Well, but Leary also turned into a convenient scapegoat a long time ago, and I'm not sure how fair that is. It was a wild time. He didn't create that.
Pollan's book comes at the fulcrum of the movement where a lot of people have been carefully, and strategically, working on rehabilitating psychedelics without spooking the state again. Leary as scapegoat fits into that perfectly. Maybe too perfectly?
Leary was brilliant and complex, more interesting than the caricatures, which he admittedly drew a lot of himself. And I would say tragic. I felt from the documentary that prison broke him. His daughter killed herself (also in jail) and his son publicly denounced him and refused to speak to him. The film didn't mention those things.
Pollan's book comes at the fulcrum of the movement where a lot of people have been carefully, and strategically, working on rehabilitating psychedelics without spooking the state again. Leary as scapegoat fits into that perfectly. Maybe too perfectly?
Leary was brilliant and complex, more interesting than the caricatures, which he admittedly drew a lot of himself. And I would say tragic. I felt from the documentary that prison broke him. His daughter killed herself (also in jail) and his son publicly denounced him and refused to speak to him. The film didn't mention those things.