Page:Drug Themes in Science Fiction (Research Issues 9).djvu/13

 In preparing this study of drug themes in science fiction, I have employed the following categorical designations:

Two distinct attitudes toward the use of mind-related drugs have manifested themselves in science fiction. One is cautionary: that any extraordinary indulgence in extraordinary drugs is likely to rot the moral fiber of the user, leading to lassitude and general decay of the individual or of society, and ultimately, perhaps, aiding the establishment of a totalitarian order. The other is visionary and utopian: that through the employment of drugs mankind can attain spiritual or psychological powers not ordinarily available, and by so doing can enter into a new and higher phase of existence.

This latter attitude has become far more widespread since 1965, when middle-class use of hallucinogenic and euphoric drugs in western industrial civilization first began to take on the aspect of a major cultural shift. The cultural assumption of science fiction as a whole can clearly be seen to follow, rather than to lead, public opinion: most science fiction published in the twentieth century has been