Disconnect

When we consider addiction, what do we actually consider? On the surface a therapist might say that it is a lack of control, a lack of inhibiting behavior, that leads to destructive addictions. Whether it be drugs, or alcohol, sex or food, excessive behaviors can be diagnosed as nature/nurture malfunctions; but what is really the underlying mental status of these people?

How hard is for an obese person to see their weight or a drunk to see the consequences of their nightly binge? Not that hard. So, what is it that transforms and otherwise "normal" person into a delusional maniac? Let's be honest. We're talking delusions.

The first step if one is critical is to outline the pattern. On a fundamental level the pattern is short-term happiness v. long-term. This is a simple formula that has as its product a definition of happiness. What is the difference between a short-term sensation of happiness v. long-term satisfaction?

Wait, what?

I start the "happiness" class out every semester by claiming that I've never met a happy person. What does this mean? Simply put: there's no way for any human to be happy until the definition itself is made objective. The prevailing "wisdom" today in our subjectivized culture is that happiness is individual. It is what people make up in their mind. From that, as we know from basic critiques of relativist arguments, no definition is possible. If the idea is only contained within each subjective bubble, no translation or communication is possible.

Luckily I (and really everyone else) doesn't actually believe this. In the same way Hume did not belief that the self was "merely" a pattern misunderstood as a reality, we operate on a real level with the belief that happiness means something.

And if we're honest with ourselves, it starts with the distinction between short-term sensation and long-term satisfaction. The rush from a drug or a bit of chocolate cake is short-term and a college degree is long-term satisfaction.

How is it then that humans confuse the mental high from the chocolate cake with a life-long "esteem" gained from a college degree? How is it that they confuse their image in the mirror, when it is obese, with a slender happy person? Granted, on a subconscious level these things change, but on the surface, and in terms of daily goals, these lies persist. If they didn't, we wouldn't have a population of self-destructive humans living on a planet that is itself being destroyed.

What the world would look like if this one psychological condition changed in most people I do not know. All I can tell you is, from the outside, that this simple problem (being smart enough to see distinctions, not making them, and suffering because of it) seems incompatible with animal life, nature, and evolution. What this incompatibility tells me is that we're missing something.

But I'm getting off track. The point here is that one has to face the distinction and the values inherent in each side of this debate. What is the value of short-term sensation? Merely short-term. What is the value of long-term? A lifetime. Once this distinction is seen, it is possible to outline what change looks like. But, and this is the kicker, the fact that this is so obvious, and yet completely absent in our social/cultural language, testifies to the nature of the problem.

Humans can be shown obvious, commonsense truths; but this is in no way a progress toward them becoming active agents in response. Humans refuse to change, as a species, to an individual. If they did change, therapy would work. If they did change, the history of civilization would be progress. And from the perspective of politics and ecology, our societies are in dramatic decline. America had a game-show host president and we are on the verge of weather pattern changes and economic changes that could potentially wipe out all but the upper middle and higher classes.

I don't have to prove to you that one perspective of society and culture is that it has gone to shit.

What I am merely telling you is that what your moral/culturally language system tells you about happiness is both wrong and dangerous. The underemphasized distinction between present and future and the amnesia about it are a strange truth about the evolution of the modern human.