the incessant 'why not?' nihilism of (my own) British culture.
Pornography has killed sex.
....and, more controversially perhaps, romantic love as a panacea.
Interesting topic. But:
I feel that this is already somewhat outdated.
I am fiending for a snuggle right now.
Quite the contrary, I think. I was having this exact conversation with some German people on saturday (who expressed horror/amsuement at what passes for an ordinary Saturday night's consumption here), and my housemate (who doesn't know the city) independently commented on how less 'up for it' Paris was when he visited a tthe weekend (and he went to the good places).
I've become increasingly interested of late in the concept of addiction, construed widely,where addiction is (roughly speaking) repeatedly acting in a way that only fulfils one's first-order desires rather than second- or third-order, and so results in repeatedly doing things that one doesn't really want to do (although, in one sense, one does 'want' to, of course).
So, aside from the extremely obvious (heroin, cigarettes, extreme alcohol intake), I woudl suggest that modern life bombards us with possible addictions, to the point that it confuses and disorients so many people from what they really want that it leads to mass low-level unhappiness/search for 'meaning'.
So these addictions would be connected to...the internet, 'casual' sex, facebook/email/twitter, TV, 'fun' as a catch-all, uninterrogable excuse-word for flight from life, TV, dieting, low-level 'going down the pub most nights' alcoholism, holidaying to 'escape' or 'chill out'....and, more controversially perhaps, romantic love as a panacea.
Also, who has written well on this kind of thing?
There's also more to be said on orders of desire... I would have thought that any definition of addiction which bases itself on that would have to go some way to explaining how those orders can be distinguished.
I woudl suggest that modern life bombards us with possible addictions, to the point that it confuses and disorients so many people from what they really want that it leads to mass low-level unhappiness/search for 'meaning'.
i suppose i am, with the post above, moving the "unhappiness" before the addiction in the chain of causality.
i second this. someone link to or articulate what these orders constitute?
@zhao - in terms of the success drive, have you spoken much (you may well have done) to people who have reached a certain pinnacle of their profession/interest area? From my experience, I suspect that such people are not that much happier than the rest of us - perfectionism is an awful cross to bear. (In fact, cult-ish UK critic Charlie Brooker wrote brilliantly on it once - how all the people he thought had achieved what he always wanted to, were in fact themselves plagued by the things they had not achieved, even in areas in which they had no expertise/training).
"Drama of Gifted Child" talks about this: that as soon as effects of the drug of fame or money wears off, and like all drugs they always do, the addict becomes depressed and suffers from a loss of purpose and profound feeling of emptiness... not that i'm all that successful (yet!) but i experience a bit of this regularly...