Lecture 3- Heroine and Existentialism

This lecture was all about heroine and what it does with the body and the mind. Chris expained that basically heroine stops the pain neurone in the body, which means you go completely numb. The past and future no longer exist, the person using the heroine lives for the now. This is much like Camus ideal philosophy, he believes that a perfect world would have neither past nor future. So taking heroine in a way, well to Camus, is the perfect thing to do. When coming off heroine this is especially painful to the person because their pain and pleasure neurones slowly return making them be able to feel something again, their past bringing them guilt and their future bringing them fear, this is the reason why most people would become addicted to this drug.

Chris explained this to us by showing us a picture of Edie Sedgwick the actress who posed for Andy Warhol's 'sreen tests', his pictures were iconic. He was a major influence to 60's culture especially with the face of models, and fashion. His models were bony woman, with pale skin and dark circles, as if they were on heroine thus the name 'Heroine Chic'. At this time heroine had began to lower in price however the potentsy level of the product was rising which meant that more middle upper class people were taking the drug, perhaps to gain the same look as Andy Marhols 'Heroine Chic' models.

Chris told us about what philosophical idealism thought the existence was made up of, he said they believed the existence was made up of three things. The first, Things in Themselves this meant the things that are alove but are just there, they decay and change but nothing else. The second, Things for Themselves, this means people (white educated men) who were determined and self believing could do something about their existence e.g suicide. The third, things for others, these are the people who live for other people (wives, slaves), existentialists believe these people live in bad faith they live through someone else.


Chris also taught us about post-war exitentialism movement, this was to gain freedom for people and for culture , art and literature. Existensialists wanted equal rights in a way, they believed in gay rights, freedom of speech, racism banned and disabled rights. The movement also wanted to free the limitations of arts, theatres, and music which pre-war the country was restricted. Existential literature they wanted to show that slavery was wrong, you cannot write about slaves because they don't have freedom to think their own thoughts.