A week on sociology

Although the week was interesting, his ideas were sometimes so unique that they were often hard to grasp or identify with.The topic we were mainly focused on was a branch of sociology dealing with the development of human consciousness throughout history.

We began on Monday by drawing comparisons between the overall state of consciousness in specific ancient cultures (such as the Persian and Egyptian civilizations) and the human mind. Using what is known of their history and societal methods, we learned for example to connect the ancient Greeks with contemporary 21-28 year-olds.

Throughout history, the Greeks advanced both technologically and intellectually in ways that an average mid 20 year-old mirrors; this is of course not to imply that one civilization was once better than another, it simply shows similarities in the development of a mindset. Nowadays, we carry the capacity to conceive such ideas as an automobile assembly line or powdered eggs, but only because of thousands of years of pre-conditioning and mental evolution. Before the Industrial Revolution, the human mind was focused on earthly survival and community; later however, value was put on production and money. Thus, the concept of addiction was born.

Due to Jaap's personal history and involvement in Dutch politics (particularly the legal status of marijuana in Holland) we had many questions about the culture around this phenomenon. Is legalization of a drug actually the solution to addiction?

Simple examination of history and some more recent statistics tell us that be trying to control a substance, the desire to experiment with it greatly increases. As we saw during the Prohibition, the outlawing of alcohol only gave the business over to criminal organizations, as they took up the production and distribution of alcohol with gusto, allowing addiction and petty crime to flourish. The same scenario can  be found in the United State's current war on drugs; the country's staggering number of addicts seem only more outrageous when placed next to Holland's relatively few (and legal) marijuana consumers.

The freedom of choice makes quite a difference in how we treat the decision itself. The opposite of addiction is freedom; freedom to choose, freedom to create your own relations, freedom to follow any path.

Not unlike the oppression of the Prohibition (and in close association) the Church used to govern the political, scientific, and of course spiritual standard in most cultures. However, individuals like Aristotle and Galileo broke this chain, and kick-started the  revolution of logical and sequential thinking, something that we consider to be the norm today.

Instead of letting religion rule Western consciousness, we now are directed by a complex political structure and the insatiable desire for economic gain. In order for us to move past this destructive way of thinking, each person needs to be able to decide for themselves about how and what they want to follow. It is not difficult to imagine why people thought differently in the past; we form our belief systems from what is around us, from various input.

When our surroundings change, our logic and spirituality also change. Humanity now has a choice to make: either we fortify our military presence in the world and let conflict and fear make reality, or we can make a conscious decision to spread a notion of global equality; a notion that everyone in this world is a grain of sand on the same beach and together we are Truth.