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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums11 Ways Our Society Treats Us Like Caged Rats: Do Our Addictions Stem from that Trapped Feeling?
The following article first appeared in The Fix. Also on TheFix.com: Why I'm More Sober Than You!; The Spirituality of Recovery; Are Athletes More Susceptible to Eating Disorders?
You've probably heard about those addiction studies with caged lab rats, in which the rats compulsively press the heroin dispensing lever again and again, even to the point of choosing it over food and starving themselves to death. These studies seemed to imply some pretty disheartening things about human nature. Our basic biology is not to be trusted; the seeking of pleasure leads to disaster; one must therefore overcome biological desires through reason, education, and the inculcation of morals; those whose willpower or morals are weak must be controlled and corrected.
The rat addiction studies also seem to validate the main features of the War on Drugs. First is interdiction: prevent the rats from getting a taste of drugs to begin with. Second is education conditioning the rats into not pressing the lever in the first place. Third is punishment: make the consequences of taking drugs so scary and unpleasant that the rats will overcome their desire to press the lever. You see, some rats just have a stronger moral fiber than others. For those with a strong moral fiber, education suffices. The weak ones need to be deterred with punishments.
Alexander found that when you take rats out of tiny separate cages and put them in a spacious rat park with ample exercise, food, and social interaction, they no longer choose drugs; indeed, already-addicted rats will wean themselves off drugs after they are transferred from cages to the rat park.All of these features of the drug war are forms of control, and therefore sit comfortably within the broader narrative of technological civilization: the domination of nature, the rising above the primitive state, conquering animal desire with the mind and the base impulses with morality, and so forth. That is, perhaps, why Bruce Alexander's devastating challenge to the caged rat experiments was ignored and suppressed for so many years. It wasn't only the drug war that his studies called into question, but also deeper paradigms about human nature and our relationship to the world.
The implication is that drug addiction is not a moral failing or physiological malfunction, but an adaptive response to circumstances. It would be the height of cruelty to put rats in cages and then, when they start using drugs, to punish them for it. That would be like suppressing the symptoms of a disease while maintaining the necessary conditions for the disease itself. Alexander's studies, if not a contributing factor in the drug war's slow unraveling, are certainly aligned with it in metaphor.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/11-ways-our-society-treats-us-caged-rats-do-our-addictions-stem-trapped-feeling?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
villager
(26,001 posts)...and replace it with the paradigm of the patient dependent on medical authorities for health."
Interesting to note how much of that particular step goes on here at the "Underground..."
RainDog
(28,784 posts)of death.
Warpy
(111,417 posts)when drugs are made available than animals who have roomy cages will.
I doubt we're any different.
I loved the convenience of living on (the wrong side of) Beacon Hill in Boston but I always felt really stressed there. The hill is about a quarter of a mile on a side and home at that time to some 50,000 people. The density was so high because the apartments were small and strange.
LeftishBrit
(41,212 posts)JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)the study of social deviance.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Re-imaging one's life, living "outside the cage" is near impossible in this society.
niyad
(113,774 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)easy to vilify and they feed our Prison Industrial Complex. History will not be kind to how we treated these very sick people in the future imho.
Thanks for the article. We are in a period of darkness and ignorance. Hopefully we will emerge and a new period of enlightenment will follow.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Thanks, MrScorpio.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)complaining about this and that in modern society. We are caged rats because we don't process our own food, because we care more about celebrities than we do about local "news"?
Well many people have the option of gardens and nobody really is forced to watch Entertainment Tonight (although similar type stories often creep into national and local "news".)
Is everybody caged? Then why isn't everybody addicted?
It seems to me like the height of absurdity to call a dysfunctional action - "an adaptive response to circumstances". Like it's a good choice or something.
edit: and I am glad I don't have to process my own food. I already have enough drudgery in my life.