Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA23385 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:45:09 +0100 Subject: Re: Spoiled Reward-Pathway Hypothesis Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:41:28 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010821124231.AAA10546@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 08/21/01 08:04, Philip Jonkers said this-
>I was
>wondering whether or not it is precisely our culture which
>has fed emergence of addictive behavior by evolving our
>brain correspondingly.
There is also the social allowance of the addict within human culture, a
co-dependency, if you will, and the profit motive on the part of pushers
and dealers. Whether or not there is sufficient motive from the brain
could be somewhat answered by making an intoxicant freely available to a
chimpanzee tribe, for instance. (I suspect it is only in the chimps best
interest that none of their number has figured out how to ferment
alcohol....) In early hunter-gatherer societies the drug addict was the
shaman, also totally culturally allowed, and many rituals involved
intoxications, and were scheduled.
We've often attributed magical qualities to some forms of intoxication,
and the level of tolerance for some addictions is, to those of a
pragmatic nature, somewhat shocking. (The word 'coddled' rises to the
surface.)
- Wade
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