Excess vs Moderation

[Kyriakos]

Excess and Moderation, philosophically, are usually part of the terminology of civic but also general ('practical', in Aristotelian terms) thought. A very prominent line, originating probably since Thales or shortly before his time (7th century BC), is that all things should be in moderation. The phrase was used with minor change by a number of other philosophers, including Aristotle who seems more tied to it in popular thought.

Excess isn't that prominent an idea in philosophy, although it is in art. I can recall two thinkers who were involved with this term. Nietzsche would be the only prominent of those, and he argued from time to time that a philosopher should be excessive, a sentiment echoed in his alteration of the quote by Aristotle according to which "man is a social animal; any man who can live alone is either a beast or a god", and he added "or a philosopher". Of course it doesn't help that he died in a quite horrible way, after losing sanity while watching a poor abused horse which could no longer carry the things they kept loading onto its back.

(The other philosopher would be Battaile, who is a minor french philosopher of the early post ww2 era. Much like Nietzsche, he too was tied primarily to art. His art is strange (i think one could label him as a catholic pornographer, and his symbols tend to be focused on genitals).
Kierkegaard could be argued to be about excess as well, although in his case there is a very notable religious (christian) parameter too).

*

You can discuss what you think of excess and moderation, and if a better balance is closer to one or the other. My view is that moderation is a basis for overall safety in the journeys of thought, although the more pronounced effects are inevitably (by definition as well as reality) those which bring us to border some less charted realm of thinking. The distinctions can be applied in the terminology of the Apollonian and Dionysian, in Nietzsche's first main treatise.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Moderation is for wimps. Live life in big bites. You die in the end either way, but you'll live more.

 

[timtofly]

If excess and might make right, and moderation only gets you so far, why do the good die young?

 

[warpus]

Moderation is key. Do drugs, have premarital sex, eat salty foods, sweet foods, jump in a puddle, go suntanning, drink some coke, smoke a cigarette, drink some beer..

You'll be fine if you do everything in moderation

Disclaimer (Do not actually do drugs, most people can't control themselves)

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think moderation is just a general advice to be aware of the many facets of life and of yourself. Your inner world is a snake with many heads, as the Indian saying goes, and moderation means to not ignore some of them for the sake of only focusing on others.

Excess than on the other hand means to seek your fortune in more or less only one activity and more or less in accordance to only one head of the snake.

Those are the two poles I see. And moderation seems wise. Because the alternative ignorance seems dangerous. However, moderation IMO has to include the moderation of moderation, or one would risk to just fall into an obsession with moderation, so just another excess. Contemplative reflection has as much place in any live as to go wild IMO

But all I just said is just abstract meaningless tautological fortune cookie talk without making such moderation a reality. And that is work. And hard. And confusing.
Excess is easy and clear.

 

[Borachio]

Enough! Or too much.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Bring out number, weight and measure in time of dearth.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

William Blake.

I was talking to a very nice nurse only the other day who said that extremes should always be avoided (in reference to jihadists, but never mind). I thought later that this can't be right. Whatever you do, someone must be at the extremes. I'd expect the same logic has to apply to excess.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

That had a very attractive ring to me.
And if excesses do help to understand yourself better, than they are in the spirit of moderation IMO. And I agree they occasional do. And I wouldn't want to live without excess. But to live for the excess to me sounds like just hiding from yourself.

Disclaimer (Do not actually do drugs, most people can't control themselves)

Well there is at least one drug which seems virtually incapable of getting you hooked.

Spoiler :

Shrooms / LSD

 

[Gori the Grey]

μήδεν αγαν

I once wrote a poem with the lines "Moderation in all things / Is sure the best excess."

I was proud, perhaps inordinately proud, of those lines.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well there is at least one drug which seems virtually incapable of getting you hooked.

Spoiler :

Shrooms / LSD

I was thinking hemlock.

 

[Borachio]

Does cyanide qualify?

It all depends on the dose, though.

Nicotine taken in large enough quantities (60 mg) isn't addictive either.

60 mg doesn't seem a large quantity of anything.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Quite sure cyanide in almost all dosages but the fewest will kill you all too quickly to even experience any sort of an addiction.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well there is at least one drug which seems virtually incapable of getting you hooked.

They can be habit forming with no physical addictiveness. And they're strong enough you can have the drawbacks of excess with few repetitions or even one miscalculation on dose or environment.

 

[Kyriakos]

μήδεν αγαν

I once wrote a poem with the lines "Moderation in all things / Is sure the best excess."

I was proud, perhaps inordinately proud, of those lines.

It is μηδέν, though

The phrase literally means 'nothing in excess'. Mhden is also the term for zero, and breaks up to μη (non) and είναι (being).

 

[Plotinus]

Aristotle didn't say you should have all things in moderation.

He said that virtue is a mean, which means only that for every virtue, it's possible to have too much and too little. That includes the occasions on which it's exercised as well as the strength to which it's experienced.

For example, courage is a mean between cowardice and foolhardiness. That doesn't mean one should be moderately courageous all the time. It means that in any given situation there's a "correct" amount of courage, and it's possible to overdo it and to underdo it. In some situations a high degree of courage is appropriate (e.g. when the stakes are very high) and in others a lower degree might be appropriate (e.g. when failure is certain). Similarly, there are occasions when one should be very angry, somewhat angry, and not angry at all. Aristotle doesn't think you should be moderately angry all the time.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I did not really mean to discuss drugs here, but since you raised those points
Though I'll spoiler my reply because it is a bit longer (but I find this topic very fascinating)

Spoiler :

They can be habit forming with no physical addictiveness.

In principal true enough, anything can become a habit one may find very hard to divert from. Hence why I said "virtually" incapable instead of say "totally" incapable.

But I am quit sure that for instance computer gaming is a lot more addictive than LSD when it comes to habitually nurtured 'addiction'. Or over-eating. So I see not much point and stressing that LSD is not- like nothing is - absolutely immune to habit forming.

To provide you with an illustration: I once saw a documentary on LSD where a drug dealer was interviewed. He said that LSD customers were his favorite customers because they would never harass him about getting the drug. Since they didn't actually need it. (it said cannabis is not physically addictive, but it is not unusual that people will harass you for cannabis, though of course not as someone may harass you for heroin)

And they're strong enough you can have the drawbacks of excess with few repetitions or even one miscalculation on dose or environment.

Physically it is absolutely harmless. No organs, not your brain.. nothing gets physically damaged.

But I assume you think of the psychological aspect.
A shroom will probably as likely have any significant lasting drawbacks as riding your car to the supermarket. Or less. I think less likely actually. I personally never experienced a drug which is on the one hand so intensive and on the other leaves your ability to think clearly and rationally that completely intact. I found it really totally incomparable to what one commonly imagines drugs to be. A complete paradigm shift. The only really scary part is perhaps that it can seem like you will never be again "normal", probably exactly because it doesn't feel like a drug is "supposed" to feel. But that is an unfounded fear. The effect will wear off in a couple of hours every time.
As to LSD: I am not sure what the higher concentrations of the drug substance in those manufactured variants can mean. I personally would be cautious about it. But I have the feeling you may think of some of the horror stories about LSD. People who took too much and never got off of some sort of horror trip or something like that. From what I learned those stories are myths.

What I found confirmed so far is that some people become strange after a while of taking shrooms/LSD. Not crazy. But strange. That is probably why it is advised to not take it if ones has psychological problems. I think if one does one may make the mistake to take the experience more seriously than it deserves or something like that. In the documentary I mentioned some shroom user said that after taking them for a while he saw everything more clearly, that he thought he was happy before but then he saw through things. In principal that is a normal effect of shrooms. To see things one kinda ignored before. But in this case it was like he hid from something for years and very successfully and when the shrooms brought it to the surface he let himself be consumed by the revelation or something like that. Really weird. I didn't really get it.

And it is possible that some odd mental illness can be activated by LSD, that is true.

There is some kind of risk involved. But there is a risk in everything in life. And in this case the risk seems extremely manageable to me.

But also, I do would advise against taking LSD on some constant basis. Like every week or even every month. But that is not something people will usually do anyway.

 

[Farm Boy]

Spoiler :

In principal true enough, anything can become a habit one may find very hard to divert from. Hence why I said "virtually" incapable instead of say "totally" incapable.

But I am quit sure that for instance computer gaming is a lot more addictive than LSD when it comes to habitually nurtured 'addiction'. Or over-eating. So I see not much point and stressing that LSD is not- like nothing is - absolutely immune to habit forming.

To provide you with an illustration: I once saw a documentary on LSD where a drug dealer was interviewed. He said that LSD customers were his favorite customers because they would never harass him about getting the drug. Since they didn't actually need it. (it said cannabis is not physically addictive, but it is not unusual that people will harass you for cannabis, though of course not as someone may harass you for heroin)

Physically it is absolutely harmless. No organs, not your brain.. nothing gets physically damaged.

But I assume you think of the psychological aspect.
A shroom will probably as likely have any significant lasting drawbacks as riding your car to the supermarket. Or less. I think less likely actually. I personally never experienced a drug which is on the one hand so intensive and on the other leaves your ability to think clearly and rationally that completely intact. I found it really totally incomparable to what one commonly imagines drugs to be. A complete paradigm shift. The only really scary part is perhaps that it can seem like you will never be again "normal", probably exactly because it doesn't feel like a drug is "supposed" to feel. But that is an unfounded fear. The effect will wear off in a couple of hours every time.
As to LSD: I am not sure what the higher concentrations of the drug substance in those manufactured variants can mean. I personally would be cautious about it. But I have the feeling you may think of some of the horror stories about LSD. People who took too much and never got off of some sort of horror trip or something like that. From what I learned those stories are myths.

What I found confirmed so far is that some people become strange after a while of taking shrooms/LSD. Not crazy. But strange. That is probably why it is advised to not take it if ones has psychological problems. I think if one does one may make the mistake to take the experience more seriously than it deserves or something like that. In the documentary I mentioned some shroom user said that after taking them for a while he saw everything more clearly, that he thought he was happy before but then he saw through things. In principal that is a normal effect of shrooms. To see things one kinda ignored before. But in this case it was like he hid from something for years and very successfully and when the shrooms brought it to the surface he let himself be consumed by the revelation or something like that. Really weird. I didn't really get it.

And it is possible that some odd mental illness can be activated by LSD, that is true.

There is some kind of risk involved. But there is a risk in everything in life. And in this case the risk seems extremely manageable to me.

But also, I do would advise against taking LSD on some constant basis. Like every week or even every month. But that is not something people will usually do anyway.

Spoiler :

Well, I can agree with almost all of that. But it's too easy to understate the lasting effects of extremely powerful hallucinogens. Even THC isn't a good idea for people with a spectrum of mental issues or in combination with a variety of medications used in the treatment of mental disease. Much moreso as you crank up the potency to and through examples like peyote, psilocybin, LSD, or ayahuasca.

One of the reasons people do them, the draw persay, is that you can't undo tripping. You might come back, but you still went elsewhere. Mentally, the experience lasts even as the dose recedes. The impacts last after the dose recedes. It changes people. Sometimes not much. Sometimes for the better. Not always for the better. And sometimes a lot. Particularly if somebody is a heavy user, and a heavy user for something like LSD is using a heck of a lot less frequently than somebody who drinks alcohol or smokes marijuana. On the spectrum of recreational drugs these aren't light hitters despite the fact that they don't tend to kill otherwise healthy individuals once they start getting past their mid-20s like the stimulants and opiates do.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I did not really mean to discuss drugs here, but since you raised those points
Though I'll spoiler my reply because it is a bit longer (but I find this topic very fascinating)

Spoiler :

In principal true enough, anything can become a habit one may find very hard to divert from. Hence why I said "virtually" incapable instead of say "totally" incapable.

But I am quit sure that for instance computer gaming is a lot more addictive than LSD when it comes to habitually nurtured 'addiction'. Or over-eating. So I see not much point and stressing that LSD is not- like nothing is - absolutely immune to habit forming.

To provide you with an illustration: I once saw a documentary on LSD where a drug dealer was interviewed. He said that LSD customers were his favorite customers because they would never harass him about getting the drug. Since they didn't actually need it. (it said cannabis is not physically addictive, but it is not unusual that people will harass you for cannabis, though of course not as someone may harass you for heroin)

Physically it is absolutely harmless. No organs, not your brain.. nothing gets physically damaged.

But I assume you think of the psychological aspect.
A shroom will probably as likely have any significant lasting drawbacks as riding your car to the supermarket. Or less. I think less likely actually. I personally never experienced a drug which is on the one hand so intensive and on the other leaves your ability to think clearly and rationally that completely intact. I found it really totally incomparable to what one commonly imagines drugs to be. A complete paradigm shift. The only really scary part is perhaps that it can seem like you will never be again "normal", probably exactly because it doesn't feel like a drug is "supposed" to feel. But that is an unfounded fear. The effect will wear off in a couple of hours every time.
As to LSD: I am not sure what the higher concentrations of the drug substance in those manufactured variants can mean. I personally would be cautious about it. But I have the feeling you may think of some of the horror stories about LSD. People who took too much and never got off of some sort of horror trip or something like that. From what I learned those stories are myths.

What I found confirmed so far is that some people become strange after a while of taking shrooms/LSD. Not crazy. But strange. That is probably why it is advised to not take it if ones has psychological problems. I think if one does one may make the mistake to take the experience more seriously than it deserves or something like that. In the documentary I mentioned some shroom user said that after taking them for a while he saw everything more clearly, that he thought he was happy before but then he saw through things. In principal that is a normal effect of shrooms. To see things one kinda ignored before. But in this case it was like he hid from something for years and very successfully and when the shrooms brought it to the surface he let himself be consumed by the revelation or something like that. Really weird. I didn't really get it.

And it is possible that some odd mental illness can be activated by LSD, that is true.

There is some kind of risk involved. But there is a risk in everything in life. And in this case the risk seems extremely manageable to me.

Well, as long as we can't seem to get off the subject...

Spoiler :

The issue with hallucinogens comes from this basic bit of reality: behavior is shaped by experience.

Experience isn't what has happened to us in the past, it is our memory of what happened to us in the past. Memory is fallible to start with, as is perception. I might remember a line from a conversation with a parent that as a child I completely misunderstood...and built my entire life on it. The number of people operating from 'my parents never loved me' which is a conclusion they reached while not being allowed to eat cookies before dinner is frankly remarkable.

Anyway, hallucinogens, by their basic operation, provide experience that is even less likely to be useful in shaping future behavior. While users may be capable of 'isolation and downgrading' of these experiences to minimize the impact, no one (in my own experience) has the long term mental discipline to completely qualify those experiences so they are not affected by them.

Now, add that sometimes with sufficient dosage those false experiences can have impact far beyond expectation, and add that some people can and do use so repetitiously that some significant fraction of their experience is drawn from an unpredictably altered perception. What have you got? An individual operating from a base of experience that is far from reliable, making their actions pretty far from predictable, even to themselves.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Spoiler :

It is true that LSD tends to have at least more or less lasting effects. Sadly they do not seem to be much explored in a systematic manner. I know of one study that people who took a shroom were tested to in general be more open-minded even one year after consumption.
In Switzerland there is right now a pilot experimental project going on where people about to die from cancer are treated with LSD to deal with their psychological problems. The story of one patient was shown who after taking LSD felt much more at ease with her more or less imminent death. The professor interviewed in the piece was also a bit euphoric about LSD. He stressed that what LSD did was unique, and also not fully understood. Which is the reason why I don't like to just lump it into the broad category of hallucinogens.
In the end it is my impression that a little bid of it will simply not harm you unless your are kinda twisted in the head to begin with or you use it in irresponsible frequency. I am not fundamentally different for it. The people I know who took shrooms aren't. And in the subtle ways they perhaps are I don't think it harmed them In case of all other drugs with any kind of popularity the harm is right in ones face on the other hand. But I suppose more research into this matter would be a good idea.

 

[warpus]

My doctor just told me it's okay to drink, do certain drugs, and so on, as long as it's done in moderation.

I had a full physical report type thing, and I passed everything with flying colours.

So yep.. moderation seems key..

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I once watched a documentary on the general topic of alcohol and there it was claimed that 3 glasses of beer or 1 1/2 glass of vine a day prolonged life.