DISLOCATION
Dislocation is a very important concept. I learned about it from Bruce Alexander , the researcher behind the now famous Rat Park experiment on addiction.[6] I will first turn to Alexander’s words to introduce it.
Free-market society subjects people to unrelenting pressures towards individualism, competition, and rapid change, dislocating them from social life. People adapt to this dislocation by concocting the best substitutes that they can for a sustaining social, cultural, and spiritual wholeness, and addiction provides this substitute for more and more of us. [4] p.3
Dislocation is the experience of the absence of belonging, identity, meaning, and purpose. [7]
The “opposite” of dislocation is what Alexander calls psychosocial integration, borrowing the term from Erik Erikson. The best short description I can venture of this happy condition is that it is the state of a person who feels free, but still belongs. [7]
Polanyi explained that a free-market society: ... must comprise all elements of industry, including labor, land, and money.... But labor and land are no other than the human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws of the market. [4]p. 99
Every society carefully protects its foundational beliefs because they give it stability and meaning. As free-market society becomes globalised, therefore, it carefully obscures the connections between free markets, mass dislocation, and addictive misery because seeing them would undermine its foundational belief in the magnanimity of free markets. [4] p. 336)
By contrast, it is not in the least threatening to attribute addictive misery to demonic drugs, neurochemical deficiencies, genetic defects, individual immorality, or original sin, for these attributions do not undermine the foundational beliefs of free-market society. That is probably why there are hundreds of inconclusive theories of addiction within the conventional wisdom, rather than a single useful one. This multitude of theories is the product of an exhaustive search for the underlying cause of addiction everywhere, except where it is. These theories, colourfully projected on the globalised cave wall by sophisticated communication technologies, protect society from an understanding of addiction that would create unbearable tension. This is blindness. [4] p. 336)
Looking for something everywhere except where it is similar to reasoning from the conclusion.[8] Alcoholics are masterful at this when the conclusion to be avoided is ‘somehow, my drinking is part of the problem.’ Of course, the skills of politicians, pundits, and media magnates in this area are not to be underestimated. Important to note, it is possible to reason away from an undesirable conclusion without consciously naming that conclusion. Such is the case when the alcoholic is pre-denial and genuinely believed that his drinking or related behavior is not problematic. Oh, the web of lies! Somehow we are able to weave it subconsciously and robustly enough to survive the denial that is sure to come. This is what I see when people seem to subconsciously avoid challenging their own society’s foundational beliefs.
Effective action on addiction at a personal level can only be achieved by people who have, to some degree, overcome their own blindness and paralysis. For most of us, overcoming blindness and paralysis does not begin with academic study, but with reflection on the struggles with addiction that we observe in family members and friends or in ourselves. Recognizing that the highly publicised suffering of junkies and alcoholics is essentially the same as the addictive miseries that we observe in our personal worlds can begin this reflection. The next step may be simply overcoming the denial that shields an intimate’s or one’s own drug or alcohol addiction from conscious understanding. More likely, however, the next step requires the more complex recognition of addictive dynamics that are not connected to drugs and alcohol and thus are camouflaged in free-market society [4] p. 339)
For me it was about overcoming the denial, but doing so required a visceral emotional signal that was far too strong to ignore or explain away. It happened when the fear of continued drinking outweighed the fear of stopping. I knew that stopping would require concerted effort, lots of help, and a significant life change. Having heard the stories, and having witnessed my father’s and my brother’s versions of recovery, I was not looking forward to it. On the other hand, I hadn’t lost everything yet, but I was about to. One Ph.D. down the drain, but I’d still have the debt. By the way, my student loan debt is fucking ridiculous! I’ve accepted that I’ll probably have it until I die, but I haven’t let go of the shame. It was my loan debt that did it. I had projected a certain amount that I was comfortable with, but on that tax prep day in February, I saw that it was double that amount. I wasn’t graduated yet, and I was broke. Shit! I’ve been sweeping this under the rug for a while! Double shit! Drinking. Triple shit! I’m alcoholic. In that bitter kitchen moment, it finally happened. My fears battled it out. An immovable object met an unstoppable force, and something had to give. That something was me, on my knees, dripping in anxiety and tears, begging to an estranged god.
Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you! [9]
That’s how the world feels to me now. Not that acute, but present. That same sort of panic is in the air. In conversation, it takes no time to reveal the anger and frustration lurking just below the surface. After my alcoholic denial was overcome…ok, after competing fears pounded it into dust…something unexpected happened. I’d become the fish who’d learned to see the water I was swimming in. That is to say, addiction was my society’s M.O. How sober could I possible be in this?!? I have to be sober, and swim in this water. Fuck me!
In all my years in recovery, I have learned through the collective experience of all my friends and colleagues that there is not one single American who isn’t touched by addiction. That is to say, if it ain’t you, then you know somebody. The awakening necessary for remediation comes when we all truly realize that each and every one of us is participating in a culture whose foundational beliefs help make all this addiction happen. Addiction isn’t the problem in and of itself; it is a symptom that has become a problem. Furthermore, the foundational beliefs that created that symptom are ill-equipped to remedy it. Therefore, the foundational beliefs must change. This is the deep truth of recovery. In order to recover from an addiction, at least some of the foundational beliefs the individual carries about himself and his relationship to the world have to change. But first, these beliefs have to be made visible, and we’ll get to this in Step 4.
Facing up to one’s own addiction and dislocation can be excruciating, but it does not need to provoke incapacitating despair. It can provoke action instead. Addictive problems in one’s personal world need not provoke despair because they are not manifestations of mental illness or malice, but of a struggle to survive. Nor are they abnormal. Many, perhaps most, of our compatriots in the new global civilisation live with addictive dynamics of some degree. Like us, they are neither diseased nor evil at heart. Like us, they find themselves unable to endure the lack of psychosocial integration without becoming, at times, overwhelmingly involved with habits that partially substitute for it. Like us, they sometimes act badly, wastefully, recklessly, but without evil intent. There is no reason for despair over dislocation either, because it does not grow from a lack of personal worth or human appeal, but from a fragmented society. Becoming aware of one’s own addictive dynamics and dislocation, and those of one’s intimates, can be an enormous personal relief. It brings the joy of discovering a common humanity with others who bear similar burdens [4] p. 340).
There are tricks to this. We do it one day at a time. We “fake it until we make it,” which really means that changing behavior is much easier than changing beliefs, and sustained behavioral change will result in belief change. You may not know what the new belief is, but you can learn to recognize and denounce the old one. We get to get help in every step along the way. We get to give help as soon as we are but one step in front of the next person. We learn that the rewards of our efforts are ample, as we find our eyes for them.
Alexander explains in great detail how dislocation has manifested throughout history, and he illuminates many of the ways that free-market capitalism is causing dislocation today. Admittedly, free-market capitalism is not the only culprit; however, we can no longer afford to explain it away. It’s gotten too big and far too dangerous. Undoubtedly, you have already witnessed dislocation’s many manifestations in others and probably yourself as well.
A quick side note on one of our cultural norms. We downplay our fears, and we do it all the time as a matter of course, a social norm that presents a less-fearful-than-I-am visage. Listen, no matter what you’re afraid of, in the moment or long-term, real or fancied, fear is scary! My fear is an existential terror-former, ready and willing to change the landscape of my entire life. I think that we all need to own that and be open about it. Call that spade the spade that it is. We have all sorts of words we use to disguise fear, and that’s one way we downplay it. Fuck that! Imagine, if each and every one of us could have moments when we get to share and witness in others that sometimes, sometimes this life as a human being thing is super scary!
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