The Persians Had a Brilliant (Maybe) Idea

Picture this: It's 500 BCE in the Persian Empire. Important decision to be made. Do you:

A) Gather your advisors, have a sober, rational discussion

B) Get absolutely hammered and see what ideas emerge

C) Both of the above, in either order

If you answered C, congratulations! You're thinking like an ancient Persian. At least according to Herodotus.

The Greek historian wrote in his "Histories" that Persians had a peculiar custom for making important decisions:

"It is their custom to deliberate about the gravest matters when they are drunk; and what they approve in their deliberations is proposed to them the next day, when they are sober, by the master of the house where they deliberate; and if, being sober, they still approve it, they act on it, but if not, they drop it. And if they have deliberated about a matter when sober, they decide upon it when they are drunk."

Let that sink in. Every major decision got debated twice. Once while drinking, once while sober. An idea had to sound good in both states to be considered actually good.

This is either brilliant or insane, and honestly, I'm not sure which.

The logic? Wine-induced looseness makes you more honest and bold, but also reckless. Sober reflection acts as a filter. Conversely, purely rational decisions might lack vision or passion, so they're re-examined under the uninhibited perspective of intoxication.

It's like having two completely different committees vote on everything: one made of buttoned-up accountants, the other made of poets who've had too much wine. Both have to agree before anything happens.

Now, before you start implementing this at your company, there's a catch: Herodotus is literally the only source for this claim. Herodotus never actually traveled to Persia himself and had a reputation as a liar within a couple of generations after his death. He also claimed fox-sized ants in Persia spread gold dust when digging their mounds, which turned out to be a mistranslation about marmots.

So this whole Persian drunk-sober debate thing might be exaggerated Greek propaganda. Greeks drank their wine diluted with water but Persians drank undiluted wine, and drinking undiluted wine was seen by Greeks as decadent and even barbaric. Herodotus might have been painting Persians as reckless drunks. It should be noted, that Herodotus' accounts are rarely accurate, and much of what he knew was based on hearsay. He himself never visited Persia or witnessed this custom firsthand. 

But you know what? Even if it's partially true, or even if it's complete fiction, the story reveals something fascinating: the ancient world understood that intoxication and sobriety offer different types of insight. And philosophers have been wrestling with that tension ever since.

Plato: It's Complicated (And Maybe There Was Wine at the Orgy)

Let's start with philosophy's original... well, it's complicated.

The standard story about Plato goes like this: He rejected intoxication because it blurs the senses and clouds reason. And that's partially true. For Plato, the danger of intoxication lies in whether that ecstasy serves the ascent of the soul or its descent into chaos.

But here's where it gets interesting: Plato wrote an entire dialogue called the "Symposium"—literally meaning "drinking together"—where a bunch of philosophers get progressively more drunk while giving speeches about love.

And these weren't stuffy academic lectures. A symposium in ancient Greece was a drinking party, often involving wine, philosophy, music, and yes, frequently sex. The word itself comes from "syn" (together) and "posis" (drinking). These were the original wine-and-philosophy nights, and they sometimes got pretty wild.

In the Symposium, Socrates arrives after the guests have already been drinking heavily the night before. They decide to drink moderately this time (hangovers, apparently, were a concern even in 385 BCE), and each person gives a speech praising Eros. As the night progresses, everyone gets progressively more drunk, and by the end, Socrates is the only one still sober and coherent while everyone else has passed out.

So Plato's position isn't "drinking is bad." It's more like "be like Socrates: you can participate in the drinking party, engage with intoxicated ideas, but maintain your reason throughout."

Socrates, as Plato's philosophical hero, models the ideal relationship to such states: openness without slavery, ecstasy without loss of reason. Socrates could drink everyone under the table at a symposium and still philosophize circles around them while remaining sober.

Plato's "Phaedrus" and "Ion" describe forms of divine madness that lead to poetry, prophecy, and love, which are superior to drunkenness yet related to it, as all involve suspension of ordinary consciousness. So Plato wasn't against altered states per se. He just wanted them to elevate you toward the Forms, not drag you down into chaos.

It's very Plato. "Yes, have your wine parties and altered consciousness, but do it philosophically."

The Epicureans: "Actually, This Might Be Useful"

Then came the Epicureans, who looked at Plato's philosophy and said "that's nice, but have you considered that we're all going to die and none of this matters, so maybe just try to minimize pain and maximize pleasure?"

Epicurus gets a bad rap. People hear "Epicurean" and think hedonistic party animal. But Epicurus and his followers ate simple meals, wore simple clothes, and knew that things like drinking and smoking are only pleasurable in the short run but cause pain in the long run, contradicting the main principle of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

But here's where it gets interesting: While the Epicureans didn't advocate getting wasted, they saw actual value in intoxication when approached properly. Not just pleasure, but the attempt to expand the boundaries of the sober mind.

This is a subtle but important shift from Plato. Plato said maintain reason while others get intoxicated. Epicureans said maybe intoxication itself reveals different truths that sober reason can't access, as long as you're not causing yourself long-term pain in the process.

Neither was advocating for alcoholism. Both were trying to figure out: what can altered states of consciousness teach us?

This question would obsess philosophers for the next two thousand years.

When German Philosophy Meets German Beer

Fast forward to 19th century Germany, where two of history's most influential (and opposing) philosophers had one thing in common: they did their best thinking with a drink in hand.

Meet Karl Marx and G.W.F. Hegel.

Hegel created one of the most complex philosophical systems ever devised, full of dialectics and Spirit and absolute knowledge. Marx took that system, flipped it on its head, and created the intellectual foundation for communism.

They couldn't have disagreed more about pretty much everything.

Except drinking. On that, they were aligned.

Marx first demonstrated his drinking talent during his year at the University of Bonn, where as co-president of his tavern club, he often tangled with rival groups, started packing a pistol, and got grazed by a bullet in a duel. His father called it a period of "wild rampaging."

Marx got imprisoned for a day for "disturbing the peace with drunken noise." After transferring to Berlin, he would knock back pints with Bruno Bauer and would sometimes get smashed and ride donkeys down the main streets of villages.

But here's the kicker: In 1844, Marx and Engels bonded for life in what historians referred to as 10 beer-soaked days. These nights of drunken philosophizing resulted in the Communist Manifesto and the book Das Kapital.

That's right. The intellectual foundation for the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and communist regimes worldwide was hammered out during epic drinking sessions.

Marx's drinking buddy and benefactor Friedrich Engels was even worse. Engels fell in with the notorious Doctor's Club of heavy-drinking, hard-philosophizing young Hegelians who smashed up beer cellars, pored over pornography, and debated the errors of Hegelian idealism long into the night.

Engels wrote "If I had an income of 5,000 francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces." This man was a champagne communist in the most literal sense.

The fascinating part? Engels's personal exuberance was an expression of his political ideology: an almost Rabelaisian belief in the capacity of socialism to fulfill human pleasure. He wasn't hypocritical. He genuinely believed the good life included fine wine, good food, and intellectual pleasure, and that socialism should deliver these to everyone.

Meanwhile in London, Marx and Edgar Bauer (the brother of Bruno Bauer) took a drink in every bar between Oxford Street and Hampstead Road, which was quite an ambitious plan given the enormous amount of pubs on the route.

So were Marx and Hegel drunk geniuses or just geniuses who drank? Probably both. But it raises the question: did the alcohol contribute to their philosophy, or just happen alongside it?

Nietzsche: "Not THAT Drug, the OTHER Drug"

Now we get to the walking contradiction himself: Friedrich Nietzsche.

The standard narrative: Nietzsche called alcohol the "European poison" and blamed it for massive cultural damage.

And that's true! But the full story is way more interesting.

Nietzsche didn't hate intoxication. He hated alcohol specifically—and not for moral reasons, but for what it does to culture and consciousness. He saw alcohol as the drug of the masses, the substance that makes people complacent, dull, and mediocre. Alcohol pulls people down into comfortable numbness.

But Nietzsche himself used other drugs. For his chronic, debilitating migraines and various health problems, he took opiates and, yes, cannabis. He wasn't moralizing about drugs in general. He was making a specific cultural critique about which drugs do what to consciousness.

Alcohol? That's the drug that creates what Nietzsche called the "Last Man"—comfortable, risk-averse, mediocre. It's the drug of bourgeois complacency.

But here's the twist: Nietzsche absolutely championed intoxication as a psychological and creative state. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, intoxication, madness, and ecstasy, became absolutely central to his philosophy. By the end of his life, Nietzsche signed letters as "Dionysus" or "the Crucified."

So what gives? How can Nietzsche hate alcohol but love Dionysian intoxication?

For Nietzsche, Dionysian intoxication was not about the substance, but about the state of consciousness. This ecstatic, wild, boundary-breaking experience that shatters social constraints and gives you the feeling of being intensely alive. The Dionysian spirit, in creative tension with the Apollonian spirit of order and reason, drives art, philosophy, and human greatness.

Nietzsche saw a massive difference between:

• Alcohol intoxication: Dulling, complacent, makes you accept mediocrity, creates the Last Man
• Dionysian intoxication: Ecstatic, creative, boundary-breaking, creates new values and art

It's not about the chemical. It's about what the experience does to your consciousness and your relationship to life.

When Nietzsche took cannabis and opiates for his migraines, he was not seeking Dionysian ecstasy, but trying to remain functional despite chronic pain. But he recognized that certain altered states, properly understood, could serve creative and philosophical purposes that alcohol typically destroyed.

So Nietzsche's actual position: Alcohol as it's commonly used? Cultural poison that creates comfortable mediocrity. Other substances that genuinely alter consciousness without creating complacency? Potentially valuable. Dionysian psychological states regardless of substance? Absolutely essential for creativity and vitality.

It's very Nietzsche. "No, not that intoxication, not used that way, not for those purposes. God, do I have to explain everything?"

The 20th Century: When Philosophers Started Taking Notes

By the 20th century, philosophers stopped just drinking and started documenting their experiences scientifically. Or at least, as scientifically as you can document taking drugs and writing about it.

Charles Baudelaire saw intoxication as escape from monotony and a source of creative inspiration. He argued intoxication could bring pleasure, excitement, beauty, and joy into life, leading to new ways of thinking and creativity. It could explore the unconscious and help people reach higher spirituality.

Basically, Baudelaire said: life is boring, drugs make it interesting, let's write poetry about it.

Walter Benjamin had similar ideas but with more caution. Like Baudelaire, he believed intoxication could open new ways of thinking and creativity. But unlike Baudelaire, Benjamin argued that intoxication could be dangerous and should be approached with caution, as it could lead to escapism and self-destructive behavior if not properly controlled.

Benjamin's self-experiment with hashish in 1927 explored how it altered his perception of time and space and affected the creative process. He described the experience as "profoundly illuminating" and found the drug allowed him to perceive time in an entirely new way and reach a level of creativity he'd never experienced before.

Benjamin was basically doing citizen science with his own consciousness. Take hashish, write detailed notes, publish essay. Modern pharmacology, but make it philosophy.

Aldous Huxley took this even further. Huxley was a proponent of using psychedelic drugs to explore the depths of the unconscious, arguing they could lead to heightened creativity, insight, self-awareness, and greater understanding of spiritual aspects of life.

But Huxley was careful: while advocating for such drugs, he cautioned they should be used responsibly in a controlled environment as part of a spiritual journey, rather than as anesthesia or escape from reality.

Huxley wrote "The Doors of Perception" about his mescaline experiences, basically arguing that psychedelics opened doors of perception usually closed by our biological need to function in everyday life.

These guys weren't recreational users. They were treating altered consciousness as a philosophical laboratory.

So What's the Verdict?

After thousands of years of philosophical drunk-posting, what have we learned?

The Persian Insight (Maybe): Different states of consciousness reveal different truths. Sober reason and intoxicated intuition both have value, and maybe the best decisions require both.

The Plato Position: Participate in the drinking party, but keep your reason intact. Altered states are fine if they elevate you toward truth, not drag you into chaos. Be like Socrates and outlast everyone while staying coherent.

The Epicurean Nuance: Pleasure matters, but not all pleasures are equal. Short-term intoxication causes long-term pain. But carefully exploring expanded consciousness without causing harm? That might have value.

The Marx-Engels Method: Sometimes great ideas emerge from drunken conversations. Whether that's because of the alcohol or despite it remains unclear. But the Communist Manifesto definitely happened during a 10-day bender, so make of that what you will.

The Nietzsche Paradox: Alcohol as commonly used? Cultural poison that creates complacent mediocrity. Other drugs and altered states? Potentially valuable depending on what they do to consciousness. Dionysian psychological intoxication regardless of substance? Essential for creativity and vitality.

The 20th Century Experiment: Psychedelics and intoxicants can expand consciousness and creativity, but require caution, control, and treating the experience as genuine inquiry rather than escape.

Here's my take: Every single one of these philosophers understood something important. Consciousness isn't binary. You're not just "thinking clearly" or "impaired." There are different modes of consciousness, each with different strengths and weaknesses.

Sober rationality is great for logic, planning, and avoiding really stupid decisions. But it can be rigid, conventional, and miss creative insights.

Altered states can reveal patterns, connections, and possibilities that sober reason misses. But they can also lead you completely astray, make terrible ideas seem brilliant, and destroy your life if you're not careful.

The question isn't "should we get intoxicated?" The question is: "What can different states of consciousness teach us, and how do we integrate those insights responsibly?"

The Uncomfortable Modern Reality

Here's where it gets tricky for our time.

We live in a world of extreme opinions about intoxication. Either substances are dangerous and should be avoided entirely, or they're tools for expansion and should be celebrated. Either you're sober and boring, or you're experienced and enlightened.

But the philosophical tradition suggests something more nuanced: Intoxication is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It's a tool that can expand consciousness or destroy it, depending on how it's used and what substance we're talking about.

Plato was right that losing reason to intoxication is dangerous. The Epicureans were right that some altered states can expand mental boundaries. Nietzsche was right that cultural numbing through alcohol is different from creative ecstasy. The 20th century experimenters were right that these experiences require serious respect and caution.

And maybe, just maybe, those ancient Persians were onto something. Maybe the best approach to difficult questions is to think about them in multiple states of consciousness and see which insights survive the translation between states.

Or maybe that's just the modern equivalent of "write drunk, edit sober" (which wasn't actually Hemingway, by the way—it was humorist Peter De Vries).

Either way, I'm finishing this with coffee, not wine. Some traditions are worth breaking.

If you want to explore this topic in literature, I can recommend the book “John Barleycorn” by Jack London.