Of the
connection between addiction and pleasure, Scruton writes:
Addiction arises when the subject has full control over a pleasure and can produce it at will. It is primarily a matter of sensory pleasure, and involves a kind of short-circuiting of the pleasure network. Addiction is characterized by loss of the emotional dynamic that would otherwise govern an outward-directed, cognitively creative life. Sex addiction is no different in this respect from drug addiction; and it wars against true sexual interest – interest in the other, the individual object of desire. Why go to all the trouble of mutual recognition and shared arousal, when this short cut is available to the same sensory goal? (p. 186)
On an
Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law analysis, pleasure exists in us largely to
bond us to other human beings. This is
clear enough where sex is concerned, but it is even true to a large extent
where the pleasures of food and drink are concerned. In human beings, food and drink are typically
(even if not always) taken in the context of a meal, which is a social event
which reinforces bonds of family and friendship. Addiction where sex, food, and drink are
concerned is in large part a result of separating the pleasure associated with
these things from the social context and making of it a kind of private
entertainment, where it can be sought and gratified in a way that bears no
connection to others. In an
essay from a few years ago, I discuss in more detail the way that
sexual addictions in this way lock one into patterns of feeling and action that
erode the capacity for healthy romantic relationships.
As rational
animals, we can also understand the
ends for which pleasures exist, and follow rules (of morality, etiquette, and
the like) that facilitate the realization of these ends. Because the desire for pleasure is strong in
us when we are young but reason is also weaker in us at that time, we initially
have to become habituated to these rules by way of parental instruction and
social pressure. When such social norms
are weak, and where pleasure is misunderstood as something purely bodily and
animal without any essential connection to our social and rational nature – and
both these circumstances obtain today – then the pursuit of pleasure is bound
to become disordered, and addictions of various kinds more widespread.
Of some
other ways in which pleasure-seeking can escape from reason’s governance and
thereby become addictive, Scruton writes:
So too is there stimulus addiction – the hunger to be
shocked, gripped, stirred in whatever way might take us straight to the goal of
excitement – which arises from the decoupling of sensory interest from rational
thought… Addiction, as the psychologists point out, is a function of easy
rewards. The addict is someone who
presses again and again on the pleasure switch, whose pleasures by-pass thought
and judgement to settle in the realm of need.
(pp. 186-87)
This is a
fair description of much of the discourse that prevails in social media, which
is typically of very low intellectual quality and reflects what I
have elsewhere called “associationist” rather than rational thought
processes. That is to say, in their
online interactions, people tend to respond to other people, events, and ideas
on the basis of sub-rational associations – emotional triggers, causal or
historical connections, partisan affiliations, and so on – which do not
necessarily correspond to any strict logical
connections.
For example,
if someone from a political party you oppose makes a claim or argument, you
might be inclined immediately to dismiss it, even if the claim or argument has
no essential connection to the specific things you find disagreeable about that
party, and even if you would have taken it more seriously had someone else said
it. Or if someone from a political party
you support makes a claim or gives an argument, you might be inclined
immediately to sympathize with and defend it, even if it conflicts with the
principles for which you initially supported that party. In the first case, a negative sub-rational
association leads you to be more hostile to an idea than you are rationally
warranted in being; and in the second case, a positive sub-rational association
leads you to be more friendly to an idea than you are rationally warranted in
being.
Now, as I
noted in an
article a few years back, because of the brevity of the comments one
typically makes on them and the immediacy and volume of responses these
comments generate, forums such as Twitter/X, Facebook’s comments sections, and
the like have a strong tendency to promote associationist thinking. Moreover, they make this sort of thinking addictive insofar as they feed what
Scruton calls “the hunger to be shocked, gripped, stirred in whatever way might
take us straight to the goal of excitement.”
Snap reactions to events and drive-by insults tend to afford the social
media user a frisson of
self-righteous pleasure. The approval of
fellow members of one’s online “tribe” (as indicated by “likes,” retweets, and
so on) yields further pleasure. By
contrast, lengthier and more carefully formulated expressions of one’s opinions
are much less likely to be read, and nuance is often attacked by people on
one’s own “side” as treasonous accommodation with the enemy tribe. In these ways, reason is punished with pain and
unreason rewarded with pleasure, to the point that irrational habits of thought
become habitual.
In his article
“The
Transfiguration of the Commonplace” (not to be confused with his
book of the same name), the philosopher of art Arthur C. Danto makes some
remarks that shed further light on our topic:
I think that with human beings – and this is a mark of
humanity – pleasures, or at least those pleasures to which we attach any
special importance – are dependent upon certain cognitive presuppositions, and
will not survive discovery that the relevant beliefs are false. Sexual pleasure, for instance, will
ordinarily not survive the discovery that one is having pleasure with the wrong
partner, or at least the wrong sort of partner.
Someone’s pleasure in food similarly presupposes beliefs about the
nature and provenance of the food: the ragout turns to ashes in the mouth of an
orthodox Muslim when he discovers its main ingredient to be pork, or in any of
our mouths, upon information that we have been relishing human flesh, unless we
are cannibals, in which case the reverse of this is true when we discover we
have been handed veal instead of missionary.
(pp. 144-45)
Addiction
often involves a breakdown in this normal dependence of pleasure on cognitive
presuppositions. That is to say,
habituation to pleasure can lead the intellect to ignore or abandon what reason
tells it is abhorrent and not to be done, to such an extent that it can smother
the displeasure one naturally feels
upon a revelation of the sort Danto describes.
This is what happens, for example, when a jaded pornography user seeks
out novel titillations in images he once would have found repulsive, or a drug
addict begins to use harder drugs that once would have horrified him, when the
milder ones lose their thrill.
Note that I am not claiming there is always something intrinsically wrong with coming to take pleasure in things one at one time found off-putting. That can be perfectly normal and healthy, as when one comes to appreciate activities (such as reading), or to enjoy delicacies, that held no attraction when one was a child. The key is whether there is something in our nature that makes some practice inherently contrary to what is objectively good for us and which people tend therefore to find repulsive, but where repeated indulgence in the practice has destroyed the horror or shame with which we previously regarded it. That would be an example in which addiction to pleasure has seared the conscience and disordered the intellect. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, on Aquinas’s analysis, sexual sins have a stronger tendency to do this than any other, because of the unique intensity of the pleasure associated with them.
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