Prologue

Chapter from “Culture Is Not Your Friend: Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness”.

Disclaimer: Caveat lector – Reader Beware.
No liability is assumed for losses or damages due to the information provided in this book. You are responsible for your own choices, thoughts, feelings, actions and results.  

This book is dedicated to the outcasts, 
the queer, the transgender, the prostitutes,
the rebels, the madmen, the addicts,
to those ill treated by our culture,
and to those that seek to either reform it or escape it.
Namaste. 

This is the first in a series of 5 books on culture. The others which will soon follow are:

2. Divide And Conquer
3. The Familiar Bullshit
4. The Battle Of The Narratives
5. Antivirus

What Is The Idea Behind This Series?

The idea behind the series is to provide an overview of (mostly Western) culture, its absurdities and contradictions. The title of the series, “Culture Is Not Your Friend” comes from Terence McKenna. If you are familiar with his work, you will no doubt see his influence throughout the series.

“Culture is not your friend, it’s an impediment to understanding what’s going on. That’s why the words cult and culture have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation, and automatic, unquestioned and unthinking behaviour.” 

– Terence McKenna

Why Am I Writing This?

Maybe you suspect, like Marcellus did in Hamlet that, 
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, 
but you have no idea what, or if it can be fixed. If so, you are not alone.

If you are searching for answers and solutions, we are on the same path. We may come to wildly different conclusions, both about what the problem consists of (what is truly rotten) and how to fix it, but the impulse is the same. The need to reform what is clearly not working.

For the most part, my task here is to define the problem, to point out the errors in our culture and not to offer a way to fix them. Where I do propose solutions, they may be so simple and straight forward that you will have a hard time believing that they could work.

Faced with the mammoth task of moving a mountain to allow the free movement of people and goods, the one who suggests a tunnel will be viewed as an idiot. 
“Everybody knows that the mountain must go!”
Except you, obviously. But the best solutions are quite often the simple ones.

“The problem is not to find the answer, it’s to face the answer.” 

– Terence McKenna

Who Is Writing This?

I am the radio, not the songs being played.

This radio is at present tuned into the Culture Channel, where a slew of confusing and contradictory messages are coming through.

The books I write are the crackling noise the radio makes – a commentary on the songs being played, not the songs themselves.

The songs were written long before I even existed. I grew up listening to them, having them play out through me. The songs of our culture that sing,

“Drugs are bad for you, but take your medicine”, 
“You have freedom of speech, but shut up”, 
“Look sexy, but don’t have sex”, 
“You have freedom of thought, but you’re a raving loon so we’re gonna haul you away now”,

and all the other catchy tunes that we cannot get out of our heads.

This book, and all the others in the series are a recording of the noise coming through this radio. There are many other models out there which may be tuned differently. Your model may be tuned differently.

Don’t allow anyone to drown out your noise with theirs. Myself included. Know that everything is subject to interpretation.

Caveat lector – let the reader beware.

© Merlyn Gabriel Miller