Wisdom of the ages

 

 

 

 

Societal stressors can drive a rat to substance abuse

 The nexus between poverty and crime/violence

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“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.

Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.” So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water. But here’s what's fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.

Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, sex, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that."

Credit: Johann Hari 

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Societal stressors have triggered a mental health crisis! Incapacity to cope with life stressors is the root cause of substance abuse addiction

"Cost-of-living" crisis.  

 Overall inflation has increased the cost of food and shelter ,and made the cost of living unaffordable...

Young people are feeling disillusioned,alienated, and defeated...and nihilistic!  You do what you have to to provide for yourself ---to survive.

Impoverished persons cannot pursue/access justice through the courts

The challenge is not increasing  economic growth, but one of distribution-- of  redistributing the abundance acrued by the economy more equitably .(basic minimum income) ---reinvesting in /re-enforcing the social safety net.  Instead of addressing the root cause of the alienation, (denying access to resources),society chooses the punitive option(criminalization of poverty  /incarceration)

You can provide a person with the resources to flourish (guaranteed basic income),, or you can cage them at the cost of $115,000./person/year

Oppression,injustice,disenfranchisement is achieved through the legal /court system. The legal institution is designed to maintaining the hierarchy, to favour the interests of the elite (the wealthy and the powerful)

When people realize the system is rigged, they opt out of it and resort to other options for settling their grievances and getting what they need, such as illegal behavior. The social contract is no longer binding.   .They are no longer a stakeholder. 

"You do what you have to to provide for yourself ---to survive."

When people are denied access to education,employment,housing,basic income ...they become nihilistic. 

Denied a share in any of it...they just want to burn it all down!

How paranoid nationalism corrupts

 from The Economist, Sept 2 ,2023/