Practical Psychedelica: Toward a Postcapitalist Ontology

Despite the liberating promise of democracy, the wonders of modern technology, and the breakneck pace of economic growth, the pursuit of universal human emancipation seems to be backsliding. Social, environmental, and material problems continue to arise even as measures of progress suggest unqualified successes. And although these challenges are solvable, political will remains largely absent. In this work, I will argue that the core problem is ontological: the dominant worldview of capitalism impairs necessary modes of thought and action. To remedy this condition, new mental frameworks are necessary. Inspired by metaphysical monist traditions and the psychedelic experience, the foundations of post-capitalist ontology will be explored as the basis for future contemplation.

At the risk of understating the problem, the condition of the world in late modernity is suboptimal. Although quantifiably more prosperous, healthy, peaceful, and democratic than ever before, qualitative shifts in material conditions, social structure, and subjective experience hint at an underlying and accelerating set of problems. Despite scientific consensus of an environmental crisis and broad public support for action in principle, progress remains meagre and prone to setbacks. More generally, the evident failure of liberalism to manifest the promise of the European Enlightenment suggests a flaw in reasoning. Whereas rational positivism purported to irrevocably dispel the superstitious and fearful state of premodernity, this process remains cyclical and prone to regression. While Karl Marx predicted the inherent contradictions of capitalism to inevitably cause collapse, capital is no less enmeshed in contemporary society. Progressive revolutionary movements are invariably forestalled through reformism or co-opted by autocrats. Given current conditions and trends, the possibility of a global fully-automated luxury gay space communist utopia seems quite low indeed. I suggest a common root to these problems: a matter of ontology.

Ontology is the study of being, including explorations of subjecthood, the nature of things, and the framing and description of what is. Formal consideration of ontology has been the pursuit of philosophers throughout history, but each societal paradigm possesses its own informal ontology. These popular ontologies give form everyday life — a means to make sense of one’s place in the world. It is useful, then, to consider a brief genealogy of ontology when examining current conditions — inspecting the links between folk and formal frameworks for clues.

Beyond the physiological and psychological faculties for complex thought and communication, the capacity for storytelling is a primary component of cultural development. Storytelling represents a key evolutionary advantage, facilitating the transmission and distributed storage of knowledge. Through repetition and heritance of stories, future generations can learn and build upon the knowledge of their forebears without need for direct experience. Beyond factual accounts, stories can be used to simulate and explore possibilities. Fictions can serve as examples to navigate social situations, provide inspiration and education, offer reassurance, and caution against recklessness. Parable and allegory are key components of folk ontology; often containing metaphysical and moral claims, these stories come to frame the nature of reality for a people.

When codified as a system of beliefs, these stories can become a mythological system. Animism underpins the framework of many indigenous cultures, referring to the existence of spiritual or essential energies inhabiting the physical world of objects. These frameworks generally reject dualism, holding that all things are part of a unified whole. Similar but distinct are pantheistic traditions, whose worldview is predicated on an all-encompassing spirit inhabiting and constituting all things. Pantheistic traditions are, by implication, monistic — suggesting a singularity and limited differentiability of things within a unified field. Hierarchy and anthropocentrism, from this perspective, are illogical; the ontology of pantheism is essentially flat. Although present in Eastern spiritual traditions, Baruch di Spinoza is largely responsible for contemporary Western pantheism, sparking intense conflict with dualistic Jewish and Christian faiths. The vital materialism of Jane Bennett (2010) represents a novel interpretation of pantheistic-like ontology, imbuing quasi-agency on objects — noting their considerable and insoluble impact in the world. By contrast, polytheistic and monotheistic traditions are typically dualistic, framing the world through a material/transcendent binary. As such, objects are rendered as discrete, independent, and fundamentally noninteracting — their noumenal essence inaccessible by experience. Subjects and objects acquire distinction in a dualistic frame, enabling hierarchical categorization of things.

Ontology veered away from the domain of metaphysics during the European Enlightenment, replaced by correlationism and the positivist pursuit of objectivity. Liberal rationalism began to supplant norms of personal station and sovereign power, undermining traditional structures of collective morality and establishing the conditions necessary for democratic governance. The ultimate aim of Enlightenment philosophy is human emancipation: freedom, self-determination, and the banishment of savagery and superstition. Although the contemporary world enjoys some benefits of Enlightenment liberation, the transformational project remains incomplete — arguably due to the dualist heritage of liberal rationalism itself. Old forms of power have merely changed forms, recruiting the apparent freedom of individuals to manipulate. Capitalism rose to dominance during this period, in concert with rapid industrialization and urbanization. As the experience of everyday life shifted, so too did both formal and popular ontology. Vital to this discussion are two components: the construction of subjecthood, and measure of value

Conceptions of self and society — “human nature” — are a crucial component of the problem. CB MacPherson describes the ontology of capitalism as possessive individualism (1967). Human nature from a classical liberal perspective constitutes a selfish, rational, independent, utility-maximizing agent. Concerned purely with the consumption of utility, the individual makes rational choices toward their own best outcome. In theory, the combined self-interested choices of economic actors would result in optimal outcomes for society as a whole. The best legal framework for such a society would ensure absolute economic freedom, constrained only where it impinges upon the freedom of others. Protections for private property, minimal economic regulation, and meritocratic norms constitute ideal conditions, resulting in maximal prosperity. However, this scenario depends on a number of unwarranted assumptions — notably the essentialization of human nature as ‘economic man’. Prototypical homo economicus has perfect rationality, perfect knowledge, and is entirely independent. But this is demonstrably not the case; economic coercion and mass psychological manipulation are key components of capitalist society, particularly in the consumerist and mass media age.

Value, under capitalism, is primarily quantifiable and essentially reductive; what is valuable is comprehensively measurable by monetary worth. Materials, labour, and comparative merit are measured by exchange value, and any given commodity is valued insofar as its ability to be converted to currency. Whereas a thing’s use value depends on context, exchange value is abstract and contingent on external assessment. Decision-making processes and value judgments become strongly hierarchical when so quantified — privileging subjects and objects with monetary value, while denuding things of their inherent worth. This systematically disregards things without exchange value — effectively rendering them not-a-thing. Anthropocentrism also results, privileging the human individual as the unit of analysis. Although the invisible hand of the market is indeed a central figure to the mythology of capitalism, individualism dominantes political discourse — excluding social forces from consideration in democratic processes.

Having based an economic and ontological model on the discrete interactions of individual economic entities, this framework neglects both noneconomic objects and higher-order actors. Timothy Morton deploys the hyperobject (2013) to conceptualize such entities — composites of things through time and space possessing emergent characteristics beyond their constituent objects. Hyperobjects permeate the field of existence, being neither directly perceptible in total, nor definite in scope. The hyperobject’s essence is found in its connectome — the historical, material, and conceptual relationality of its components. In this work, capitalism itself will be cast as a hyperobject. Being so central to contemporary society, the capitalism hyperobject touches nearly every aspect of our world. Comprised of countless material and nonmaterial objects, conscious and nonconscious entities, and the interrelation of other hyperobjects, the capitalism hyperobject defies a comprehensive understanding. To overcome this limitation, I will attribute a quasi-agentic character to the capitalist hyperobject as an heuristic device, inspired by Bennett’s vital materialism. Although caused by individual actions, the policy choices, economic activities, and technological developments of capitalism have a degree of goal-oriented intentionality when viewed as a hyperobject — akin to a distributed nascent artificial intelligence whose primary goal is the pure maximization of monetary creation.

To this end, a set of intermediary goals emerge based on the principle of instrumental convergence — the tendency of intelligent rational systems to adopt similar intermediary goals and strategies in pursuit of any given primary goal (Bostrom 2016). Among these are drives toward resource acquisition, self-preservation, and innovation/enhancement. Since the primary goal of capitalism is fundamentally insatiable — the impetus to continuous growth being without end — these strategies tend to be cyclic. With each iteration, strategic innovation improves efficiency and efficacy, leading to a gradual acceleration. To maximize total monetary value created, minimizing marginal cost emerges as a key instrumental goal. Accelerating acquisition of resources — materials, apparatus, space, and labour — at minimal cost necessitates continuous devaluation of these commodities. With relative value of all things trending towards zero, any given resource becomes trivial to acquire. Those things whose relative cost approaches zero are rendered an externality, made valueless in the context of this system.

Natural resources and ecological damage are among the most salient of these externalities. Without an externally imposed expense — environmental tariffs, carbon taxes, etc. — the cost of a natural resource is strictly equal to that of its extraction. To the hyperobject of capitalism, the consequences of environmental damage thus rarely enters consideration, except when an acute shortage constrains growth. The impacts of damage to life, communities, and irreplaceable natural heritage are incalculable in purely monetary terms, and therefore have only indirect influence on the logic of capital. Human labour, similarly, is continuously devalued or rendered unnecessary, with significant impact on the livelihood of subjects and notions of self-worth.

It’s here that the self-preservative, innovative character of capitalism is evident. So vital is continuous, accelerating growth that any stagnation portends recession. Attempts to legislate control over the damaging effects of growth are thus quickly overcome through regulatory capture. When faced with limitations of market scope, the capitalism hyperobject produces novel mechanisms for capital creation. Increasingly esoteric virtual capital products — stocks, hedge funds, derivatives, etc. — have developed through the shift from industrial capitalism to market capitalism. Meanwhile, the methodologies of consumerism created an expanding demand for material commodities. Disposable products and planned obsolescence provide a repeatable demand for goods, while marketing techniques have shifted from advertising comparative benefit to the manufacture of desire.

This demand-production strategy also manifests in self-reinforcing complexes. This concept is exemplified by the military-industrial complex, as defined (and presciently warned of) by President Eisenhower. Applying the same hyperobject model to the arms industry, peacetime represents a threat to the pursuit of its capital-maximizing utility function. The same self-preservative strategies are evinced here, as agents of this industry have gained undue influence over governments to ensure demand. Disturbingly, this perverse incentive necessitates continuous and escalating conflict to satisfy growth conditions — war is good for business. Related structures have similar patterns: the prison-industrial complex and the ‘war on drugs’; the American medical-industrial complex producing skyrocketing costs; the poverty-industrial complex’s predatory financial products (eg: payday loans); and more. These misery-industrial complexes arise spontaneously out of the capitalism hyperobject, whose resource-acquiring, cost-minimizing, efficiency-optimizing, speed-maximizing properties coalesce into an imperialist character. Whether by subtle manipulation, economic coercion, or overt domination, the impetus to pursue capital maximization drives this monstrous thing to consume all else in its pursuit.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this phenomenon is that these entities are not malicious per se, but merely amoral. With a reductive notion of value (capital), and an ill-defined utility function (maximize capital), the capitalism hyperobject simply has no concern for human wellbeing, natural heritage, aesthetics, history, nor even the continuation of life on Earth. Any benefit to these ends are either purely incidental, or an intermediary instrumental goal toward the ultimate aim of capital creation. If our heuristic is sufficiently verisimilar, the implications are quite dire. Many (if not all) of the social, ecological, and existential problems of this age can be attributed to some aspect of the capitalism hyperobject. Already Earth is considered to be experiencing a sixth mass extinction event; left unchecked, the present phase of human civilization may conclude catastrophically.

But what of human subjectivity? Is the capitalism hyperobject not comprised, in part, of living, breathing, thinking human beings? Since the symptoms of dysfunction are increasingly obvious — and certainly observable by those with the power to effect change — why is so little being done? Why are ostensibly good, rational people prone to such willful ignorance and ultimately antisocial behaviour?

The root cause of these inconsistencies lies in an ontological problem — the incongruity of capitalist ontology with reality. From the previous discussion, we can derive clues as to what defines this worldview. First, capitalist ontology is strongly hierarchical; reducing value to monetary cost confers greater worth on those things (as commodities) with higher exchange value. This applies not only to material objects, but to subjects as well; those with great wealth are afforded a greater degree of subjecthood, while those in poverty are all too often regarded as unagentic and undeserving. Nonhuman subjects such as animals are likewise imbued with little agency, rendered as instrumental property or considered an obstacle to economic activity. Plants and nonliving objects possess less conferred subjectivity still, sometimes escaping the notice of value assessments entirely.

From this observation we can deduce anthropocentrism, but in a paradoxical form. Although the human is nominally privileged, greater subjectivity is conferred upon nonhuman objects with high monetary value. Conversely, commodified labour dehumanizes those performing it, rendering individuals into abstract, fungible masses. Money itself — embodied through ‘the market’ — is often described in agentic terms, akin to a deific figure heralded by besuited propheteers. Ostensibly this market-as-actor concept resembles the capitalism hyperobject, but lacks a comprehensive consideration of its connectome owing to the discretism (contra holism) of this worldview. The everyday experience of subjects is suffused with discrete, independent objects of fixed time, space, and material. The separation of products from their productive processes, producers, and temporo-spatial relationships gives rise to a social forgetting, enabling the false consciousness of systemic exploitation. Individualism itself gives rise to a relational solipsism, framing interactions with others in necessarily competitive terms with zero-sum outcomes.

At the core of this framework is an ontological and epistemological dualism, with binary distinctions between self and other, mind and body, subject and object, material and spirit. An essentialized and overly-expansive notion of ‘human nature’ ascribes a naturalism to the selfish, competitive behaviour valorized by the capitalistic worldview. Given the hyperindividualistic subjectivity conducive to maximal consumption, subjects under capitalism are trapped in a solipsistic, discretized conception of reality — impaired in conceptualizing a holistic worldview. In an ontological framework filled with discrete, hierarchized, and largely noninteracting objects, contemplation of the world beyond the immediacy of experience is challenging indeed. Without widespread consideration of the ‘big picture’, ideology is readily mistaken for ontology — producing a false sense of objectivity. Amplifying this problem is an effective schisming of reality, with subjects increasingly consuming delusion-validating, ideologically-reinforcing media produced by the now-dominant attention economy. The capitalist realism of late neoliberal age, as described by Mark Fisher (2010), evinces the conflation of what ‘is’ for what ‘ought’, implying a linear model of progress towards the inevitable now. By this logic, capitalism rests as the sole — if not best — mode of societal organization given essential human nature. Future potentialities have collapsed out of this lack of vision, rendering it now “easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” (ibid.).

With most having no strong notion of a post-capitalist world, weak or nonexistent intersubjective ties, and a cognitive bias against holistic thinking, the social movement required to remedy these problems suffers primarily a lack of interest. Those with the means to effect change are unmotivated to do so, while those with motivation lack means. Popular models for reform rest on individualistic action, with no method of coherent effort. Accelerationist models, similarly, depend on economic and technological behaviour incommensurate with capitalistic subjects as constructed. Even should a mass uprising somehow overthrow the present order, unchanged subjectivities in the new paradigm would inevitably reproduce the same hierarchies and power relations in some new form. The primary task for revolutionaries, therefore, is not merely to attain political and economic power, but also to change popular ontology. Given the strong link between ontology and political ideology, any successful popular movement will coincide with — perhaps proceed from — a change in popular worldview; a post-capitalist world requires a post-capitalist mindset.

If capitalistic ontology can be defined by hierarchy, anthropocentrism, competition, discretism, dualism, and realism, then the converse framework would be anarchic (or at least heterarchic), acentric (or at least ecocentric), cooperative, holistic, and idealistic. By adopting a worldview in which all things are valued as subjects within an interconnected, interdependent whole, the postcapitalist mindset regards the self as identical with the all. While the details of this idea lie outside the present scope of this work, its moral and ethical implications are hopefully quite obvious. Having no firm distinction between self and other results in an expansive conception of ‘own’ and a necessary prosocial reprioritization of values. Higher-order (hyper)objects such as forests, global warming, and humanity are readily conceivable from this foundation, enabling the comprehensive address of these issues.

To disseminate this worldview is a nontrivial task. Capitalist ontology is woven into the fabric of the world, from childhood socialization, through formal education, and by experience of the everyday — taken as absolute normalcy. The common language and cognitive schemata that enable participation in social life carry these biases, lensing the world through capitalist logic. Put plainly, we have inherited this ontology from our forebears, knowing no other possibility. Introducing and adopting novel modes of thought is a challenging intellectual exercise even in ideal circumstances; surety in one’s worldview is comforting, making a fundamental reorientation traumatic by comparison. Even when effectively communicated to an open-minded other, it can be challenging to convey such an unfamiliar notion to someone without preexisting knowledge. I propose that direct subjective experience is the crucial precipitating factor to effecting this conceptual shift.

Fortunately, there is precedent for such a project, as well as nascent characteristics of the human mind. Originating prophetic figures of the world’s major religions each taught variations of this worldview, or at least a corresponding conduct. These religious-spiritual traditions constitute a cultural scaffold for an ontological norm, giving form to an experience of the divine. A state of atypical consciousness, commonly associated with religious or spiritual experiences, can give rise to this mode of thought. Referred to as ‘oceanic’ or ‘mystical’ experiences, this state of altered consciousness is similar to the proposed post-capitalist worldview. An overriding sense of unity and interconnectedness results, which can inform a permanent shift in ontology. Such an experience can arise in various ways: physiological entrainment by meditation, prayer, rhythmic breathing, chanting, or dance; anomalies like complex partial seizures; and — of interest here — the use of psychedelic drugs.

The class of psychedelics includes LSD, psilocybin ‘magic’ mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline, and several others. Commonly known for their hallucinogenic properties, these substances are more accurately characterized by their capacity to manifest latent potentials. In contrast with most psychoactive drugs used today, psychedelic drugs could be described as proaesthetic (contra anaesthetic), in that they heighten perception rather than dulling it. At low doses, this generally elevates mood, which can facilitate exploration of mental and situational troubles. One mode of psychedelic therapy operates here, augmenting talk therapy with the emotional- and neuroprotective effects of the drug. Trials using MDMA (an atypical psychedelic) for post-traumatic stress has yielded exceptional results, and is likely to become the gold standard for care. ‘Microdosing’ has gained popularity in recent years — self-administering tiny, sub-psychedelic doses every two or three days. Anecdotal reports indicate improved mood, increased creative thinking, heightened sensory perception, and an overall sense of wellbeing. Although formal research has only just begun, this technique shows great promise.

As dose increases, reified schemata and heuristics break down. Without overriding default experiential framing, existing information can be re-interpreted as if novel. This phenomenon is often reported to resemble regressing in age, giving rise to a sense of childlike open-mindedness. Mechanisms responsible for rendering sensory data (eg: patterns of colour, shape, edges, etc.) into concrete objects are disrupted as well, giving rise to hallmark distortions of perception. This disruption can cause gestalt objects and concepts to disassemble into their phenomenal properties, filtered only by particularities and imperfections of the sensory organs. The schematic fluidity of this state can also yield revelations about previously-held assumptions, drawing attention to logical inconsistencies and previously unconsidered associations. Spontaneous insights may result from this potentiation, or — of interest to the present research — the illumination of delusory thinking. The preconceived validity of an ideological worldview can suddenly collapse in this state, causing the subject to reevaluate what is ‘normal’. Self-protective (yet maladaptive) narratives are vulnerable to undermining at this level, yielding another potential form of psychedelic therapy. Great care must be taken with this technique to avoid shocks resulting from a suddenly-altered foundational reality; without relevant schemata in place, processing relatively unfiltered experiences can become overwhelming.

At high doses, experience of self-separation is progressively suppressed, culminating with ‘ego death’ at the extreme. In this remarkable state, subjectivity dissolves into an undifferentiated field of existence. Immersed in a sea of pure experience, the spatio-temporal interconnectivity of all things becomes tangible. The hyperobject is quite intuitive at this level, as networks of relationality expand to encompass all things everywhere forever. Experience of divinity commonly coincides with this phenomenon, giving rise to encounters with deific presences or a pervasive world-spirit. Psychedelic drugs are considered to have entheogenic properties, referring to their capacity to precipitate profound experiences of a spiritual nature. Terrance McKenna’s ‘stoned ape’ hypothesis suggests psychedelic drugs lay at the roots of most spiritual traditions — entheogenesis drawing awareness to intrinsic interpsychic functions of the human brain. It is conceivable this property is partially responsible for ontic shifts that make inter-group cooperation feasible. The commonality of these unity experiences may have formed the basis for a shared understanding of reality, priming our ancestors for sedentary habitation and, eventually, civilization.

Crucially, the psychedelic phenomenon is reciprocally affected by psychological priming; the aforementioned insights and shifts in perspective are influenced by existing worldviews and context of the experience. In this way, psychedelic drugs can be considered a cognitive-ontological prosthetic, aiding the user in experiencing reality with reduced filtering, and conceptualization of meta-objective notions (eg: hyperobjects). Although acute effects of the drug fade within hours, the attendant shift in worldview (and its ethical consequences) is often permanent. Recent research has observed increased nature-relatedness and reduced authoritarian beliefs after clinical psilocybin experiences (Lyons and Carhart-Harris 2018). In the context of this analysis, the psychedelic experience is a means to experientially demonstrate the post-capitalist mindset — to make manifest the interconnected and holistic nature of existence, providing evidence for moral claims of cooperation, non-anthropocentrism, and non-hierarchism. Given the challenges of building cohesive popular support for substantive social change, such an implement — effectively deployed — could become the seed of an idea. In concert with an accessible cultural scaffold, the widespread experience of psychedelic drugs may represent a needed nudge out of inertial slumber.

The condition of these highly turbulent and perilous times requires massive, coordinated action in short order. The challenges of a warming world, decaying democracy, and increasing inequality cannot be met with status quo politics, but a new world cannot rise from a status quo mindset. The pervasiveness of a fragmented and ideologically-driven worldview impairs progressive social movements, driving further divisions between self and other, human and nature, material and spirit. Spreading awareness of universal interconnectivity and its implied ontology by experiential intervention may serve to overcome this barrier, forming the basis of a shared, common reality. The psychedelic experience may be instrumental in this endeavour, facilitating the necessary change of mind. In this work, I have broadly outlined the nature and potential implementation of post-capitalist ontology; much is left to be done.

References

Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bostrom, Nick. 2016. Superintelligence. Oxford University Press.

Fisher, Mark. 2010. Capitalist Realism. Winchester, UK: Zero Books.

Lyons, Taylor, and Robin L Carhart-Harris. 2018. “Increased Nature Relatedness And Decreased Authoritarian Political Views After Psilocybin For Treatment-Resistant Depression”. Journal Of Psychopharmacology 32 (7): 811–819. doi:10.1177/0269881117748902.

Macpherson, C. B. 1967. The Political Theory Of Possessive Individualism, Hobbes To Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morton, Timothy. 2013. Hyperobjects. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.