Oh, please

A First Person column extolling the scholarly virtues of smoking marijuana as a graduate student, complaining that the younger generation of graduate students party way too hard because they use cocaine/ecstasy instead of pot? (For instance, comparing - and criticizing - a student's fondness for the beats/lights of raves as "a visual and tactile representation of the global-consumer economy, oriented toward pure sensation and the quick fix"?) And postulating that humanities scholars' drug use (i.e. the shift away from pot) may reflect the shift to the "corporatization" of the university??

I'd ask what the hell he's been smoking, but I guess that's pretty obvious.

(I should probably add that I don't use any kind of drugs myself - except allergy drugs - and have no patience with the "drugs inspire great literature, man!" school of thought. I don't care if someone chooses to use drugs, but I think discussing it as some kind of scholarly policy is asinine and smacks of protesting too much.)

Comments

[Dr. Crazy]

Amen, sister. I was hoping you'd write about this because I just couldn't bring myself to do so. And the whole thing about his "publishable" seminar paper that he owes to marijuana? Dude, it was just as likely he'd have written a paper that was complete nonsense while using the mary jane. I've read some papers that I suspect were similarly "inspired," and no, his method is not at all fool-proof.

Also, as a lit person, I really hope people don't think all lit people subscribe to this guy's ideas. Jeez.

[The History Enthusiast]

What a crazy world we live in. Last I heard, pot killed brain cells. It would be logical, then, to not smoke pot in order to preserve your brain cells. Especially when you are living the life of the mind. Geez.

I don't know, do other drugs rot your brain as well? I'm sure they don't help.

[SEK]

My reaction to this was mixed because 1) I see through the pseudonym, and 2) the point about alcohol is spot on. I mean, we know we shouldn't take undue pride in drinking prowess, but sometimes departmental functions/after-conference gatherings/&c. devolve into drunken revelry. It's not a bad thing, I don't think, but there's certainly a culture of drinking in the humanities, and drinking does, in fact, kill brain cells.

And I'll second what he says about the incursions of harder drugs into the humanities. I lived fairly hard in high school, but I was 17 and had the body (and responsibilities) of a 17-year-old -- and some of what I've seen the past few years plain shocks me. Grad school isn't an Easton Ellis novel, but more than a few people I've met remind me of Robert Downey Jr.

[profgrrrrl]

Wow. I mean, even for CHE, wow. Have they run out of department politics and job searches to discuss?

[Ancrene Wiseass]

What?!

I think it's particularly hilarious that pot-smoking has now come full circle from "Reefer Madness" to being the drug that you take when you're not a "social deviant."

All that crap about raves = consumerism? Dear God: that's exactly the kind of nonsense that gives the humanities a bad name.

Notice, also, that the author manages to distance himself both from "social deviants" and the dominant consumer culture. Uhm, how does that work, exactly?

I think there might be a point worth thinking about here, though, even if it's not easy to spot amid all that self-justification. After all, my first year in grad school opened with a tenured professor welcoming the incoming class by saying we'd "all be addicted to something" before we left. Is there, just maybe, a problem when graduate programs routinely drive much of the future professoriate to addiction, insomnia, and poor health?

[New Kid on the Hallway]

(Great amusement: Typepad made me approve my own comment because they thought it was spam. All the drugs in it, I guess! Anyway, if you try to comment but Typepad decides you're talking too much about DRUGS!!! and blocks it, let me know and I can release it from the spam filter.)

[New Kid on the Hallway]

And now I actually AM spamming my own blog, but: Ancrene's comment about "Reefer Madness" made me laugh, because I just last week read a Ngaio Marsh mystery from sometime in the thirties, in which the villains were running a dastardly drug ring in which they hooked rich matrons on the evils of MARIJUANA!!!! and turned them into haggard DOPE FIENDS!!! (admist the trappings of a vaguely Wicca-like cult, portrayed as deeply evil. Plus the villains made them do yoga). It was VERY weird to read from a 21st century perspective!

[Notorious Ph.D.]

I think "oh, please" was precisely what I thought here, too. I do agree with the point that pot can be less harmful to self (not to mention others!) than overconsumption of alcohol, and I've known plenty of recreational pot smokers in academia. But the idea that his fellow students need to toke up *more*? That getting stoned is not just a recreational activity, but a positive contribution to grad school?

And just where is he going to school that grad students have money to buy hard drugs? I could barely keep myself in coffee.

The whole thing strikes me as a load of self-indulgent crap.

[Ancrene Wiseass]

I'm vastly amused by the idea of villains who make people do yoga.

That's a fair point about younger people in general tending to take drugs, though I personally know a much higher proportion of grad students than non-grad students who either experiment with or are addicted to drugs. Maybe some ambitious person in the social sciences could do a study . . . .

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Well, maybe the flexible schedule of grad school facilitates certain activities? ;-) I didn't know many grad students who did drugs, but then, people don't tend to do them around me and I don't look for the secret "I am drug-friendly" handshake! ;-)

(And the villains who made people do yoga were, in fact, hysterical. It was called Spinsters in Jeopardy, and actually now that I check, it was published in 1954, which seems a little late for MJ fears! It felt earlier to me, though.)

[Mel]

"burgeoning rave culture"??? what year does he think this is, 1992?

There are certain conversational topics that automatically paint one as an old fart: drugs (yours, your neighbor's, "the young people"'s), your colon, and the speed/slowness of life. This guy sinned on 2 out of 3. But I bet his colon's in bad shape too.

[Anastasia]

I swear to God I saw a documentary recently that made the same argument about raves and consumer culture. I wish I could remember. Too bad I smoke so much pot. Wait, no I don't. I've never smoked pot in my life.

At present, I know one woman who uses drugs--and she actually does a lot of different drugs, legal and illegal--but she learned that from her parents, not from being in graduate school. The only other pot smokers I know are professors. Do I think it's a positive for any of them? No. I really don't. most of the time, I think they're lucky they're all smart and were born into well-educated families who sent them to the best schools. The rest of the time, I wish to God they could remember what the flip I said to them three days ago. That short term memory loss is a bitch.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

That's probably why this guy thinks it's 1992. ;-)

NLLDH said he's waiting breathlessly for this guy's next column, where he declares that he's got clean, got Jesus, and is now persecuted by the academy.

[Citronella]

Wow. I feel so... sheltered. Or maybe we computer scientists are just so not cool?

Most grad students I know drink too much (but it stays social, and doesn't happen all that often). I know of a few grad students who are occasional pot smokers. No grad student I know does hard drugs (that I know of. I have a friend who experimented with them in undergrad but "grew up pass that shit" as he puts it. If I wanted to buy some I wouldn't know who to ask.) Come on, nobody in my lab even smokes tobacco. We're even paying attention to how much coffee we drink. We are just boringly good kids, in a way. But sometimes I just think... we don't have time. We don't have time to waste being, well, wasted, we don't have time to waste experimenting with our bodies, we know we're more efficient when rested and healthy than when staying awake only thanks to caffeine or energy drinks (or coke).

[Chuck]

@Mel: I had the same reaction to the "burgeoning rave culture" line. I was going to raves in 1995 or so and was pretty convinced that I was about a year or two too late. Didn't rave jump the shark around teh time that Parker Posey movie Party Girl came out in like 1996? Or at least by the time that Malcolm Gladwell was talking about tipping points.

@Everyone else (?!?): Umm, yeah, basically this is pretty self-indulgent or self-congratulatory or whatever.

[Cathy]

How self indulgent is this guy? Unbelievable. I'm curious, though -- he's a Ph.D. candidate that talks about the 'younger generation' of graduate students. How long has he been in the program?! And how does he know that he'll be successful -- he's written a first year paper that is publishable (not published) and hasn't completed his graduate education.

My grad school experience was totally different, and if anyone was doing drugs I was too naive to realize it.

[Bardiac]

Wow, reading that makes me feel a little mean spirited? Is it the tone of self-adoration?

If there's anything more boring than being with someone drunk, it's being with someone high (when you're neither). I'm imagining his guilt-ridden platitudes about resisting consumerism and buying only locally grown organic pot from appropriately leftist intellectuals on a cooperative farm... It's a business, growing pot, like cocaine, whatever. If you want to toke up, just please, please, don't make me listen!

(I, too, am wondering about the generation type comment: if he wrote that "publishable paper" in a "demanding seminar" during his first year, shouldn't that be a published paper by now, if he's beyond, say, his third year? Gosh, I can't think of a seminar I took during my time in grad school that wasn't "demanding." But maybe I'm just too stupid or hopped up on coffee--my drug of choice--to reach around and pat myself on the back for my brilliance?)

[trillwing]

This guy totally sounds like a cultural studies scholar of the worst kind. Ew. (Full disclosure: technically, I am a cultural studies scholar.)

How arrogant, how self-absorbed.

I know a pot smoker very well (not me--I swear--I very much bought into the "Just Say No" propaganda as a kid), and I will say he finds that pot focuses the mind when there are too many voices in his brain. It's not for me, but for him it seems to work in ways that the typical antianxiety and antidepressive meds don't work for him.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

@citronella: yes, you describe my experience! My friends and I have generally felt that trashing our bodies was counterproductive in the long run. In fact, the medievalists at the big conference at Kzoo in May all complain about how *tame* younger generations of scholars are - apparently the dance at Kzoo used to be WAY wilder than it is no!

@Bardiac: Yes, I find being with people who are high so boring! (It was one of the many reasons why my high school boyfriend and I broke up once we hit college - he was doing a LOT of pot, and sitting around listening to him and other stoned people giggle about random shit was not much fun.)

@trillwing - if an individual finds that pot-smoking helps them deal with anxiety/etc., that's cool - goodness knows it has proven medical uses, as well. It's not even that I have strong feelings that pot *should* be illegal - I agree with the column that it's certainly no more destructive than alcohol. It just seems a far cry from that to saying grad students should toke up more! (Which I know you're not endorsing!)

[Notorious Ph.D]

NK -- If I remember correctly, the dance used to be wilder because there used to be an open bar. Until there was an Unfortunate Incident about six years ago. That's why only your first drink is free these days. And if an academic has to pay for the booze, chances are that s/he is going to drink a *lot* more moderately.

[Breena]

I can't afford to smoke pot, my short term memory is already crap.