The Hollowed Out Social Bond, 2
Let’s return to Example Island. There always live 100 people, and one of them starts pushing drugs to five other people. Then he uses the carrot−and−stick on his victims: push more drugs to others to afford more doses – the carrot, or enjoying withdrawal symptoms – the stick. Then another one does the same with five other people. Now we have on the island about 88 honest people, 2 criminals and 10 victims−accomplices. Until now, given such relations of power of 88 to 12 – or 98 to 2, provided the honest people have not become too much potential trouble sources, straightening things up isn’t much of a struggle for the 88 or 98, isn’t it? A not entirely negligible detail that makes this possible is that the economic environment in which they live is so that 88 to 98 out of 100 people make a living out of honest, ethical, productive activities. They have a chance to compare good and evil and choose between them.
But now suppose a third one, having unlimited resources, starts pushing drugs to 80 other people. Now out of 100 people we have 3 criminals and 90 victims−accomplices subjected to carrot−and−stick. You get the idea, now, not only of how explosive – or implosive – the situation is, but also of the struggle to straightening it up, being 7 against 93. Then add to this that his unlimited resources allow the third criminal to influence the economic environment so that almost all honest and productive activities are either wiped out or made dishonest and unproductive – destroying more than they produce. Thus the addiction to parasitism is not only induced by its intrinsically addictive nature of creating, eliciting and exploiting human weaknesses, but further amplified by the economic environment, in which almost no one has any alternative to evil, any chance to choose. If quitting addiction is an issue, how about quitting addiction without any alternative in sight to support you, both materially and spiritually, while sunk into an environment which is completely enslaved by addiction?
