Their society is at least as harsh as ours and does translate to addiction though not necessarily to drugs.
That responses to harsh stimulus of achievement-oriented societies is addictive but perhaps not drug-oriented, and response to lack of achievement orientation is also connected to addictive behaviors indicates that perhaps addiction runs deeper to the human condition. If we consider Marx' analogy of religion as the opiate of the masses clearly addiction -- when religion is included -- is a facet of the human condition. There is nothing unique to American society that drives addictiveness; it is merely our humanity that drives it. We invented all of our addictions to help us take shortcuts towards coping. If caffeine sparks our mornings and alcohol dulls our nights, then religion allows us to accept death and love allows us to medicate the inherent loneliness of our individual existence.
Ultimately, Slater strikes at addictiveness in...
What I see is that the issue goes deeper than Slater allows, although this comparing the addictions of a socioeconomic class that has no achievement orientation with the addictions of a class that does should have told him he needed to dig deeper. It is not the "quick-fix mentality" of American society, therefore, that drives addictiveness in Americans. As humans, we seek a quick fix. It is easier to put faith in a god that one will go to heaven than it is to study for years in a Buddhist monastery in order to learn how to transition into death the same as it is easier to regulate our bodies and moods with substances. Slater stops too quickly in his analysis. Although he seems at times to recognize that addictiveness is a human condition, his provincial outlook drives him to comment merely on American society, rather than testing his hypothesis on the human race as a whole.
