My Occupation Now, I Suppose, Is Jail

Crowding, Rapid Change And The Breakdown Of Communities Have Been Widely Recognized As Sources Of Social Problems. But We Do Not Believe They Are Enough To Account For The Extent Of The Problems That Are Seen Today.

People Do Not Consciously And Rationally Choose The Form Of Their Society. Societies Develop Through Processes Of Social Evolution That Are Not Under Rational Human Control.

To Those Who Think That All This Sounds Like Science Fiction, We Point Out That Yesterday's Science Fiction Is Today's Fact. The Industrial Revolution Has Radically Altered Man's Environment And Way Of Life, And It Is Only To Be Expected That As Technology Is Increasingly Applied To The Human Body And Mind, Man Himself Will Be Altered As Radically As His Environment And Way Of Life Have Been.

Imagine A Society That Subjects People To Conditions That Make Them Terribly Unhappy, Then Gives Them The Drugs To Take Away Their Unhappiness. Science Fiction? It Is Already Happening To Some Extent In Our Own Society... Instead Of Removing The Conditions That Make People Depressed, Modern Society Gives Them Antidepressant Drugs. In Effect, Antidepressants Are A Means Of Modifying An Individual's Internal State In Such A Way As To Enable Him To Tolerate Social Conditions That He Would Otherwise Find Intolerable.

Our Society Tends To Regard As A Sickness Any Mode Of Thought Or Behavior That Is Inconvenient For The System And This Is Plausible Because When An Individual Doesn't Fit Into The System It Causes Pain To The Individual As Well As Problems For The System. Thus The Manipulation Of An Individual To Adjust Him To The System Is Seen As A Cure For A Sickness And Therefore As Good.