Impetus Toward Drug Abuse
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T.H. Huxley indicates in the passage quoted his willingness--indeed, his eagerness--to have someone take over the choices of life for him, to take away the onerous task of having to make his own decisions and choose correctly among the options faced each day. He would be perfectly happy, he says, to be treated as a clock that could be wound up every morning so long as the result is that he be mad always to think what is true and do what is right. Achieving this state--thinking what is true and doing what is right--is a good to which we all are expected to direct our energies. Huxley would be willing to let someone else do this for him, some power that could obviate the human struggle to achieve truth and righteousness. In essence, he is asking for a deterministic universe directed by a higher power that would not force human beings to do the work necessary to achieve this goal. Huxley is clearly pushing against the tide of human thought extending over several thousand years as Western civilization has struggled to escape from the deterministic universe and to promote individual choice, even if that means that the wrong choices are made.Yet, it is evident that there is something appealing about giving up responsibility such as Huxley says he would enjoy. Indeed, ne technologies and developments in medical science have made it possible for millions of people to do just that, at least in some degree. Much of the impetus toward drug abuse--and alcohol abuse as well--deri
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Prozac's transformative powers. Yet what effect does a drug like Prozac really have? Is the person actually transformed from one person into another under Prozac, and which is the "real" person? This harks back to Huxley's comment, for the same question can be asked of the man Huxley would like to be--would he still be Huxley if he were being guided by an outside force so that he could only think and behave in what would be considered the right way, or can Huxley only be Huxley if he has the potential to err? While Kramer emphasizes the biological component in self-esteem, are we really the same person if we change that component so that our biology is in effect different than it was? For that matter, do people who take drugs want to be the same person, or do they want to be someone else, someone with more self-esteem, more of a certain behavior, more of a certain power? Huxley wants to be someone who makes no mistakes because he does not have to and is not responsible for them anyway. The question can also be asked whether we as a society want to foster this sort of acceptance of control and ceding of responsibility to others, or do we want to foster individualism, personal choice, and personal responsibility? For most o
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2259
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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