I recently got into an e-mail debate about the relative merits of 20th century drug philosophers, and found myself in the odd position of having to defend Hunter S. Thompson for his paranoid take on the emergent power structures of the dark post-atomic military-industrial pop conspiracy that now overshadows the "dream" that was once the United States of America. My point, as it was, was that Hunter was
right, and that the naive memes of "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out" or "Archaic Revival" were pale comparisons for the "Fear and Loathing" critique espoused by Thompson. And what was my friend's one-line response to my holding Thompson's cynical memes above the self-serving froth of the others? He wrote back: "You mean self-destructive memes like suicide?"
Since my friend can be considered "friendly" to drug culture, and even speaks as a highly featured guest at some drug conferences, his casual dismissal of Hunter S. Thompson's entire body of work -- based solely on his specific exit from this universe -- was shocking. It was as if Thompson's desire to choose suicide over slow withering death somehow overshadowed everything else he had ever done, turning his litany of insight into American culture into nothing more than a big fake-out; the rantings of an imaginary cult hero who took himself out of the game when the stakes got too high...
This quick dismissal of Hunter's work, I argued, was a cheap shot. I also said that claiming "suicide" was a meme that Hunter employed in the same manner that Terence McKenna employed "Archaic Revival" was unfair. I also argued that suicide, at best, was a ambiguous meme, given weight only by religious and political groups that would use it in their favor. This quickly digressed into a discussion of memetics and suicide bombers and whales beaching themselves, and everything
else but what Hunter S. Thompson actually stood for, which was "Fear and Loathing," if nothing at all.
But "Fear and Loathing" was more than a catch phrase; it was a warning of fascist oppression and political corruption in a world ruled by money, media spotlight, and tacit paranoia. And who was right? Was it Leary and McKenna with their socialist utopian rehash of Huxley and the Buddha; or was it Thompson with his paranoid rant against the growing global power conspiracy? If you picked Leary/McKenna I would argue that you are in the wrong camp. If you picked Hunter Thompson, I would say "Thank you for choosing the Red Pill."
And for those of you who don't know what I am talking about, and who picked the "Blue Pill", thank you for reading and please school up on your postmodern metaphysics, because you've got some learning to do. But to break it down for you proper, the blue pill lets you carry on like no big deal, same old same old, status quo keeps the day. But the red pill shows you the
real deal, and exposes the invisible hand behind the status quo. And it is my conjecture that all the big talk about free societies and free minds and free love and free life from all the postmodern psychedelic philosophers is all a bunch of blue-pill nonsense and
not to be trusted. From Huxley to Pinchbeck, I say they're a bunch of posers selling snake oil off the back of the Man's oppression to make themselves appear "enlightened" in the face of the inevitable. If these pop icons were truly worth their electrolytes then they would be spending their pop capital going after the entrenched powers of politics, industry, and the media --
like fucking Hunter S. Thompson would -- instead of building fairy futures out of nothing koans like hipster gurus on acid. Are you listening Future Visionaries of America? This is important!
I ask you now, gentle people of Earth, does "Turn on, tune in, drop out" mean anything to you? What does the "The Archaic Revival" mean for our future? Do these memes of higher-consciousness inherently lead us towards a brighter future, or do they lead us down a path of smug alienation, lost in our own dream worlds of marvelous futures never to come. For if that is the case, then you have swallowed the blue pill, and might as well be one of the blissed-out hippies from Hunter's worst nightmare. There was a good reason he put a bullet in his head: He was tired, and worse, he was beat -- the zombies are taking over.
[This is the first part of a three part series on the legacy of Hunter S. Thompson. Part three will be published later this week.]
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Ever see "Where the Buffalo Roam" with Bill murray? I love it that through out the movie everyone takes the blue pill from him ("I've never had any complaints about the blue ones")
It takes on a whole new meaning in my post-Matrix mind. Take the red pill, it's a much rockier ride, but acid ain't all pretty colors, my friend.
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