Dear Subscriber:

I invite you to participate in the “Dopamine Culture” dialogue that a few friends and I have initiated on this Google Doc. If you let me know you want to join, I’ll give you permission to edit the doc directly.

The dialogue began with this post:

Dear Friends,”
Please comment on the following.
Wade

+++++

In Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet, L. M. Sacasas, editor of The Convivial Society, argues

Part of what is going on is that, having grown up with devices at the ready, many people are now simply unable to imagine how to live apart from the steady stream of stimuli that they supply.

Human beings will naturally seek distractions rather than confront their own thoughts in moments of solitude and quiet because those thoughts will eventually lead them to consider unpleasant matters such as their own mortality, the vanity of their endeavors, and the general frailty of the human condition.

We are all of us kings now surrounded by devices whose only purpose is to prevent us from thinking about ourselves.

As Pascal wrote, “Nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.”

Sacasas defines “sloth” as “a lack of energy and discipline in pursuit of the good…. We might also be turning away from duties, responsibilities, and obligations we ought to be more vigorously pursuing.”

He asks, “What am I looking for when I scroll?”

One answer to this question is simple and obvious — we’re looking for each other. We’re looking, in other words, for human connection. We are social creatures and among our most profound immaterial needs is the need for community. We will seek to meet this need by whatever means we have available to us…. 

“We are addicted to one another,” (Alan) Jacobs argued, “to the affirmation of our value — our very being — that comes from other human beings. We are addicted to being validated by our peers.”

The problem with social media platforms is not just that they seek to hook us on their products, it’s also that they offer themselves as the answer to profound human desires, which they are ultimately unable to satisfy. We are promised well-being and even joy, but are instead enlisted into a form of life that yields burnout, unhappiness, loneliness, and cynicism. 

This is a problem is not limited to tech companies, it is the problem at the root of our entire economic order.

We are also looking for intellectual connection, which is just another way of saying that we long to know. We desire an understanding of things and take pleasure in learning. Just as with our desire for community, the desire for knowledge is itself both deeply rooted in us and deeply good. Both can orient us toward the path of human flourishing. Indeed, I’m tempted to say that the whole of the human condition could be summed up this way: we desire to know and to be known.

Participants can receive email notifications of new edits with Tools/Notification Settings.Edits while viewing the doc — or visit the page at their convenience.

Again, I invite you to participate in the “Dopamine Culture” dialogue on this Google Doc. If you let me know you want to join, I’ll give you permission to edit the doc directly.

Yours,
Wade