When Society Becomes An Addict
When so many people are outraged at the actions of their government, why do so many of them seem to be frozen? Why aren’t people taking to the streets? Why is the United States the only “first world” country without universal health care?
What is it that keeps people from leaving abusive jobs and abusive relationships?
These questions may seem to be unrelated, but they’re actually all part of what happens…
When Society Becomes an Addict
by Anne Wilson Schaef
Harper and Row, 1987
When Society Becomes an Addict is an easy read, peppered with true stories and funny examples. The content is so true it’s terrifying… all the more so because it was written almost twenty years ago.
Prior to this book, Schaef had broken some interesting ground about how gender and culture work in mainstream American society. In “Women’s Reality,” she broached the idea that men and women have different realities – that is, different cultures with different values and experiences. In fact, she proposed that there were several, including a white women’s culture which is complicit with the corrupt parts of white male culture, and an “emerging female system” which has begun to define and explore itself and defy mainstream societal corruption.
It’s an interesting idea, but it’s not particularly revolutionary – or, for many people, particularly helpful. When Society Becomes an Addict, though, blows all her previous theories out of the water.
The Questions
Basically, Schaef has realized something: she has society’s problems all figured out, but she’s targeting the wrong people.
Our society responds to crises “not with action, but with a widespread malaise.” With each crisis, moreover, it’s becoming increasingly “conservative, complacent (and) more defensive of the status quo.” The worse things get, the deeper we sink into denial. And when we do try to do something, we consistently pick our favorite part of the problem, take it out of context, and begin a misguided uphill battle to fix things.
There are two big questions raised by this: What’s missing in this picture that would let us deal with problems more effectively? And how do we escape the denial and lack of information that pulls us in like quicksand?
Addiction: The Missing Piece
Anne Wilson Schaef has a simple and amazing explanation: Society itself has become an addict.