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If your first thought is what you're conditioned to think, maybe you can't access your "defining" thoughts when you're drunk. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by Okokimup@lemmy.world to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
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I was reading about Mel Gibson's anti-semitic rants, and his apology about being drunk* when I remembered this meme. I agree with the meme, that our brains tend to feed us what we've heard from our environment, but our conscious mind overrides that with our processed thoughts.

People use "he didn't mean it, he was drunk/high" as an excuse for racist/misogynist/whateverist comments. The response is typically "you don't become racist when drunk, you just drop your inhibitions and reveal who you are."

But if you agree with the First Thought meme, what if being impaired isn't revealing what you really think, but is preventing you from thinking at all, and just getting stuck on your conditioned response?

*Gibson is just an example. This post is not about litigating whether he personally is racist, but about this sort of behavior in general.

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[-] yesman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I don't see the contradiction between the meme and drunk behavior. What it's saying is that you're not responsible for what you think, only how you behave. Mel Gibson is not guilty for having antisemitic thoughts, but he is responsible for expressing them.

There is the issue that only sober people decide to get drunk, the same sober person who reflects on previous drunken behavior. I guess what I'm saying is that getting drunk and impregnating one of your daughters is awful, but no where near as bad as getting drunk and impregnating the other one the next evening.

[-] Okokimup@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Mel Gibson is not guilty for having antisemitic thoughts, but he is responsible for expressing them.

Yes, this is where I'm at. I . . . don't know what to make of your second paragraph.

[-] Outwit1294@lemmy.today 1 points 1 week ago

But science says the exact opposite is true. A drunk person has lower inhibitions so they express what they think easily. They don’t sugar coat it or try to hide their thoughts. This picture is a feel good thing which might be true in some situations but is generally wrong and is defending bad behaviour.

[-] buffing_lecturer@leminal.space 0 points 1 week ago

I think the point is that we are not what we think, we are not our first thoughts.

How we choose to act despite our initial impressions is what defines us, not the thoughts themselves.

[-] Outwit1294@lemmy.today 1 points 1 week ago

I agree with this. Our actions are more important than our thoughts.

What I am saying is that drunk actions are equal to sober actions. Speaking your thoughts is an action.

[-] Zenith@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

No one is a bad person for their thoughts, thought crimes do not exist. Your behavior is what matters. Idc if you have “horrible” thoughts all day if you don’t act on them or let them influence how you treat others who cares? Humans don’t have control of our thoughts we need to stop worrying about them being “wrong” what you do is what matters

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

As an autist with probably PTSD I can't reinforce your point enough, between the call of the void and my borderline sociopathic tendencies I'd be killed five times over if folks judged me for my thoughts. If you look at my comments history you will see my sanitized thoughts, my unfiltered ones admittedly aren't that much worse on a cause and effect level just more impulsive and descriptive.

[-] forrgott@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

No, altered states of mind don't stop our own thoughts. In fact, I would argue that a conditioned response is more like an inhibition. As in, I believe getting drunk reduces the likelihood you'll use a conditioned response, not increase it.

[-] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

I'll disagree. An altered state of mind is altered, by definition, so it's not like people are in their perfect mind. I'm not saying that they should in any way be excused of consequences for their actions, just that an altered state doesn't fully represent who they normally are.

As for conditioned responses, they are learned, yes, but they become an automatic neural response to a stimulus.

We can become aware of these responses, and actively work to inhibit it, but it's an active effort to suppress the ingrained behaviour and when impaired, this suppression would fail.

[-] forrgott@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

I don't know. If you choose the altered state of mind, you ought to be able to accept responsibility for what that entails.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”

[-] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The ancient Roman/Latin phrase for what OP describes is:

~~En~~ In vino veritas.

In wine, there is truth.

(thanks to antonim for the correction)

The phrase goes back even further to the Ancient Greeks, the exact same meaning in Greek ( en oino, aletheia ), but the Roman/Latin phrase is more well known.

People have known for literal multiple thousands of years that... people do not say stupid shit because they are drunk, the alcohol made them do it... people say stupid shit when they are drunk because they have these stupid thoughts and beliefs all the time, but are normally smart enough to not say them out loud.

[-] Okokimup@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The book I'm reading (Incognito by David Eagleman) mentioned exactly that.

Robinson and Yarvitz, like many others, suspected that the alcohol had loosened Gibson’s inhibitions and revealed his true self. And the nature of their suspicion has a long history: the Greek poet Alcaeus of Mytilene coined a popular phrase En oino álétheia (In wine there is the truth), which was repeated by the Roman Pliny the Elder as In vino veritas. The Babylonian Talmud contains a passage in the same spirit: “In came wine, out went a secret.” It later advises, “In three things is a man revealed: in his wine goblet, in his purse, and in his wrath.” The Roman historian Tacitus claimed that the Germanic peoples always drank alcohol while holding councils to prevent anyone from lying.

But there are many things that people have "known" for years that turned out to be untrue as our ability to understand the physical world increased. Now we're finding that our unconscious mind accounts for more of what we think than our conscious mind can control.

this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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