| | Hi Michael. Congratulations on finishing your article. Discussing addiction in an Objectivist forum is a difficult proposition for several reasons that I can see. One is the all too often binary nature of controversies around here; rational discussion often seems to devolve into a simple issue of categorizing ideas into Objectivist and non-Objectivist--or its more insidious cousin, more Objectivist and less Objectivist thought. The first dichotomy is inevitable on a site such as this, and from what I've seen you've gotten some excellent Objectivist criticism from Joseph Rowlands, for instance. Such criticism inevitably helps you to hone your ideas and clarify your thinking. The related dichotomy of more/less is, I think, far less exacting or meaningful and far more destructive to rational discussion because it deals in issues of style over substance. More/less is where orthodoxy enters the debate because what is "more" Objectivist is not so much more coherent with Objectivist premises as it is more consistent with what past Objectivists, or the majority of present Objectivist have thought or felt on a matter. Such distinctions only confuse the issue and enjoin you not to clarify your thinking, but to scrap your thinking all together in favor of a "more" Objectivist model. As you've stated, Objectivists have had very little to say about addiction and this fact alone makes discussing it here an uphill battle.
The very idea of alcoholic recovery attacks two "pillars" of Objectivist style in particular without, to my knowledge, undermining any of its premises; namely, bootstrapping and personal privacy. As I understand these concepts, they have clear political relevance to Objectivism and Libertarianism. Governmental noninterference in our lives means neither getting in the way nor giving unfair advantage. Economically, "bootstrapping" is an ideal which exemplifies individual freedom. But morally, on the level of consensual interdependence of individuals, as far as I can tell, it is moot. If you want to help the poor--or the sick or the fearful or the lazy--"you will not be stopped." Similarly, the right to privacy is essential in a free society, but compulsory privacy, or devaluing a person solely on the grounds of their personal openness is nothing but the ethics of an emotionally phobic bully who thinks that personal intimacy and openness is a sign of weakness utterly to be avoided in the self and shunned in others.
Thing is, the problems with basing your ideology on bootstrapping and privacy will never arise if everyone in the community agrees with you about bootstrapping and privacy. SOLOHQ caters to an extremely select crowd, first and foremost with fans of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand wrote novels about ultra-charismatic bootstrapping heros and was herself an aggressively private person. Not being a big fan of bootstrapping or aggressive personal privacy will in themselves disincline a person from being a fan of Rand in the first place, let alone frequenting what in coarse internet terms is an Ayn Rand fan site. What this means for the community is that bootstrapping and personal privacy aproach the level of a categorical imperative because so few Randians will have even considered a context in which bootstrapping and personal privacy might be detrimental to the individual.
Which brings us to the issue of addiction itself as a "non-Objectivist" or "less Objectivist" concept. Both democracy and capitalism depend upon the rationality of their communities to be effective. The less raw rationality afoot, the less effectively democratic or capitalistic the society. What then would be the implications for Objectivism if it were determined that a substance existed that incrementally undermines the will of certain individuals within society like a disease? What if such substances were found to form the backbone of whole industries, relying for their subsistence on the addictive necessity to acquire the substance at whatever inflated prices the industry sets? Objectivists might be just one or two conclusive scientific studies away from seeing drug use as an immoral act in and of itself, not for conventional puritanical reasons, but for putting the sovereignty of the individual at specific and catastrophic risk. Perhaps a future schism of this kind has been foreshadowed in the "Brandbourne" controversy. And so, Michael, though you yourself have stated explicitly that you "have no desire to take anybody’s candy away," the full implications of the reality of alcoholism for Objectivists may point another way entirely.
A couple thoughts on the "disease model." You say:
I have learned in life that any person -- rich, poor, smart, dumb, sad, happy, sickly, healthy, rational, mystic -- anyone in practically any situation can become addicted -- there is no target group nor any group that is immune.
From the get go, I think this tends to undermine your article. To say that anyone can become addicted and no group is immune tends to imply that no individual is immune either; and that is counter to the experience of many people who visit this site. Plenty of folks drink and drink heavily without becoming alcoholics; plenty of individuals are apparently perfectly immune. Furthermore, when you imply that no one is immune, that we could all become alcoholics, you play right into the hands of those who say alcoholism is a behavior, the result of choices. You open yourself to the addiction = evasion argument. But I know a guy from college who in later life simply traded adolescent drunkenness for working 80 hours a week to evade his personal, emotional responsibilities to his wife and child. He's still as evasive and irrational as ever. Many such people drink extremely heavily and cut back on or eliminate alcohol in their later lives without any trouble and, I might add, without improving their premises either. Alcoholism isn't countered by raw rationality, because no amount of mere irrationality will make you an alcoholic. Susceptibility to alcoholism makes you an alcoholic--a little nature, a little nurture and plenty of variables as yet unknown.
Alcoholism is a term I understand to apply to a condition/disorder/malady/problem/disease where the need for regular consumption of alcohol has become the psychological equivalent of a survival mechanism. Sounds crazy--and it is. Such folks have acquired a chemical imbalance and have become dependant upon alcohol for things like pleasure and relaxation which non-alcoholics are still able to get from a variety of sources, not the least of which are their own natural hormones. I have no problem with asserting that alcohol can swamp freedom of choice and rationality (frat boys have used this principle to get laid from time immemorial). The thing about addiction is that it is highly cyclical in its affect; within each addictive cycle it doesn't override the alcoholic's will until it does; and just as soon as it has, it returns you to your regular scheduled needs already in progress.
It's like this: try not to breath. Hold your breath until you pass out. Can't do it? What's the matter? The brain can be completely deprived of oxygen for several minutes without any damage. There's no harm in it; its perfectly safe. There is no rational reason not to do it. Holding your breath is an act of will. Does the need to breath after a minute or so destroy your will? Of course not. Does it override your will in the moment, absolutely. But it's more complicated than that because you can train yourself to hold your breath for several minutes at a time. So volition can affect the compulsion to breath without being in total control of the mechanism. I learned to hold my breath for close to 3 minutes when I was studying martial arts. Did this make me more rational? Considering the amount of Buddhist philosophy I was swimming in at the time, by Objectivist standards I was prolly more irrational than before I even started. :-)
Incidentally, as I understand it, the idea that alcoholism is "incurable" does not mean that once afflicted the individual will always have an unreasoning need for booze, dooming them to white-knuckle their way through sober life. It means that an alcoholic will never be able to drink "like a normal person" again; that alcohol will always be a dangerous trigger which alcoholics, by virtue of their condition, must avoid for the rest of their lives. If they don't drink, alcoholics can eventually live quite normally. Folks that are able to drink, and drink heavily, and later moderate their drinking habits are, by definition, not alcoholics.
Anyway, I hope some of this is useful to your project. I enjoyed reading your article very much. Your discussion of identity was particularly lucid and thought provoking. There's so much to talk about and a real dearth of exactingly rational discussion of the phenomenon. Thanks for making this start.
-Kevin
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