03-16-2020, 09:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-16-2020, 09:50 AM by RiverNotch.)
Busker, that's a false dichotomy. Both are established as ineffective means of curing addiction; one is likely to leave one dead, comatose, or relapsing, while the other isn't an attempt at curing it at all. It's not so much a "modern liberal feminist mind" that treats addiction as a disease -- perhaps a modern mind, but there's nothing particularly "liberal" or "feminist" at looking at objective fact, and treating people with greater empathy.
The point is by attacking an addiction through heroics, one seeks a sense of "glory" without actually seeking to cure the addiction, *especially* if one should already know better. Addiction and the treatment thereof is a life choice, but to consider that some life choices do not end up crippling someone, or that there are no such things as compulsions or bad faith, is to ignore one of the most fundamental things about morality, and one which the compassionate mind allows for, not in the sense of thinking mistakes are correct but in treating them in a more delicate and objective manner: human frailty.
It's true: germ theory is not much better at understanding disease than humoralism. As someone currently studying the occult, I should know. On the other hand, there comes a time when "better understanding" must give way to "better application". That's why science has evolved with modifications to germ theory, and constantly evolves as such. That's why addiction is now treated as a disease. That's why we have antibiotics and vaccines and, for example, child mortality in the developed or even developing world has decreased dramatically.
The point is by attacking an addiction through heroics, one seeks a sense of "glory" without actually seeking to cure the addiction, *especially* if one should already know better. Addiction and the treatment thereof is a life choice, but to consider that some life choices do not end up crippling someone, or that there are no such things as compulsions or bad faith, is to ignore one of the most fundamental things about morality, and one which the compassionate mind allows for, not in the sense of thinking mistakes are correct but in treating them in a more delicate and objective manner: human frailty.
It's true: germ theory is not much better at understanding disease than humoralism. As someone currently studying the occult, I should know. On the other hand, there comes a time when "better understanding" must give way to "better application". That's why science has evolved with modifications to germ theory, and constantly evolves as such. That's why addiction is now treated as a disease. That's why we have antibiotics and vaccines and, for example, child mortality in the developed or even developing world has decreased dramatically.