I've got some thought-provoking reading going on right now, including Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari and The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. Though in many ways they're very different books, there are also some thematic similarities that I find intriguing.
First, Hari's book, which is subtitled 'The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.' Reading this on the heels of Courtwright's Dark Paradise and Quinones's Dreamland, it takes a broader look at the battle to control drugs and drug use. And control is the right word: if there's one thing that's clear reading all these books, it's that eradication is an impossible dream. Given the abysmal record of prohibition in all its forms, the unconscionable cost in money and lives, and the way criminal organizations have co-opted (and grown obscenely rich from) illicit substances, maybe it's time to rethink our policies. Hari's book gets down to the human level in a way the other two books don't always manage, and some of the stories are heart-wrenching. Billie Holiday's struggle with addiction will stick with readers, I think, and the way she was persecuted (some say hounded to death) by Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics makes her one of the tragic figures of the century. It's especially stark when contrasted with the way Anslinger treated white addicts like Judy Garland. I'll leave it to the reader to draw conclusions about the way this racial bias has continued to play out over the decades that followed.
Zimbardo's book, subtitled Understanding How Good People Turn Evil starts with an in-depth account of the Stanford Prison Experiment from 1971, which the author ran, and which people are still discussing--or vilifying--decades later. What the experiment found was that the social situation and framework in which people find themselves has a profound effect on their behavior. It's painful reading, as the student participants in the project get sucked into their roles surprisingly quickly, and find themselves reacting in ways they--and their professor--wouldn't have imagined.
The link lies in the way we've tended to treat addiction as personal flaw, while constructing a social system which often guarantees the worst possible outcome for those who find themselves addicted. (Note: As Zimbardo is careful to point out, this does not absolve individuals of responsibility for their decisions and the consequences thereof, but it does ask us as members of society to consider how we can create institutions and social supports that make it harder for people to succumb, and easier to come back from their mistakes.) As it is, we've created a system in which many people--largely minorities already living on the edge--are permanently disenfranchised and denied the hope of education and living-wage jobs.
I've been thinking about social systems, in part because my own social safety net largely failed me when I needed it. And, thoroughly grounded in the idea that depression and emotional struggles are a Punishment From God for being sinful or flawed or inadequately interested in the needs of others, I wasted a lot of time not only feeling horrible, but trying to figure out what I'd done to deserve this misery so that maybe I could fix it. (Spoiler alert: As it turns out, sometimes a depression is just a depression. Sometimes the sad person is just a normal sort of flawed, not a monster deserving death.)
This is part of my journey, becoming more aware of the ways in which our society has failed so many people. I knew life was hard. But for too long, I avoided understanding how deeply unfair it is for too many people in this world. I don't know if anything I can do will make a difference, but I can't keep silent.
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