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

Abstrakt

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.

Keywords: psychedelics; narcotics;
isolation; escapism; revolution; utopia; dystopia.