Mindscape 267 | Benjamin Breen on Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and Utopia

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Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript:
The twentieth century was something, wasn't it? Margaret Mead, as well as her onetime-husband Gregory Bateson, managed to play roles in several of its key developments: social anthropology and its impact on sex & gender mores, psychedelic drugs and their potential use for therapeutic purposes, and the origin of cybernetics, to name a few. Benjamin Breen discusses this impactful trajectory in his new book, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science. We talk about Mead and Bateson, the early development of psychedelic drugs, and how the possibility of a realistic utopia didn't always seem so far away.
Benjamin Breen received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among his awards are the National Endowment for the Humanities Award for Faculty and the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine. He writes on Substack at Res Obscura.
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#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[@maisboyfriend]

One of your better podcast episodes in my opinion. Surprised me with how interested I got over it's duration. Your guest was so great. Thanks.

[@raresmircea]

Interesting theme, great guest, thank you

[@scrubjay93]

I am very interested in the advances made with regard to the use of psychedelics for treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. I took psychedelics when I was in my 20s but now I am over 60 and would like to try it again for my chronic mental health problems. Appreciated the anecdotes about Dr. John Lilly. I was a huge fan in the 1970s after reading his books and I planned to go to college to study marine mammals. In the early 1980s he gave a talk in Santa Cruz when I was living nearby. I was very excited to meet him and made a piece of original art to give him - a detailed pen of ink of right whale dolphins with an added bit of psychedelic imagery sort of hidden within the stippled drawing. He was very appreciative and told me he had just "met" the species in Hawaii. He shared his M&Ms with me. He was eccentric and I was ALL IN. 💚I didn't end up studying marine mammals but did become a fish and wildlife biologist and loved my job. Thank you for the fun discussion!

[@vicenzor3625]

Really nice discussion. I had heard the name Margaret Mead before but only knew she was an anthropologist and she was name checked by HST in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

[@Amethyst_Friend]

Cool, I did not remember that.

[@albert.robles7]

I did Psychedelics too when I was younger. The way I did Shrooms was on pizza, l also did LSD. I had a bad trip when i took overdose on LSD and that was my last time. Would love to try them out again.

[@katlinkate]

Once I took shrooms on accident they were in a chocolate bar and my fat ass thought it was regular chocolate 😂

[@userconspiracynut]

[Adamsflakesx] Ships psychedelics

[@albert.robles7]

​@@userconspiracynut where to search?

[@albert.robles7]

Is it Instagram?

[@userconspiracynut]

Yeah, he has variety of stuffs like Mushrooms, LSD, DMT, MDMA even the chocolate bars

[@msmith9698]

Great guest and episode. One of my many favorites.

[@steliosp1770]

Brilliant episode. Thank you, as always, Sean. Have a great weekend!

[@ehfik]

8:50 thats SO funny

[@bubaks2]

😂

[@darrylbaird8877]

In my experience (LSD and mescalin in the 1970s), the nature of being "stoned" offered more information, different information and sensory experiences unknown before taking the drugs. It wasn't always "fun", but it was marvelous to be sharing it with a social group of friends or trusted folks. No regrets at all. NOW, I feel that even vaping cannabis reconnects to some of these experiences and "knowledge" due to having the first experiences and having a neural record (synapse?) that allows the experience to be reconnected more easily. I might be afraid at this stage of life (70+) to start a psychedelic journey, but it's moot. I just don't have that "small circle of friends" anymore. Being stoned alone, without fellowship isn't appealing. Alas. Great podcast...

[@HORNGEN4]

Very excited about the new era of psychedelic research. There are a few things as fascinating as alterted human consciousness, it's insights and use cases.

[@anonymoushuman8344]

Probably the two wisest voices that come through in Breen's Tripping On Utopia are those of Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts.

[@JavaT6437]

Thanks for this Sean

[@PhilipSportel]

While drugs, meditation and other techniques show us our minds are capable of multiple modalities, Sean and Benjamin's observation that the sober mind is better suited for intellectual labour indicates we're generally tuned for a particular kind of thought.

[@aidenmurphy9924]

Yes, our survival depended for around 200k years on our ability to remember where berry bushes are and our ability to calculate projectile motion. Now, through the study of the mind, we're learning not how to survive in the wilderness, but how to better understand our neighbors and ourselves.

[@user-lz7zc4bq3u]

Yes.. as long as we ignore the fact that they are completely and totally wrong lol

[@user-lz7zc4bq3u]

45.55 this is where they show how little they understanding they possess. Abysmal

[@jonathanbyrdmusic]

Wouldn’t that be a trance script?

[@anttiautere3663]

Howabout lucid dreams?

[@TipsyTadpole]

tyty

[@antifajesus]

Been there done that and my brothers both died from too much of a good thing😢

[@HORNGEN4]

What exactly are you referring to?

@@HORNGEN4If I had to guess, they did too much of it and messed their minds up.

[@HORNGEN4]

@ interesting, that's super rare as far as I know. Having done psychedelics myself it's hard to fathom somebody overdoing it to that degree, especially resulting in death. It's possible I suppose.

[@soci0path]

When you've listened to and love talks from an individual for so long you can see them age. Thankyou Sean for hours and hours of sharing your knowledge. Did I mention thankyou...

[@IndranilBiswas_]

This one's good but honestly I love Sean's physics / philosophy podcasts. One of my fondest discoveries was when Sean mentioned "purpose of life is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide"

[@bubaks2]

I propose the earliest simulation hypothesis came in the form of a religion. Most monotheistic religions that propose an afterlife are basically a simulation hypothesis.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

And the first ‘theory of everything’ too. And without what we know today, must de facto be bullshit…

[@ehfik]

AI is like psychedelics small community, amazing potential, hardly understood on the outside, always misinterpreted by media. and it already gifted us with prophets like elizer!

[@ratbullkan]

I can't listen to your AI-generated voice sorry :-)

[@johncarter1150]

Of course you are making a joke?

[@Iamthepossum]

An aside that it is too rich, resonant & melodic to emanate from one of us, the plebeian mere mortals? ❤ 😂 you took the words right out of our mouths! 😊 take care my dear ❤