Subculture And Vision

John Lilly wrote that the entire point of the developement of "psych-meds", something he witnessed first hand, was to find and create substances that would have the effects that drugs have on humans, but without putting them "on a trip". To make people feel happy or relax them, or make them feel more energetic, or more relieved, just like users of Speed, Coke, Heroin and all the other drugs - but not make them "really" high, make them have "hallucinations", visions, make them go off into "inner space", find deep and meaningful insights...
This is a very deep concept and it goes to the very foundation of western society. Generally speaking, everything is designed to make you high - but not to get you too far, onto a real trip. This just not happens in the development of "meds" but also is the very base of the subcultural struggle, of the fight of the originators of cultural movements against those that capitalise on them or otherwise take them over and suck them dry.
For example, Punk originally moved you far, made you challenge society, the government, rules, morals... decades later, "Pop-Punk" was devoid of that effect and just put money in the pockets of those major label executives that sold it. The same happened to Rap, to 60s Rock, virtually every music genre... at first, it is something novel, dangerous, challenging, that changed peoples mind and pushed them far... then years later the same genre still has remains of this very first euphoric buzz, but now it's safe, pre-defined, enclosed... not really make you break all the boundaries.
With Techno and Hardcore it must be said that the modern clubber who dances to Techno or Core all night and takes drugs likely will go on a "trip", and hallucinate, and so on, unlike the users of the aforementioned meds... but it won't be a trip that really gets you somewhere, that leads you to the final anwers, that makes you change your life on a profound and euphoric and positive level (it might change your life in various negative ways though)... this trip stays safe and pre-regulated... it's not a trip that really puts you into the far away dangerous zones beyond all limits... a limited, castrated trip.
90s Hardcore still had that power to push people's minds into the forbidden zone, the majority of Core does not have it now... Techno neither... but there is a new generation of producers that took up this mission again and sent you into surreal ecstacy and the feral realm. The fight goes on... so beware of things that have the trace of euphoria, but that in the end don't feed your head.