30. Dismantling Our Ethical Guardrails Releases Addictive Dopamine
Our social mores serve as ethical guardrails that steer our focus and behavior. What are our social mores? First and foremost is the belief that human life is special, that we are more than mere material, more than sophisticated animals. As special forms of life, we Americans, uniquely, were afforded special rights that trumped all laws. Our social mores stemmed from over 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian morality. Ethical guardrails formed to keep us focused on hope and opportunity. Ethical guardrails, based on social mores, are not necessarily laws, but rather moral beliefs held by a majority of citizens. Traditionally, these guardrails were administered by and largely protected and guided the sanctity and political power of the family. Today, they are being dismantled.
Among the guardrails that are being dismantled are social prohibitions against homosexuality, abortion, and gambling. This does not mean that gambling, abortions, and homosexuality did not exist; for over 2,000 years, they did. It meant that these practices were socially frowned upon and in many localities against the law. Our merit system that rewarded effort and accomplishment has also been under attack. Social mores inhibited their practice and prevalence or, in the case of merit, rewarded effort and accomplishment. These social inhibitions and rewards, governed by the family, formed guardrails; now, those powers have largely migrated to the federal government, which has become a less efficient administrator. When we look at the dismantling of social mores today, we must note the transfer of family power and decision-making to the state.
Due to state oversight, psycho/sociological behaviors rampant today, particularly among young adults, underpinning many of our demonstrations and riots experienced since 2020, have become political and tribal. When we attempt to answer who, what, how, and why, these guardrails have been taken down, we cannot discount the power transfer from the family to the state. This ethical disruption was preceded by decades of academic erosion of our guardrails and now, in many geographic regions, guardrails have been removed. Our academics, over decades, have intellectualized away these socially protective inhibitions and rewards, our guardrails, often because they were based on a theistic belief that academics see no evidence for when following the scientific method.
Although extreme leftist platitudes are still too offensive for many, many Americans today are in an abyss without the protection of traditional guardrails. The government's tolerance of historic statute destruction has occurred sporadically for years and was a precursor to the government's tolerance, which effectively condoned the riots in 2020. After George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, riots devolved into purely tribal behavior, which was unleashed across America. Why are differences on issues increasingly devolving into destructive and often violent tribal demonstrations?
During hundreds of riots that took place during the second half of 2020, property damage was assessed at over $2 billion and 25 people died, largely caused by BLM, Antifa, and financed by Soros, Zuckerberg, and others.” (Mike Gonzales, Heritage Foundation, June 24, 2022). What cultural and ethical changes are underlying these violent demonstrations that devolved into riots? Are there underlying hormonal changes in individuals that influenced these tribal outbursts? Although in 2024 the issues have changed (George Floyd to Palestine), the participants and tribalistic actions are very similar. I suspect hormonally releasing a flood of cortisol, adrenaline, and finally dopamine. Adrenaline and cortisol produced by extreme stress and fear trigger the release of dopamine, creating false euphoric feelings independent of what the action is. We must also mention that in 2024 in America, there is a huge prevalence of cortisol; another hormone released to deal with stress, a by-product of excess cortisol is obesity.
“In 1980 Obesity in America was 15%. . . . Today White obesity is 41.4%, Hispanic obesity is 44.6%, and Black obesity is 49.9%.” Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This was accompanied by stress-induced cortisol and a subsequent excess of adrenaline. “When you get anxious, the body makes two hormones cortisol and dopamine.” (Cleveland Clinic). The release of dopamine presents a false euphoria that is most likely extending the tribal rage. “Acute stress is associated with increased dopamine dysfunction and autonomic output in animals and humans, and evidence indicates that cortisol results in dopamine release.” (NIH). Cortisol, the stress hormone, that causes obesity is running at high levels, causing many adrenal rushes from extreme stress leading to dopamine releases from addictive behaviors that are destructive.
We must also consider the government’s changed posture of tolerance to certain forms of crowd violence. The tolerance of demonstrations blocking roadways and chants of “death to America.” However, DOJ’s tolerance today as well as their tolerance during the Floyd riots violated federal and local law and go well beyond protections afforded by the First Amendment. Why does DOJ acquiesce to these forms of destructive behaviors that would have never been tolerated in the past? Why did DOJ tolerate the 2020 riots? Because our social mores have changed and the once-ethical guardrails the mores provided (that protected us) are down. In 2020 and 2024 election years, it has become a political decision by the politicians in power who need the votes of the demonstrators.
Over the last 70 years, give or take, this has unleashed an unending onslaught of federal welfare, 33% fatherless families (which is a sentence to poverty), and dramatic increases in abortions. Stress-related drug use and addiction to the release of more dopamine have been equally disruptive as family oversight and administration of the guardrails migrated to the federal government. State lotteries emerged in the 70s further disrupting the prohibition against gambling and compulsive gamblers broadened fueling the hormonal change. All gambling is dopamine driven. Wave after wave of tribal behavior based on stress and extended by the false reality of the release of more dopamine has increasingly proliferated. Particularly among young adults. The government’s toleration in reaction to this extreme nonconformity has approved these tribal behaviors as a new acceptable social etiquette. Furthermore, by applying selective laws to selective groups while allowing many to act out lawlessly, it has reduced the power of law.
The government’s selective, heavy-handed imprisonment of approximately 350 Jan. 6 demonstrators by finding them guilty of misdemeanors and a felony (of evidence tampering) that had never been used to charge demonstrators or rioters before and is before the Supreme Court and should be rejected by the Supreme Court in June of ’24. This is the same law that is being used against Mr. Trump. Although there were many other charges for the demonstrators, they were all misdemeanors. “What happened on January 6 was very, very serious . . . but we need to find out what are the outer reaches of this statute under DOJ’s interpretation” (Judge Alito, Supreme Court April 17, 2024). This charge had never been used outside of evidence tampering. The Supreme Court trial will start on April 25. This severe response by DOJ is contrasted by the tepid response by DOJ during both the Floyd riots and the recent Palestine demonstrations blocking traffic and threatening death to Americans.”
“The average stock holdings in the 1970s were 6.5 years; today it is less than 10 months.” Ben Carlson, Feb. 17, 2023(A wealth of Common Sense). Citizens are taking more risks and experiencing more stress. The breakdown in society’s ethical guardrails has paralleled increased stress, obesity, and a declining standard of living triggering increased release of dopamine which in turn, causes more risky, short-term actions. This makes the traditional context of saving, hope, and opportunity more remote and unattainable.
Americans have increasingly collected in geographic enclaves to shield themselves from the pockets of dysfunction and pretended the dysfunction didn’t exist by merely avoiding the problem directly, not realizing that hiding in enclaves is not an escape. Politicians have grown timid to impose spending limits as the dysfunction increased in single-parent families to 33% (Gov.) the needy expanded and politicians chose to fund it rather than change.
Oxytocin is the “love hormone”; it is released by human contact where a good feeling is correlated with an external good outcome unlike dopamine when a good feeling is independent of outcome (a gambling loss or win feels equally good) A point worth noting, America a country of over 330 million with almost no starvation and with the highest standard of living for a population that size in the world is experiencing abnormal stress, measured by its excess cortisol presence and obesity percentage of over 45%. Moreover, Americans are setting records in addictive behaviors that are changing their hormonal balances leaning toward excess adrenal and dopamine and on the periphery, students are showing tribal behavior on numerous campuses.
Dopamine makes you feel good independent of whether or not the action pursued while high is positive or negative. Whether you are addicted to drugs, gambling, or suffer from anorexia (even if you’re starving to death), drug addiction, compulsive gambling losses, are all rewarded by the false euphoria of dopamine. Add tribal rioting to the list of false euphoria from dopamine. Today dopamine is evident in tribal destructive demonstrations, and the participants seem no more aware that they are fueled by an addictive hormone that camouflages deadly behaviors and these tribal acts are increasing in frequency, all because of our weakened ethical foundations that have dismantled traditional guardrails, transferring political power from the family to the federal government that is doing a lousy job of administering that power.
Have a blessed week!
Tony Christ