How High

If we can agree that spirituality is intimate, and that intimacy is personal, whose to argue the means by which someone else taps into their own spiritual sense? The ad attached below illustrates this question by placing two joints in the shape of a cross and including a line that reads “does is matter how you achieve your spiritual high?” I like this ad for a couple reasons. First and foremost, it’s bold. I like that the people behind WonderCafe.ca, the website originally responsible for posting the image, weren’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers with this one, and while I don’t think the purpose of this ad was to offend anyone, I believe it effectively entices the willing viewer to further investigate their site. It does more than this though. In addition to drawing people in, this ad makes you think, it evokes emotion and provides a forum for rational debate. Sure, it’s probable that someone somewhere was offended by this and that some people may even argue it’s morally wrong to illustrate a cross of weed, but, at the end of the day, isn’t that kind of the point? This ad challenges traditional forms of rhetoric by proposing a unique twist. Instead of jamming a one-sided message down the viewer’s throat, this particular ad places more value on the viewer’s expected response to the ad than the ad itself. All the ad does is beg a question, and because of this, it forces the viewer to get involved. It, in my opinion, successfully asks the viewer to establish an argument, a stance, a rhetorical claim if you will. And so, does it really matter how you achieve your spiritual high? It’s a loaded question and unfortunately, I think it’s a question generally answered too quickly. If you put two random people in a room, showed them this ad, and asked them to answer the question it asks, I believe they’d have their answer ready in less than a minute. What they say is irrelevant, that’s not the point I’m trying to make, instead, I’m trying to shed some light on a problem I feel too many people are effected by: blind allegiance to a stance they may not quite understand. Spirituality is complicated people! Religion is beautiful and it’s a mess and it happens all at the same time. You can’t think your way through life in terms of black and white or right and wrong, life’s just not that simple. So before you go and call this ad disrespectful or blasphemous, you might want to consider the idiocracy in sticking a label of something without taking the time to think first. If drugs are wrong and doing wrong is sinful, how do you explain the hundreds of religions who’ve incorporated cannabis into their practices? This ad makes you think, and because of that, whether you like it or hate it, it’s rhetorically successful.