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Anderson's Lesson: Why the Title Is Right
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Anderson's Lesson: Why the Title Is Right
“In Andersen's tale, the emperor's nakedness is visible to everyone. The soc…”culturephilosophy
“In Andersen's tale, the emperor's nakedness is visible to everyone. The social pressure not to say so is what keeps the fiction functioning.”
Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale is about the social mechanics of false consensus. Two swindlers sell the emperor clothes invisible to those who are incompetent or stupid. The emperor, unwilling to appear incompetent, admires the clothes he cannot see. His court follows. Only a child says what everyone can see: the emperor is wearing nothing.
Herer's title borrows this structure precisely. The emperor, cannabis prohibition, is wearing no clothes. The scientific evidence for the scheduling was fabricated or absent. The congressional hearings that produced it lasted two hours. The medical evidence supported the opposite conclusion from the one enacted.
The child who says what everyone can see is effective precisely because children have not yet learned the social pressure not to say obvious things. Herer cast himself in this role: the person who will say the thing that everyone with power has tacitly agreed not to say.
The analogy holds well. The emperor's nakedness, the absence of evidence for cannabis's Schedule I status, was visible to anyone who looked at the primary documents. Herer looked. He said what he saw. He printed it and sold it in head shops for thirty years.
The emperor is now partially clothed again, by rescheduling proceedings and medical cannabis markets. The clothes are still not what was claimed.
Sources
- Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1985)
- Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes (1837)
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- The sources for this item on RN Collins Selected Work
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- Publication rules and the correction form
Reading list for this book
- Reading list: The Emperor Wears No Clothes Reading list
NotebookLM packs on this book
- What the Record Actually Shows NotebookLM source pack
Bridge pieces that use this book
Science annotations on this book
- Psilocybin, by increasing visual acuity at low doses, provided adaptive advantages to early hominids that... Science annotation
Then vs. Now comparisons on this book
- Hemp's Industrial Potential: The Herer Claim Then vs. Now comparison
- The DuPont-Hearst Conspiracy: Evidence Assessed Then vs. Now comparison
- Cannabis Rescheduling: 2024-2026 Status Then vs. Now comparison
- Hemp Prohibition's End: What Herer Lived to See Then vs. Now comparison
- Cannabis and Racial Justice: Herer's Implicit Promise vs. the Industry Reality Then vs. Now comparison
- The Endocannabinoid System Discovery: Herer Was Right About the Biology Then vs. Now comparison
- The $40 Billion Cannabis Industry: Who Benefits? Then vs. Now comparison
- The Agronomic Claim: Hemp vs. Cotton Then vs. Now comparison
- The Federal Banking Problem: How Prohibition Persists Without Scheduling Then vs. Now comparison
- The Medicinal Cannabis Science: From Historical Claims to Clinical Evidence Then vs. Now comparison
Claims from this book
- Hemp prohibition in 1937 was orchestrated by DuPont and Hearst to eliminate hemp as competition Claim
- Cannabis's Schedule I status has no accepted medical use, the scheduling criterion is met Claim
- Cannabis has no accepted medical use, the Schedule I criterion is met Claim
- The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act was designed primarily to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor Claim
- Industrial hemp can produce as much paper per acre as trees and with superior environmental impact Claim
Other pages in this library that link here
- The Politics of Plants Course module
- The History of Prohibition: Primary Sources and Policy Teaching module