Work-a-Day Addiction

We are all addicted to the normal hormones of motivation.

I am watching the World Cup from time to time, and wonder- why? Why do we get so involved in competition, why are men particularly motivated to participate and watch, why do whole nations believe themselves to be "represented" by a sporting team, and feel emotional loss or gain by their fate? It is all very odd, from logical perspective- even a grand waste of effort, money and time, second only to that wasted on religion!

Naturally, one has to look at our biology and evolutionary history. A recent article in Salon outlined an interesting contrast between hormones that drive men to their characteristic activities- testosterone and oxytocin. Success gives us a testosterone boost, while social bonding gives us an oxytocin boost. Both are powerful drugs that give us highly conditional, precise motivation. If one's success serves the group, such as a successful hunt, (or war), both systems reinforce, and we are maximally happy. If the two systems are in conflict, such as a bar brawl, civil war, or domestic intrigue, we take our bonding resources were we can- from whichever group will have us, or do without, becoming loners or outcasts living on testosterone alone, if that. That really isn't much fun, and one gets the distinct impression that oxytocin is ultimately the more significant motivator. Winning only works if you have someone to share it with.

Another recent experience was going to a concert. It was transporting, highly socially bonding, and its happy effects lasted long, long after, surely involving something like a surge of oxytocin. One might even call it "religious", a related activity carefully engineered to bring people together to get positive hits of social bonding, though with a veneer of pompous folderol. These are in some ways the poles of our culture- the incessant competition in sports, business, and politics, which divide us, versus bonding experiences that bring us back together. The latter are getting, perhaps, pushed to the margins as live music becomes rarer, religion dies a slow death, and our arts turn into violent superhero extravaganzas. Granted, that in competitive situations, we bond with our team, our party, our religion versus their religion. But the mixture of testosterone-fueled competitiveness makes such group-i-ness a mixed blessing, easily turning to mean, if not violent ends. Just look at our political system, where civility has turned into blood sport. We need to find a more consistently positive and unifying way to be.

The drugs we abuse follow a similar pattern. Cocaine is probably a fair testosterone analog, making one feel invincible- ready to take wing. On the other hand, there are downers like alcohol and opioids- what's up with them? One can speculate that they give an oxytocin kind of buzz- the comfortable, disinhibited state of reduced social anxiety, which melts barriers to some degree, though quickly becomes destructive in excess. The opioid epidemic is, as many have observed, a direct index of social malaise and atomization. One might add that 12-step programs to treat alcoholism attempt (mostly unsuccessfully) to supply the missing social bonding with a sort of regimented friendship. Most people, with robust lives and brain chemistry, don't fall for the fake pleasures of either drug, but get their fix from actual accomplishments and actual social connections, which generate the internal rewards which are just as chemical, but much more subtly, finely, and productively regulated.

(All this is terribly reductive, of course, and misses all kinds of details of how our motivation systems work. Yet it is clear that in a broad brush way, positive and negative feelings are strongly influenced by these and other chemicals that form the internal motivation and reward systems, for which drugs of abuse and recreation are blunderbuss versions. Whether we add in serotonin, dopamine, and others, to make more accurate models of the internal workings does not alter this picture. There is also no law that cognition can not generate emotions. But it seems to make sense that our general emotional tenor is shifted in rather gross ways, over many cognitive (and bodily) systems at once, which dictates the use of hormones and hormone-like neurotransmitters to create such wide-spread regulatory effects.)

But many forces are set against our happiness and bonding, sending us toward competition instead. Traditionally, the (testosterone-addled) patriarchy has been a major culprit, as we have experienced so clearly in the traditional setting of the society of Afghanistan. Scarcity in general, of course, generates warfare and competition, to which primitive cultures are far more prone than our own, despite their otherwise idyllic nature.

But our current version of modernity may be even worse. Society-wide bonding experiences, like patriotism, universal religion, and traditions in the very general sense, are all being corroded. Some of the corrosion comes from competitive market forces, which are invading every aspect of our lives with the retreat of public services, civic responsibility, and family structure. Some comes from our very prosperity, which allows us each more independence and freedom- which is to say, an escape from close, maybe suffocating, social ties. Some of it comes from sheer population growth, which makes everything more competitive, particularly space- the space to live, to not be homeless, to find a country in which one can make a future, instead of being crushed under poverty and corruption. And some of it comes from environmenal degradation, another consequence of population growth and rampant capitalism, which makes agriculture and subsistance more difficult in already-poor areas and degrades the spiritual balms of nature. The internet, which was supposed to bring us all together, has instead balkanized us into ever-smaller tribes, enabled anonymous flame-throwing and rampant bullying, including from the highest offices. And into the bargain, it has grievously wounded the music industry- that keystone of positive social bonding.

What is going to put all this together again? How will we re-establish healthy lives and communities against all these forces? Clearly, Scandinavian countries, which have followed a less strictly capitalistic model, with less testosterone and more social awareness and conscience, have succeeded in building happier societies. It takes a change in emphasis, and a renunciation of the imbalanced invasion of competition in every nook and cranny of our lives, where few win and most lose. Otherwise our only recourse is the artificial versions of social bonding reward.

• A depressing withdrawal from opioids.
• Trump is a bad drug.
• Remember that 81% of evangelicals support Trump. Because they are white and pure.
• The supreme court is the next domino to fall for our creeping Nazi-ism.
• Death of the middle class, cont.
• And the decline is gathering speed.
• Science takes a theory, and sometimes a little PR.
• Love ...