The Eaton T. Fores Research Center:
Our Mission 

 

There are real problems associated with testing a rat for
empathy or changes in self-image.

                                                            A. T. Shulgin

There is a topic where a large number of seemingly unrelated subjects converge.  That topic is consciousness, the inward aspect of reality: what it is, how it comes to exist at all, its ability to create meaning and expression as art, music, and language; its cultivation and expansion; its control by pharmacological and other means.  Here, interests as seemingly unrelated as art, neuroscience, drugs, philosophy, music, spirituality and mysticism, chemistry, and psychology converge.  As contemporary science presses the objective view to its brutal limit, we are committed to remembering that some things cannot be best understood from a maximally objective viewpoint.  The Eaton T. Fores Research Center investigates the subjective side of reality — real experiences with peoples' own consciousnesses, their alteration by various means, the expression of consciousness in the aesthetic and intellectual activities that are human culture — and whatever light can be shed on subjectivity through  the objective methodologies of neurophysiology, pharmacology, chemistry, and biochemistry.  We hope those whose visit etfrc.com will want to contribute their own thoughts, opinions, ideas and experiences.   It is our intention to foster and encourage interest and self-education in these areas, to research selected topics, and to support others in this work.

Of the far-reaching collection of fields and disciplines that deal directly or indirectly with awareness and subjectivity, psychopharmacology occupies a special place.  This is so because psychoactive chemicals by definition operate precisely at the place where consciousness meets its physical substrate.  But we feel that it is crucial to emphasize what psychopharmacology is and is not.  Today, 'psychopharmacology' generally refers to behavioral pharmacology, whose goal is not individual actualization, but the production of "well-adjusted behavior."  But the Greek psyche does not mean "behavior," and our goal ought not to be to adjust ourselves to an increasingly frantic, violent, and inhuman world.  The Eaton T. Fores Research Center is committed to insisting that behavior is not experience, and experience is not behavior.  Contemporary scientific and philosophical attempts to reduce experience to behavior, and thus to do away with the fact of consciousness — which offends and embarrasses the ontology of physicalist scientism — are not simply false, but also morally reprehensible.  The denial of the reality of consciousness is, to put it starkly, evil.  It is the denial of the reality of persons as subjects, and an argument for treating them as objects.  Consciousness is political.  Efforts at purging the world of human warmth must be answered.

Being a person in a world that denies subjectivity is difficult and painful.  Work is often unrewarding, creativity and reflective thought are held to have no value at all, most human interaction is insincere and/or manipulative, while 'experts' tell us that our sense that something is dramatically wrong with life in the modern world reflects nothing more than a chemical imbalance in our brains, which can be fixed with the pharmaceutical industry's latest poisons.  Communities are virtually non-existent, as every town in America begins to collapse into indistinguishable strips of McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, and Home Depot.  People with dulled eyes and empty hearts plod through the day in a robot-like trance.  There are no roses to stop and smell, only credit-card debt to be paid to monstrous simulacra of human beings high up in towers of glass, steel, and concrete, with perfect haircuts and expensive suits, whose massive fortunes have been acquired at the expense of the souls of ordinary people.  In such a world, corporations, for whom we are interchangeable commodities — literally, 'human resources' — and money is the only actual value, seek to entirely extinguish the human spirit.  Meaning itself expires under the unflinching stare of such ordinary, everyday evil.

It may be too late to do anything about it, but it is incumbent on all who see what is happening ... that the world has less and less room for gentleness, genuine friendship, and simple affection ... to speak up ... to try to rouse those around them, while a trace of meaning still remains in human life.  The ETFRC supports and produces cultural criticism, and political and spiritual commentary — especially regarding the sickness produced by modern life's treatment of persons as objects to be used, rather than the subjects  — ends in themselves, and not means to someone else's ends — that they truly are.

Finally, we are interested in community-building: not virtual communities, but real, tangibles places for like-minded people to face life together.  We are convinced that such a community would be vastly less expensive to operate than conventional households are, and would nurture basic human needs for creativity, learning, happiness, expression, and simple affection than the synthetic "neighborhoods" that so many of us live in today do.  We're especially interested in connecting with others who have a similar vision.  Under the heavy bulldozer of corporatism, the world is becoming an increasingly cold, dark, and mean place to live.  Togetherness with others of similar views can make getting through the years ahead less difficult, and perhaps even joyous.

If you'd like to make some remarks, feel free to email us at comments@etfrc.com.  We'd always love to hear from you.  If you'd like us to consider something you've written, created, or experienced for publication on the site, we will.  Simply send whatever  you'd like us to look over to submissions@etfrc.com. 

Thanks for visiting the ETFRC, and we hope you enjoy yourself.

 

   

Another important experiment in progress at the ETFRC.

 

Participation, ideas, and correspondence from readers, as mentioned above, are always welcome.  This site looks best if all of the Microsoft Office fonts are installed.  The site makes use of graphics and media arbitrarily — no effort is made to make the site fast, or the downloads small.  If everyone doesn't have broadband yet, they will soon.  If anyone wants to take us to task for such a callous attitude toward the modem-bound, please let us know.

Now, continue to the Central Hub if you'd like ...