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Drug addicts, especially young ones, are conformists…

“Drug addicts, especially young ones, are conformists flocking together in sticky groups, and I do not write for groups, nor approve of group therapy (the big scene in the Freudian farce); as I have said often enough, I write for myself in multiplicate, a not unfamiliar phenomenon on the horizon of…” quote by Vladimir Nabokov
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““Drug addicts, especially young ones, are conformists flocking together in sticky groups, and I do not write for groups, nor approve of group therapy (the big scene in the Freudian farce); as I have said often enough, I write for myself in multiplicate, a not unfamiliar phenomenon on the horizon of shimmering deserts. Young dunces who turn to drugs cannot read “Lolita,” or any of my books, some in fact cannot read at all. Let me also observe that the term “square” already dates as a slang word, for nothing dates quicker than conservative youth, nor is there anything more philistine, more bourgeois, more ovine than this business of drug duncery. Half a century ago, a similar fashion among the smart set of St. Petersburg was cocaine sniffing combined with phony orientalities. The better and brighter minds of my young American readers are far removed from those juvenile fads and faddists. I also used to know in the past a Communist agent who got so involved in trying to wreck anti-Bolshevist groups by distributing drugs among them that he became an addict himself and lapsed into a dreamy state of commendable metempsychic sloth. He must be grazing today on some grassy slope in Tibet if he has not yet lined the coat of his fortunate shepherd.””

Vladimir Nabokov

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

The author condemns drug‑using youth as conformist, criticizes group therapy, and laments cultural decay, comparing past aristocratic vices to modern trends.

In simple terms: Criticizes drug‑using youth and cultural decline.

Key Takeaway

Beware conformity and escapism.

Themes

culture conformity addiction art history

Mood

cynical intellectual

Type

critical satirical

When to use this quote

  • youth counseling
  • drug prevention
  • literary analysis
  • historical comparison

Key Concepts

subculture psychoanalysis social critique

Questions to Reflect On

  • What drives youth toward conformity?
  • How can art address addiction without moralizing?
A Different Perspective

May overgeneralize and stigmatize addicts.

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