Back in February, the music historian Ted Gioia wrote an essay on the state of American culture. He argued that many creative people want to create art (work that puts demands on people), but all the commercial pressures push them to create entertainment (which gives audiences what they want). As a result, for the past many years, entertainment (superhero movies) has been swallowing up art (literary novels and serious dramas).

But now, Gioia observed, even the entertainment business is in crisis. Hollywood studios are laying off employees. The number of new scripted TV series is down. That’s because entertainment is being swallowed up by distraction (TikTok, Instagram). People stay on their phones because it’s easier. Each object of distraction lasts only a few seconds and doesn’t require any cognitive work; the audience just keeps scrolling.

Our dopamine-driven brains drive us to choose cheap distraction over entertainment and art. A 15-second video causes a dopamine release in the brain, which creates a desire for more stimulus, which leads to the habit of more scrolling on your phone, which leads to an addiction to more stimulus. If distraction is swallowing entertainment in our culture, addiction is also swallowing distraction.

Gioia wrote: “The tech platforms aren’t like the Medici in Florence, or those other rich patrons of the arts. They don’t want to find the next Michelangelo or Mozart. They want to create a world of junkies — because they will be the dealers.”

The phenomenon Gioia describes isn’t happening just to culture; it recurs across American life. We have access to wonderful things. But they require effort, so we settle for the junky things that provide the quick dopamine hits. We could all be eating a Mediterranean diet, but instead it’s potato chips and cherry Coke. We could enjoy the richness of full awareness, but booze, weed and other drugs provide that quick reward. Think of all the things in American life that seem to offer that burst of stimulation but threaten to be addictive — gambling, porn, video games, checking email.

早在二月，音樂歷史學家特德‧喬亞就寫了一篇關於美國文化狀況的文章。他認為，許多有創造力的人想要創造藝術（對人們提出要求的工作），但所有的商業壓力都迫使他們創造娛樂（為觀眾提供他們想要的東西）。結果，多年來，娛樂（超級英雄電影）一直在吞噬藝術（文學小說和嚴肅戲劇）。

但現在，喬亞觀察到，即使是娛樂產業也陷入了危機。好萊塢電影公司正在裁員。新劇本電視劇數量下降。這是因為娛樂正在被幹擾所吞噬（TikTok、Instagram）。人們繼續使用手機是因為這樣比較方便。每個分散注意力的物件只持續幾秒鐘，且不需要任何認知工作；觀眾只是不斷滾動。

我們的多巴胺驅動的大腦驅使我們選擇廉價的消遣而不是娛樂和藝術。 15秒的影片會導致大腦釋放多巴胺，從而產生對更多刺激的渴望，從而導致更多地滾動手機的習慣，從而導致對更多刺激的成癮。如果在我們的文化中，分心正在吞噬娛樂，那麼成癮也正在吞噬分心。

喬亞寫道：「科技平台不像佛羅倫斯的美第奇家族，或其他富有的藝術贊助者。他們不想找到下一個米開朗基羅或莫札特。他們想要創造一個癮君子的世界——因為他們將成為毒販。

喬亞所描述的現像不僅發生在文化中；也發生在文化中。它在美國人的生活中反覆出現。我們有機會接觸到美好的事物。但它們需要努力，所以我們滿足於那些能快速產生多巴胺的垃圾東西。我們都可以吃地中海飲食，但取而代之的是薯片和櫻桃可樂。我們可以享受充分意識的豐富性，但酒精、大麻和其他藥物可以提供快速的回報。想想美國人生活中所有看似能帶來刺激但又可能上癮的事物——賭博、色情、電子遊戲、查看電子郵件。

Even journalism has found ways to trigger dopamine for profit. We journalists go into this business to inform and provoke, but many outlets have found they can generate clicks by telling partisan viewers how right they are about everything. Minute after minute they’re rubbing their audience’s pleasure centers, which feels like a somewhat older profession.

The result is we’re now in a culture in which we want worse things — the cheap hit over the long flourishing. You reach for immediate gratification, but it fails to satisfy. It just puts you on a hamster wheel of looking for the next mild stimulus and pretty soon you’re in the land of addiction and junk food, you just keep scrolling, you just keep snacking. As the psychiatrist Anna Lembke writes in her book “Dopamine Nation,” “The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy.”

Big companies don’t care. They have become sensational at arousing and manipulating our cravings. Their goal is to keep us consuming. By offering constant temptation, they appeal straight to our dopamine circuits and threaten to circumvent our capacity for self-control. In their book “The Molecule of More,” Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long write, “The sensation of wanting is not a choice you make. It is a reaction to the things you encounter.” The cookie, cat video or margarita is right there in front of you, whispering, “Consume me!” You can’t resist.

Modern life makes us vulnerable to these seducers. People live overwhelmed lives, exhausted, anxious. Willpower is drained. Big Gulps and trashy TV at least provide a break. But afterward, there come the recriminations: Why did I do that? So millions turn to therapists, dietitians, trainers, 12-step programs, lifestyle experts and authors of books on habit formation in order to regain control over their desires.

甚至新聞業也找到了激發多巴胺以獲取利潤的方法。我們記者從事這一行業的目的是提供資訊和挑釁，但許多媒體發現，他們可以透過告訴有黨派傾向的觀眾他們對所有事情的看法是多麼正確來產生點擊量。他們一分鐘又一分鐘地摩擦著觀眾的快樂中心，這感覺像是一個有點古老的職業。

結果是我們現在所處的文化中我們想要更糟糕的東西——廉價的打擊而不是長期的繁榮。你追求即時的滿足，卻無法滿足。它只會讓你陷入尋找下一個溫和刺激的倉鼠輪子上，很快你就陷入了成癮和垃圾食品的境地，你只是繼續滾動，你只是繼續吃零食。正如精神病學家安娜·倫布克（Anna Lembke）在她的著作《多巴胺國家》（Dopamine Nation）中所寫的那樣，「矛盾之處在於，享樂主義，即為了享樂本身而追求快樂，會導致快感缺失，即無法享受。

大公司不在乎。它們在激發和操縱我們的慾望方面變得非常出色。他們的目標是讓我們繼續消費。透過提供持續的誘惑，它們直接吸引我們的多巴胺迴路，並威脅要規避我們的自我控制能力。丹尼爾·Z·利伯曼（Daniel Z. Lieberman）和邁克爾·E·朗（Michael E. Long）在他們的著作《更多的分子》中寫道：「想要的感覺不是你所做的選擇。這是對你遇到的事情的反應。餅乾、貓影片或瑪格麗特就在你面前，低聲說：“吃掉我吧！”你無法抗拒。

現代生活讓我們很容易受到這些誘惑。人們過著不堪負荷的生活，疲憊不堪，焦慮不安。意志力被耗盡。大口大口地喝水和垃圾電視至少可以讓我們休息一下。但事後卻出現了指責：我為什麼這麼做？因此，數百萬人求助於治療師、營養師、培訓師、12步計劃、生活方式專家和習慣養成書籍的作者，以重新控制自己的慾望。

The great volume of advice that flows from these people seems to fall into three buckets. First, there is the self-binding bucket. Create rules so you don’t have easy access to the things that tempt you: No phones in school. No carbs in your diet. No alcohol in the house. A woman I once knew got dumped by her boyfriend; of course she came home with a big tub of ice cream. Halfway through the tub she grew 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 on the ice cream to help her resist temptation. Effective self-binding.

Then there is the here and now bucket. Don’t go searching for the next dopamine hit; enjoy the life that you already have around you. The neuroscientist Kent Berridge has shown that the wanting circuits in the brain are different from the liking circuits. So try to stimulate the liking circuits by amping up your enjoyment of the life you already have.

For example, Lembke, the psychiatrist, had a patient who suffered from depression and anxiety and spent her life plugged into Instagram, YouTube and all the rest. Lembke suggested that the patient walk through her days without any devices and let her own thoughts surface.

The patient was dumbstruck at the suggestion. “Why would I do that?” she asked. Lembke said it’s a way of becoming familiar with yourself and not being consumed by distractions. “But it’s so boring,” the patient countered. Boredom can be good, an opportunity for reflection, Lembke argued. Finally, the patient agreed to put down her phone during walks. Later, she reported back to Lembke: “It was hard at first. But then I got used to it and even kind of liked it. I started noticing the trees.”

The third bucket is the higher desires bucket. That’s based on the premise that you usually can’t control a desire through sheer willpower. But you can replace a low desire with a higher desire. Pregnant women give up alcohol because the appeal of a drink is dwarfed by their love for their coming child.

這些人提出的大量建議似乎分為三類。首先是自綁定桶。制定規則，這樣你就不會輕易接觸到那些吸引你的東西：學校裡禁止使用手機。你的飲食中沒有碳水化合物。家裡沒有酒。我曾經認識的一個女人被她的男朋友甩了；當然，她帶著一大桶冰淇淋回家。浴缸洗到一半時，她對自己感到厭惡，把它扔進了垃圾桶。十分鐘後，她開始翻垃圾，以便能再吃點東西。最後，她把洗潔精倒在冰淇淋上，幫助自己抵抗誘惑。有效的自我約束。

然後是此時此地的桶子。不要去尋找下一個多巴胺刺激；享受你周圍已有的生活。神經科學家肯特·貝里奇（Kent Berridge）表明，大腦中的需求迴路與喜好迴路不同。因此，嘗試透過增強對現有生活的享受來刺激喜好迴路。

例如，精神科醫生倫布克（Lembke）有一位患有憂鬱症和焦慮症的患者，她一生都沉迷於 Instagram、YouTube 等其他網站。倫布克建議患者在沒有任何設備的情況下度過她的日子，讓她自己的想法浮現出來。

病人對這個建議感到目瞪口呆。 “我為什麼要這麼做？”她問。倫布克說，這是一種熟悉自己、不被幹擾所困擾的方式。「但這太無聊了，」病人反駁。倫布克認為，無聊可能是件好事，是反思的機會。最後，患者同意在散步時放下手機。後來，她向倫布克報告：「一開始很難。但後來我就習慣了，甚至有點喜歡它。我開始注意到這些樹。

第三個桶子是更高的慾望桶。這是基於這樣的前提：你通常無法透過純粹的意志力來控制慾望。但你可以用更高的慾望來取代低度的慾望。孕婦戒酒是因為與她們對即將出生的孩子的愛相比，飲料的吸引力相形見絀。

Dopamine can sometimes sound like the bad guy in this conversation, but all in all, it’s an awesome neurotransmitter. It’s what drives us to create, to learn, to build, to improve. Dopamine pushes us to boldly go where no person has gone before. America was practically built on dopamine. As William Casey King argues in his book “Ambition, a History,” throughout most of European history, ambition was regarded as a terrible sin. But when the New World was discovered, people decided that ambition is mostly a virtue, driving us to explore.

The problem with our culture today is not too much desire but the miniaturization of desire, settling for these small, short-term hits. Our culture used to be full of institutions that sought to arouse people’s higher desires — the love of God, the love of country, the love of learning, the love of being excellent at a craft. Sermons, teachers, mentors and the whole apparatus of moral formation were there to elongate people’s time horizons and arouse the highest desires.

The culture of consumerism, of secularism, of hedonism has undermined those institutions and that important work. The culture has changed. As Philip Rieff noticed all the way back in his 1966 book, “The Triumph of the Therapeutic,” “Religious man was born to be saved; psychological man is born to be pleased.”

We have schools to train our minds and gyms to train our bodies. We get less help training, elevating and regulating our desires. History suggests you can elevate people’s desires by giving them access to what is truly worth wanting. I imagine the cultural decline that Gioia described in his essay can be turned around if people can experience, at school or somewhere else, the emotional impact of a great film, a great novel, a great concert. It’s more desirable than a TikTok. Once you’ve tasted the fine wine, it’s harder to settle for Kool-Aid.

多巴胺有時聽起來像是談話中的壞人，但總而言之，它是一種很棒的神經傳導物質。它是推動我們創造、學習、建造和改進的動力。多巴胺促使我們大膽地去前人未曾去過的地方。美國其實是建立在多巴胺之上的。正如威廉·凱西·金在其著作《野心，一段歷史》中所指出的那樣，在整個歐洲歷史上，野心被視為一種可怕的罪。但當新大陸被發現時，人們認為野心主要是一種美德，驅使我們去探索。

今天我們文化的問題不是太多的慾望，而是慾望的小型化，滿足於這些小小的、短期的打擊。我們的文化曾經充滿了旨在激發人們更高慾望的機構──對上帝的愛、對國家的愛、對學習的愛、對精湛技藝的愛。講道、教師、導師和整個道德形成機構的存在是為了拉長人們的時間視野並激發最高的慾望。

消費主義、世俗主義和享樂主義文化破壞了這些機構和重要的工作。文化已經改變。正如菲利普·里夫 (Philip Rieff) 在 1966 年出版的著作《治療的勝利》中所指出的那樣，「宗教人士生來就是為了得救；心理上的人生來就是快樂的。

我們有學校來訓練我們的思想，有健身房來訓練我們的身體。我們在訓練、提升和調節我們的慾望方面得到的幫助越來越少。歷史表明，你可以透過讓人們獲得真正值得想要的東西來提升他們的慾望。我想，如果人們能夠在學校或其他地方體驗一部偉大的電影、一部偉大的小說、一場偉大的音樂會所帶來的情感影響，那麼喬亞在他的文章中描述的文化衰落就可以得到扭轉。它比 TikTok 更受歡迎。一旦你嚐過美酒，就很難再接受酷愛飲料了。

The Junkification of American Life

美國生活的垃圾化