If you put a rat in a cage, with two water bottles, one full of regular water, and the other water laced with heroin or morphine. The rat will choose the drugged water, and drink until it kills itself.

Vices under Capitalism

Like most all of us who live under capitalism, I have my vices. I use drugs, I smoke, I drink, and I generally seek whatever pleasure I can get my hands on. But before you judge me, ask yourself, are you really any different? Yes, the drugs that I used to get through the day are probably a little bit harder than those two cups of coffee you drink to get through work, or that beer you have to wind down. I admit, the two things are not completely equivalent, but still, ask yourself, could you stop? Could you cut out the coffee, soda, smokes, booze? I’d wager a pretty penny that the answer to that question is, frankly, no. Our world, the world we have created, all but requires us to lean on some sort of chemical assistance. Whether it’s a cup of joe to get up or a shot of heroin to get off, most of us are addicts. And all addicts are victims of the never-ending onslaught of late stage capitalism.

I’ve recently(about a month ago) decided to get sober, get clean. I realized that I had gone out of control, that if I didn’t act, and act quickly, I would soon find myself in a body bag. So, against every instinct and fiber of my body, I stopped using. [side note: I should mention that this was far from my first attempt at getting sober, but(so far) it has been my most successful]. The first few days were rough- pain, anxiety, depression- the works. But after that, something else came up, something much worse. I realized, that no matter what I did, no matter where I was, I was never not bored. Nothing, not even my favorite song or food, could spark that feeling of fulfillment or pleasure. It’s like everything was turned down 5 notches. So grey, and dull, and uneventful. I tried to work, but I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t find it within myself to pick up a pen or start clacking away at my keyboard. I was dead- figuratively speaking.

I knew that this was simply a symptom of withdrawal (anhedonia is the medical name for it) and that it would fade with time, and it did, slightly. But now, a month (which has felt like a year) later, I’m not sure. Which got me thinking, what if this is just how things are? What if the world we have created is meant to be this way? Unsatisfying, unexciting, and unfulfilling. What if we, addicts, are simply responding to our external stimulus (or lack-thereof) through self-medication? If our world wasn’t so bleak would any of us reach for the bottle? Are we all, simply, products of our environment?

If efforts to put my pen to the page again, I decided to explore this idea through a series of articles I will be writing throughout the year focused directly on capitalisms role in causing, proliferating, and even profiting from, the addictive habits of those living under it. Because maybe, by discussing the role that our culture plays in harboring addiction, we can begin to understand the scope of our problems- and hopefully, work to fix them.

Alienation in the 21st Century

If the late 20th and early 21st century could be summarized in a single word, that word would be alienation. With the rise of the internet and social media we are more connected than ever, but that connection is superficial and without depth. Many of the people we have supposed connections with are merely facades they have constructed to project the ideal self they wish to imitate. On social media, many of us are perfect. We have perfect lives with perfect friends and perfect families. We do exciting and cool things and live our lives to the absolute fullest every day. This is obviously, not the case. Nobody is perfect, nobody is happy all the time, we all suffer. But if you are a person who is currently suffering, and all you see are happy people living the life you wish you could, it is alienating. You may even be aware that behind that veneer exists someone just as broken and unfulfilled as you, but that doesn’t really matter. As humans we have a tendency to view other people as one-dimensional beings, as lacking any and all depth. And it can be hard to try and look past that, it can be hard to accept that they are just as complex as you. We projected our own fears and worries on to them, and any deviation from that constructed impression is a threat to our own individuality.

But is that not the cause of all our problems? Is the obsession with the individual not what has plunged us into this wretched world of hyper consumerism and commodificative oppression? Because if we construct a world that allows for and encourages individual triumph and gross excess, than we must accept that we have too constructed a world that allows for and encourages individual suffering. It is a zero-sum game.

Our idea of success is excess. Our idea of success is fancy cars, nice clothes, brand new phones, whatever it may be. Success is defined by the accumulation of commodities, and in turn does that not mean that success itself, has become a commodity?

In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord writes social life in modern society can be understood as “the decline of being into having and having into merely appearing.” Debord wrote that in 1967.

In a world devoid of authenticity and of genuine connection. In a world in which the goal is to build up enough wealth to consume until you die. In a world that fetishizes image, or the illusion of it. In a world that is designed to be for the most part soul crushing to the vast majority of people all so a small few can live lives of gross indulgence and greed. In a world where purchasing and collecting useless commodities is the only temporary and fleeting escape many have from the soul crushing monotony of life inside it. In that world, is there such a thing as freedom? Or is it not merely a cage- inside of it a bottle of heroin, the only escape, the only source of relief, from the knowledge that you are trapped inside of a cage. With no escape in sight.

Addiction, in all of its forms, is not a desire to feel great or get high. It’s a desire for relief. A desire to feel, if only for a bit, okay. We ask ourselves why it is that so many people are addicted to things like drugs, or alcohol, or even video games, and we’ve tricked ourselves into believing that the vice itself is the culprit. But that’s not the case. It’s not the heroin laced water that is the problem, it’s the cage. When you alienate and isolate people to the point of them seeing no other source of fulfillment than heroin, you shouldn’t be surprised when they drink themselves to death.

Rat Park

The observation, of the rat in the cage, was made in 1978 by psychologist Bruce K. Alexander. Alexander, seeing the compulsive behavior of the rat in the cage, decided to build what he lovingly called Rat Park. Inside Rat Park were wheels to run on, cheese to eat, and most importantly, other mice. In Rat Park he once again put one bottle of water, and one of water and morphine. What Alexander observed was that almost none of the mice would ever take to the water laced with morphine. And none of them ever drank until death. Even the mice that had been in the previous experiment, the mice that had been locked up in the cage with the morphine, even they did not indulge in it, nor did they experience any noticeable withdrawal. They were all just, happy. Whatever happiness means to a rat.

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