means letting the drug do all the work. Attitude, intention, education level, and life experience all matter.

Author's Follow-up: January 7, 2025

I do not want to leave the impression that there is something wrong with enjoying soul music. To the contrary, a failure to be able to enjoy soul music might indicate a shortcoming in the emotive department. That failure could in turn say something about one's cultural provincialism.

As a white teenager in the seventies, I was a big fan of soul music -- including much of the music that never made it to pop charts -- falsetto ballads like "Dedicate My Life" by the Young Hearts and deep cuts from albums by Labelle. I kept my tastes to myself, however, because I knew that most white Euro-Americans were uncomfortable with the degree of feeling expressed in these songs. And trust me, those who ridiculed my preferences were not all rational geniuses: they simply had been brought up in a culture with a different esthetic, one wherein strong expressions of emotion were discouraged.

Author's Follow-up:

June 06, 2025

Here's something that Santayana got right.

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.²⁷" The Drug War, of course, is a clear example of that fanaticism.

Schopenhauer

Notes for essay entitled If this be reason, let us make the least of it!: an essay on the philosophy of George Santayana:

1: The Life of Reason Santayana, George, Project Gutenberg (up)
2: The Book of the Damned DWP (up)
3: How materialists turned me into a patient for life DWP (up)
4: Beta Blockers and the Materialist Tyranny of the War on Drugs DWP (up)
5: The Poorly Hidden Materialist Agenda at Scientific American DWP (up)
6: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
7: The War on Drugs and the Psychiatric Pill Mill DWP (up)
8: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
9: Common Sense and the Drug War DWP (up)
10: The Life of Reason Santayana, George, Project Gutenberg (up)
11: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
12: James, William. 2016. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820.The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience. (up)
13: The Life of Reason Santayana, George, Project Gutenberg (up)
14: We have an absolute right to use drugs DWP (up)
15: Why John Stuart Mill is irrelevant to the drug debate DWP (up)
16: Decoding Schopenhauer's Metaphysics: The key to understanding how it solves the hard problem of consciousness and the paradoxes of quantum mechancs Kastrup, Bernardo, 2021 (up)
17: James, William. 2016. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820.The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience. (up)
18: Drug Prohibition should be protested on principle, not on utilitarian grounds DWP (up)
19: Behaviorism and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
20: Why the FDA is not qualified to judge psychoactive medicine DWP (up)
21: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
22: Why the FDA should not schedule Laughing Gas DWP (up)
23: Cargo cult Britannica (up)
24: Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness Rosenblum, Bruce, Oxford University Press, 2006 (up)
25: The Spread of 'Stranger Than We Can Think' Chopra, Deepak (up)
26: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
27: Szasz, Thomas. 1992. Our Right to Drugs. Praeger. (up)

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The DEA is a Schedule I agency. It has no known positive uses.

UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!

My local community store here in the sticks sells Trump "dollar bills" at the checkout counter. I don't know what's worse: a president encouraging insurrection or an electorate that does not see that as a problem.

I have yet to find one psychiatrist who acknowledges the demoralizing power of being turned into a patient for life. They never list that as a potential downside of antidepressant use.

The best step we could take in harm reduction is re-legalizing everything and starting to teach safe use. Spend the DEA's billions on "go" teams that would descend on locations where drugs are being used stupidly -- not to arrest, but to educate.

Being less than a month away from an election that, in my view, could end American democracy, I don't like to credit Musk for much. But I absolutely love it every time he does or says something that pushes back against the drug-war narrative.

Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

Psychiatrists never acknowledge the biggest downside to modern antidepressants: the fact that they turn you into a patient for life. That's demoralizing, especially since the best drugs for depression are outlawed by the government.

The drug war is a meta-injustice. It does not just limit what you're allowed to think, it limits how and how much you are allowed to think.

The Drug War is a crime against humanity.

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If this be reason, let us make the least of it!

an essay on the philosophy of George Santayana

Author's Follow-up: December 31, 2024

Author's Follow-up: January 7, 2025

Author's Follow-up:

June 06, 2025

Schopenhauer

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

Break the ice with a sledgehammer: place this book on your coffee table.

Diary of a Drug Fiend