Back in February, music historian Ted Gioa wrote: An essay On the state of American culture. He argued that many creative people want to create art (which demands work on people), but all the commercial pressures force them to create entertainment (which gives the audience what they want). As a result, for the last several years, entertainment (superhero films) has been swallowing up art (literary novels and serious dramas).
But now, Gioia observed, the entertainment business is also in crisis. Hollywood studios are laying off workers. The number of new scripted TV series has decreased. Because entertainment is swallowed by distraction (TikTok, Instagram). People stay on their phones because it’s easy. Each distraction lasts only a few seconds and requires no cognitive work; The audience just keeps scrolling.
Our dopamine-driven brain drives us to choose cheap distractions over entertainment and art. A 15-second video causes a release of dopamine in the brain, which creates a desire for more stimulation, which leads to a habit of scrolling more on your phone, which leads to an addiction to more stimulation. If distraction swallows up entertainment in our culture, so too does addiction swallow up distraction.
Gioia wrote: “Tech platforms are not like the Medici or other wealthy patrons of the arts in Florence. They don’t want to find the next Michelangelo or Mozart. They want to create a world of junkies – because they will be dealers.”
The phenomenon Gioia describes is not just happening to culture; It recurs throughout American life. We have access to amazing things. But they require effort, so we settle for junky treats that provide a quick dopamine hit. We could all be eating the Mediterranean diet, but instead it’s potato chips and cherry coke. We may enjoy the richness of full awareness, but alcohol, weed, and other drugs provide that quick reward. Think of all the things in American life that provide a burst of excitement but threaten to become addictive—gambling, porn, video games, checking email.
Even journalism has found ways to trigger dopamine for profit. We journalists go into this business to report and provoke, but many outlets have discovered that they can generate clicks by telling biased viewers how right they are about everything. Minute after minute they rub the pleasure centers of their audience, which seems somewhat like an old business.
The result is that we are now in a culture in which we want bad things – cheap hits for long periods of time. You reach for instant gratification, but it fails to satisfy. It puts you on a hamster wheel of finding the next light stimulus and pretty soon you’re in the land of addiction and junk food, you just keep scrolling, you just keep snacking. As psychiatrist Anna Lambke writes in her book “Dopamine Nation,” “The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure.”
Big companies don’t care. They have become sensationalized to stimulate and manipulate our cravings. Their goal is to keep us consumed. By offering constant temptation, they appeal directly to our dopamine circuits and threaten to inhibit our capacity for self-control. Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long writes in his book “The Molecule of More,” “The sensation of desire is not a choice you make. It’s a reaction to the things you get.” A cookie, a cat video, or a margarita right in front of you, “Consume me!” You can’t resist.
Modern life makes us vulnerable to these temptations. People live overwhelmed, tired, anxious lives. Willpower is gone. Big gulps and trashy TVs provide at least a break. But later, there are reproaches: Why did I do that? So millions of people turn to therapists, dietitians, trainers, 12-step programs, lifestyle experts, and authors of books on habit formation to regain control of their cravings.
The bulk of advice flowing from these people seems to fall into three buckets. First, there is the self-binding bucket. Make rules so you don’t have easy access to things that tempt you: No phones at school. No carbohydrates in your diet. There is no alcohol in the house. A woman I once knew was dumped by her boyfriend; Of course she came home with a big tub of ice cream. Halfway through the tub she got disgusted with herself and threw it in the trash. Ten minutes later she was digging through the trash so she could eat some more. Finally, she poured dishwashing soap over the ice cream to help resist the temptation. Effective self-binding.
Then there’s the bucket here and now. Don’t go looking for the next dopamine hit; Enjoy the life that is already around you. Neuroscientist Kent Berridge has shown that the wanting circuit in the brain is separate from the liking circuit. So try stimulating the liking circuit by increasing your enjoyment of the life you have.
For example, psychiatrist Lambke had a patient who suffered from depression and anxiety and spent his life plugged into Instagram, YouTube and everything else. Lambke suggested that the patient spend his days without any devices and allow his own thoughts to surface.
The patient was speechless at the suggestion. “Why would I do that?” she asked. Lambke said it’s a way to familiarize yourself and not get distracted. “But it’s too boring,” replied the patient. Boredom can be good, an opportunity for reflection, Lambke argued. Finally, the patient agreed to put down his phone during the walk. Later, she re-informed Lambke: “At first it was difficult. But then I got used to it and even liked it. I started paying attention to the tree.
The third bucket is the bucket of high desires. It is based on the premise that you usually cannot control desire through sheer force of will. But you can replace low desire with high desire. Pregnant women give up alcohol because their love for their unborn child diminishes the drink’s appeal.
Dopamine sometimes seems like the bad guy in this conversation, but overall, it’s an amazing neurotransmitter. It motivates us to create, learn, build, improve. Dopamine pushes us to boldly go where no one has gone before. America was practically built on dopamine. As William Casey King argues in his book “Ambition, A History”, for most of European history, ambition was regarded as a mortal sin. But when the new world was discovered, people decided that ambition was mostly a virtue, motivating us to explore.
The problem with our culture today is not so much desire but miniaturization of desire, settling for small, short-term hits. Our culture was full of institutions that sought to instill in people higher aspirations – love of God, love of country, love of learning, love of excellence in craft. Precepts, teachers, guides and the whole apparatus of moral formation were meant to widen the people’s time horizons and stimulate higher aspirations.
A culture of consumerism, of secularism, of hedonism has undermined those institutions and that vital work. Culture has changed. As Philip Reiff noted in his 1966 book, “The Triumph of the Therapeutic,” “The religious man is born to save; the psychological man is born to please.”
We have schools to train our minds and gyms to train our bodies. We receive little help training to enhance and regulate our desires. History suggests that you can increase people’s desires by giving them access to what they really want. I imagine that the cultural decline that Gioia describes in his essay could be reversed if people could experience, in school or elsewhere, the emotional impact of a great film, a great novel, a great concert. It is more desirable than TikTok. Once you’ve tasted fine wine, it’s hard to settle for Kool-Aid.
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