Some great nation of cannabis cetaceans
by Steven 'fly agaric 23' Pratt.
In following the trajectory of the war on some people who use some drugs, over the last 20 years, I recently noticed a similar situation to that of the (WOSPWUSD) in the plight of those who wish to recognise a cetacean nation, or some rights and freedoms that humans enjoy.
The strategy for aquiring a kind of nationhood for Dolphins and Whales reflects, to my mind, the on-going battle between medical Marijuana activists and recognition, officially, of the benefits and culture surrounding Marijuana, effectively reversing the current laws and punishments for members of the cannabis community so that they become endowed with a kind of spirit-hood thing, and enjoy protected freedoms to live a proud and fearless life like other minorities or previously oppressed groups such as women, people of colour, homosexuals and a growing list of animals, vegetables and plants, cannabis people strive for at least equal rights and the pursuit of happiness as a Gorilla would!
Jane Goddard seems to me to have kickstarted the quest for individual sovereignty through her work with the United Nations (dometicated primates) and her work with Apes (primates). And, as mentioned above, Dr John Lilly with a host of other scientists, thinkers and imaginative activists have outlined what a sovereign nation for cetaceans might look like, why we should have such a thing, and what we can do, collectively to work towards building and maintaining it.
The cannabis nation also has such outlines and plans, research projects and evidence to put forward their case, but, (rising organ music please) with cannabis there are hundreds of thousands of such data sets pointing towards changes in the forever biased and bloody bigoted laws and punishments handed out to any member of the cannabis nation participating in their non-violent lifestyle e.g; ingesting cannabis in one form or another.
In both cases, however, I come across a similar set of problems and in my humble opinion-- misunderstandings--on behalf of those who fight for such equal rights and government recognition, in the same way other diverse groups are now protected, legalised and left up to their own devices, to the extent that humans are supposed to have irreducible rights based upon finding oneself in a lucky incarnation: that of a sentient human being.
There are many different angles to the cannabis nation argument, and billions of Angels, based upon the wide strata of human culture, not least coming from the artistic and innovative music community world-wide. Whereas, the cetacean nation arguments usually come from a somewhat small and specialised area of scholarly research, although cargo cults often get on board the Dolphin and Whale boat to nationhood, adding a sometimes humorous, sometimes frustrating glossing to the concept of a cetacean nation. In my opinion, it is the definition and evidence amassed by Dr John Lilly in particular that best describes the case for cetacean rights and nationhood on par with that of human beings. Read him!
As any reader of Dr John Lilly may know, he also wrote extensively on altered states of consciousness, cognitive liberty and the therapeutic, neuro-psychological uses of some drugs (in particular Ketamine and LSD). As a scientist, however, John did not follow the slightly more popular legalise cannabis, and other drugs battle in the streets, he rebelled through his research and feedback, both amplifying his brilliance and genius. John made tools and maps to help us navigate psychedelic space that maybe more important today than before based on the similarity between navigating psychedelic space (as defined by Lilly) and navigating cyberspace (as defined by Norbert Weiner and Tim Berners Lee). Cyber = to steer, remember?
Techniques for navigating non-ordinary states of consciousness are very helpful in navigating through the Internet and our hyper-connected futures or science fiction futures as I like to call our multi-dimensional futures.
I imagine a situation where inner space--the world behind our eyelids and the private space of one’s thoughts--spills out and over into outer-space or the human perceived space-time world, via Internet, social networks, web sites, games, movies, music and cyber-culture: the digital universe.
Although this may seem a slight digression from the similarities in the process of recognition of both a cetacean nation and a cannabis people’s nation, the result of some carfeul investigation and a little research into non-ordinary states, reflects the descent or accent, depending how you view the idea of the world and reality made and manipulated primarily by language, to high weirdness!
However, I must add that all this talk of nation-hoods and sovereignty runs contrary to my intuition about how to really solve the big problems of greed driven civilisation, the swelling global village, and a peaceful cooperative future.
I recognised that Buckminster Fuller nailed it when he implied that until the sovereign nations have been de-sovereignized (effectively decentralised) we cannot have open world around trade and balanced communication. I agree whole heatedly, although for the purposes of the arguments above I must drop such a notion, for some great nation of cannabis cetaceans.
--Steve Fly
