„Outside of Society”: Socio-political Aspects of Psychedelic/Narcotic Consumption in Selected Euroamerican Literatures

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„Outside of Society”: Socio-political Aspects of Psychedelic/Narcotic Consumption in Selected Euroamerican Literatures

Journal Title: Społeczeństwo. Edukacja. Język - Year 2017, Vol 6, Issue

Abstract

Psychedelically/narcotically-inspired literature originally concentrated on the authors’ experiences (vide De Quincey), in line with the idea of Romantic individualism. Promoting the attitudes considered anti-social or immoral, it was unacceptable for the protectors of any socio-political status quo, and thus found itself „in exile” from the middle-class society. With fin-de-siecle or surrealist writers (vide Rimbaud), it became more directly rebellious: evolving later from the Beats’ isolationism and „passive resistance” towards a socio-political utopia that, in the Psychedelic Revolution era, was intended as an alternative to the cul-de-sac of late capitalism. i. e. as a mainstream socio-cultural project. In this essay, we shall attempt to trace the development of the socio-political traits in drug-inspired literature, with special stress upon A. Huxley, a tentative believer in the aforementioned utopia, and W. S. Burroughs, its „dystopian” deconstructor.

Authors and Affiliations

Andrzej Dorobek

Keywords

psychedelics; narcotics; isolation; escapism; revolution; utopia; dystopia

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EP ID EP287714
DOI 10.19251/sej/2017.6(5)
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