[And now, a few new words added in 2026:]
"Addiction" has become a socially acceptable way to explain evil, cruel and malicious behavior —it is more socially acceptable to explain behavior as "an addiction" rather than even inquiring into the possibility of true evil, cruelty and malice.
Of course, there are other categories to consider: rather than dealing with laziness and self-indulgence, for example, it would be more socially acceptable to explain the given behavior as "an addiction".
Why is it socially acceptable? (1) The concept of addiction is separate from the identity of the addict, whereas other personal characteristics are not. (2) This separation between addiction and identity implies the possibility of a treatment or cure: we are willing to assume that the addiction can be removed while the addict remains. (3) The very idea of addiction reduces personal responsibility and dilutes the concept of the motive cause.
If someone becomes a prostitute "for an addiction" or "because of an addiction" we are expected (culturally) to avoid questioning any other motivations or (incurable) personal characteristics that created this situation; even with murder, the crime is thought of in a totally different way as soon as the concept of addiction is involved.
Accomplishing nothing in particular over several years: if this is explained as the result of "an addiction" (to video games, to pornography, or both, for example) we avoid thinking through the real motivations and questions of character that created the situation —even if it is a situation unlikely to be investigated as thoroughly as the scene of a murder or the sudden choice to change careers and become a prostitute.
Addiction is a category that prevents clear thinking about the addict and the decisions they make. The possibility that the video game addict may be an evil person, with truly dark and terrible motivations for the decisions they make, and the notion that they should be held responsible, barely emerges from the smokescreen created as soon as the behavior is placed in this category.
At this moment, I have a very serious spinal injury: either it can be cured or it cannot, either I can recover or I cannot. I am my spinal injury. I am my disability. There is no real separation between the two of us. The whole moral character of the problem changes if I claim that the spinal injury is a result of an addiction. Perhaps an addiction to exercise at the gym, for example. Now we have a very different question: either I can overcome the addiction or I cannot. And now we all imagine that the addiction is something very different from the person who suffers from it, as a parasite is different from the host that carries it, and so on.
"The excuses are harder to quit than the thing itself" has been my catchphrase for many years: the very concept of addiction is a kind of excuse-making mechanism. I do not think there is a falsifiable, scientific reality to "pornography addiction" in the same sense that there is a falsifiable, scientific reality to my spinal injury —nor in the same sense that there's a falsifiable, scientific reality to diabetes. If it doesn't show up on an x-ray or a blood test, it doesn't exist.
Yeah. That's nihilism, baby. I don't care if your therapist told you that you're still some wonderful person "underneath" your addiction, as if it were a mask you could remove: in this case, I do not believe in the distinction between the mask and the face. I am my spinal injury, and you are your addictions: you are the excuses you've made for yourself.
