ADDICTION AND EXPLOITATION

I see no odd coincidence in the merging of today's consumer culture with addiction. Alcohol consumption, drug addiction and compulsive shopping are linked. They are all symptoms of personal emptiness. And, they are easily exploited by capitalists, who often fall prey to their own devices. The slick techie in a BMW pushes a dollar at the junkie who begs at a stop light perhaps more out of identification than compassion. 

Yes. There seems to be scientific evidence that addiction can have its source in genetic predisposition. Yes. It stands to reason that addicts, who are not educated and mindful, will reproduce at an alarming rate under the influence. So, I could suggest that the increase in addiction in our society is related to simple demographic changes. Perhaps that is true: More addicted people having more babies than sensible sober people. I don't believe this to be the only cause of increased addiction. 

I do not subscribe to a commonly held attitude that addicts are victims of their genetic predispositions to become addicts. Predisposition does not imply helplessness. The many testaments by recovering addicts and staunchly sober children of addicts, documented clearly for a century now in media and scientific research, abolish the "I have a disease!" excuse too readily accepted by the codependent. Intentional behavior is not caused by disease, especially in someone who recognizes they have one. The obese diabetic who sucks down sugary drinks all day is not a victim. Mentally ill? Perhaps. Self-destructive? Perhaps. A victim? Of whom? 

But the helpless victim ideology is popularized by those who profit from it. In general, addiction is good for business. And big business now rules our Western cultures ruthlessly. It controls our media. It controls our educational systems. It controls our health care systems. It controls our immigration systems. It controls our military institutions. It controls our food and water. 

I laugh at the misguided iPhone enthusiast who violently decries "fascism" at an Antifa protest. Would she throw her phone into the flames? Unlikely. These revolutionaries resemble those who would shirk at using their vodka to make Molotov cocktails in earlier times. Gasoline was preferred for obvious reasons. The vodka drinkers became ready pawns for those who sold them totalitarian rule as long as their booze flowed cheaply. So too, the iPhone addicts have succumbed to Wall Street and big banks, while venting their rage on outspoken critics of the system they themselves represent.

Information technology has joined alcohol, marijuana and heroin as a drug of choice. Google-sourced traffic jams, death by texting, Facebook group bullying. These are some of the outcomes of consumer addiction to I.T.. Sacrificing personal toil to outer control is easy when the outer control is packaged in the right way. Once gained, the bounds of that mass control are as yet unknown. Can a smart phone send the pacifist to war?  Can the smart phone convince an overpopulated city to voluntarily starve itself? Can it convince the public that toxic foods are healthy? Why not? Television, a far less addictive medium, has succeeded at these things for decades.

Now that books and independent newspapers have been replaced by mesmerizing screens, weightless and portable access to billions of impressionable brains is here. Who will eventually be punching the code which controls those screens? Will human beings decide to shut off and put away those screens before they are implanted into their brains in the name of easy access to information? The current successful exploitation of addiction in the masses from bars to breweries to pot dispensaries tells me that human beings are on their way to the ultimate totalitarian future, necessitated by overpopulation and destroyed human ecosystems.