Addiction Becomes Normal: On the Late-Modern American Subject

Addiction is now seen as an ordinary feature of human nature, an idea that introduces new doubts about the meaning of our desires.

Over the last forty years, a variety of developments in American science, politics, and culture have reimagined addiction in their own ways, but they share an important understanding: increasingly, addiction is described as normal, the natural result of a body that has been exposed to potent stimuli. This shift in thinking suggests that addiction is a condition...