Addiction is a mental health issue. It's a sociological issue. It's a medical issue. Sure, there are some people (rich people) who infamously use drugs for recreational purposes and then become addicts. But, by virtue of their being rich (and/or famous) their numbers are few. If you honestly believe that drug addiction is simply a question of morals and self-discipline, you still have to explain the epidemic of public consumption of drugs that has reached unprecedented levels in North America.
Are we really to believe that there's just been some massive breakdown in personal morals, unrelated to any other socioeconomic trends, that is responsible for what we're seeing today? That seems to be the case with "conservatives" (who still love crack-smoking, alcoholic Rob Ford).
More widespread of an issue is homelessness. It's been rising for decades. Jobs are more precarious, the incomes those precarious jobs earn have stagnated, the price of housing has skyrocketed, and corporate oligarchs are price-gouging us everywhere they can. It's no wonder that the problem of homelessness has grown. And yet, many people look at this and decide that it's just a case of the homeless simply having given up on wanting to support themselves. Social programs have declined, and it was supposedly the seductive allure of the 1980's general welfare assistance that caused lazy people to drop out of the labour market, but more people are poorer than they were then.
When the root of the problem is so clearly the capitalist political-economic system, the choice of some people to blame to poor for their predicament, and to then HATE the poor, is pathological.
2 comments:
On addiction, in the old days they did experiments on rats and found that they would literally get so addicted that they would press the lever for drugs even if it meant starving. But more recently, someone did an experiment with two sets of rats. Group 1 were in the usual little cages. Group 2 were in a habitat full of interesting things for rats to do, a place where a rat could live a healthy fulfilling life. The rats in the cages still got massively addicted. The rats with something better to do, mostly did; some of them would do some drugs sometimes, but addiction was a MUCH smaller problem. Hmmm . . . I wonder what that says about modern proletarian life?
On the whole "character as basis for the economy" right wing schtick . . . they never think about it for three seconds. Like, if people are unemployed because they're lazy, then what's a recession? Was it caused by a bunch of previously industrious people catching the lazy bug? Did Roosevelt's massive government employment plans work by causing huge improvements in character? It's just so obviously not even trying to be an explanation for anything, it's just people reaching for an excuse to kick down, or on the propagandists' part, an excuse to get the crabs in the bucket to fight.
Purple library guy,
I also recall reading about US-American Vietnam veterans who had used heroin in the war but ... most successfully quit upon returning to the USA.
Here's the link: https://www.mayooshin.com/heroin-vietnam-war-veterans-addiction
And I see it also refers to the rat study you mentioned (that I'd also heard of).
Again though, some people are more biologically susceptible to addictions (and it has nothing to do with self-control). And they will have a harder time quitting and are at greater risk of self-destruction. Why people develop a habit of trying to escape reality is the issue. Especially in significant numbers.
The whole right-wing shtick is embarrassingly bad and even evil.
I meant to say in my original post how people in social-welfare states blame the poor and the social programs that support them. As do we in Canada with our thinner, more shredded safety net. Right-wingers blather about how the answer is to destroy the safety net even more and preach "self-reliance." Except that poverty is greater in the even harsher USA. And you will find people in the poorest countries, where hardly any help for the poor besides private charity exists, and they too will be blaming the poor for being lazy and simply expecting other people to support them.
Obviously, self-interested ruling class scum foster these delusions, but they're clearly a natural thing for certain ordinary people to believe as well.
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