Drugs for Group 2

I think that Group 2 gained a member (possibly by accident)--nonetheless, welcome Parker :)

Last class consisted of watching that lovely video of strangers posing for photographs together as though they weren't strangers to begin with and a great class discussion of the topics presented in the last section of reading. As Dean pointed out, we didn't really spend time talking about death. While I agree that we don't need to post it on the fridge, I cannot say that becoming comfortable with or at least forcing ourselves to come to terms with death is all-around fruitless. I think the point there was to make sure that individuals don't end up spending their lives afraid of death, and thus, never truly living it. If we face death, give it the respect it deserves, and turn back towards life, our lives become meaningful in a way that it couldn't be without doing this first. It's also important to recognize that this practice of coming to terms with death can have an equal and opposite (negative) effect on life--in that we could become obsessed with not having enough time to get anything done or engrossed with the reality or fear of death so that we find life meaningless. I sometimes find it difficult to feel motivated to do anything if I let the idea of death loom over me, but I really don't think that Hecht meant any of this in her chapter about remembering death. Either way, on to drugs!

Super excited for this discussion, Carlin Romano both in class and at Happy Hour, and tomorrow's Lyceum. Hope to see many of you there :D

It should prove interesting for us to discuss drugs after reading this section, being that in the beginning of the class as a whole, we seemed to have the exact mentality towards drugs that Hecht sees as generally cultural and wrong-headed. We were all very against happiness-inducing drugs, but over the course, we've all expressed acceptance of, or at least an appreciation of, drugs that bring us happiness in a very whatever-floats-your-boat type of way. I've started shifting my own beliefs about drugs during the course in that I used to view antidepressants and the like as producing a false-happiness, whereas now I'm really starting to reconsider even personally taking these types of drugs in order to see what kind of positive attitudes I can bring about within myself, regardless of what I think the source of said attitudes are. Who's to say that these forms of contentment aren't real, useful, positive, etc.?

FQ for Drugs:
Which drug did Ashley Smith give her captor in order to calm him down?
Answer: meth (p.122)