There are some key cultural links to understanding addiction. Addiction is very similar if not identical to fanaticism and also to religious fundamentalism.

Some commonalities between these – all are attempts at achieving intimacy through repetitive and deep exposure. Far from “self-medicate”, addiction is primarily about loneliness and disconnection and the attempt to solve that problem with a kind of manufactured state of intimacy.

It’s also a form of learning. Most people addicted to television choose that addiction in order to learn about (and create) culture. Religious fundamentalists choose that addiction to learn about (and create) morality.

Addiction is found only in devastated or destroyed communities, where there is no longer a functioning civic society with frequent and positive bonds between people. In the absence of society itself, humans manufacture their own social reality and their own education and self-identity from whatever means are available to them. Hence they might be “fans of a sports team”, a hardcore video game player, a follower of Paris Hilton, or whatever else.

It’s not a matter of addiction being harmful – the harm always occurs *before* the addiction. The addiction is always an attempt at a solution to the harm – a kind of desperate attempt that the addict always recognizes as such and likely to fail or succeed only in very limited ways. Addicts are usually contemptuous of non-addicts – they consider them naive or ignorant (not knowing enough about their own devastated condition to attempt the cure of addiction).

One might think that since the cause of the addiction is the devastation of civic society more people would seek to rebuild that civic society. But this runs into the major problem that the cause of the devastation of civic society is the opposition of the elite to the existence of civic society. Despite their devastated condition, people in the West still support the elite due to the imperial benefits they receive from such, and thus cannot contradict the wishes of the elite by constructing civic society.

So if no harm can be scientifically shown, there is no addiction. Is masturbation once per day while viewing internet porn addictive? Watching TV sports all weekend while ignoring one’s spouse and children? I would say daily masturbation is pretty normal sexual behavior. If the porn watched is abusive of women (much of it) or involves children, or if someone is masturbating very frequently every day, underlying problems and harm can be shown. So one should be careful when throwing this term around. And, as much as I like your writing, you really should include citations for data sources as a matter of course.

The world will be a better place when they’re all gone.

Best to all.

Humans have been having sex since Adam and Eve (if you believe in that sort of stuff), but hey, it’s dirty and wrong! We should also cut off our eyeballs so that we can’t gaze longingly at other people’s bodies, and then.. VOILA! on your “God-recognized” wedding night, you’ll get your eyeballs back so you can set your sight upon your new bride’s naked body for the first time.

sheez.