SOMA

There is a prescription drug called Soma. It is manufactured by MEDA pharmaceuticals for the relief of muscle and skeletal pain. It is available in 250 mg tablets. But I am not interested in this product. What I am interested in is the fictional Soma used in the novel “Brave New World,” by Aldous Huxley which was published in 1932. Why am I interested in Huxley’s Soma? Because, the real MEDA drug notwithstanding, I believe we are addicted to a much more powerful Soma, which may even surpass the Soma in Huxley’s novel, which he described as having:

All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."

SOMA is the recreation drug of the future as “Brave New World” takes place in the year 2540. But, it is more than that, it is the drug that keeps the mass of humanity manageable. Soma is mentioned in ancient Sanskrit as being a ritual drink derived from unidentified plants that had energizing qualities. So Huxley did not invent the word Soma. Neither did he coin the phrase, “Brave New World.” That distinction belongs to the famous bard, Shakespeare. In his play, “The Tempest,” in Act V, Scene I Miranda says:

O Wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!

Brave new world also appears in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” published in 1919, which includes the following lines:

“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins..”

I find that quote rather spooky, because here we are 91 years after it was published and it appears uncannily prophetic.

So, I will get to the point. I believe our national Soma is our national debt, which allows us to live beyond our means, to provide entitlements otherwise unaffordable, to subsidize entire segments of the economy, to fund grandiose programs otherwise beyond our financial grasp, to allow us to eat our cake today and never worry about paying for it. It is the national credit card that we use with zero regard to ever paying down the debt. Indeed, all we do is pay the interest due each month. Our national debt is so huge no one can define it. It is beyond comprehension and it will never be paid off. But, the interest due each month will consume an ever increasing percentage of the national income until it reaches the breaking point where the interest will exceed the income. No one knows when that will occur, but no one denies that it will occur.

Whereas with other national issues, we tend to err on the side of conservatism. We may have global warming, so let us cut green house gases. We may be running out of fossil fuels so let us find alternatives, we may be running out of fresh water, so let us conserve it. And so on. But not with the national debt. It may bankrupt the country and cause a depression that will make the one in the 1930s look like child’s play, but lets ignore it! It is too unpleasant to contemplate. It gives us a headache, so we will worry about it another day. Besides if we stop taking our Soma, we will be uncomfortable and that is unthinkable.

Our elected leaders know this and they feel compelled to keep us well supplied with our Soma. More goodies to keep us happy and subdued, lest we rise up and smite them out of office. As long as our guy or gal brings home the bacon, he or she is secure in office. It is those other undisciplined spendthrifts that are causing anguish amongst the economists. Smite them.

And so it goes as it has gone since we first learned to vote for the candidate with the most promises of Soma. As the years have gone by our addiction has reached absurd proportions. We want beautiful and plentiful highways, so we borrow money to build them, we want people to have homes even if they cannot pay for them so we borrow, we want health care for everyone so we borrow, we want the finest schools so we borrow, we want the largest and finest military so we borrow, we want the government to bail us out of natural disasters and our own follies so we borrow. We want, we want, we want. And we borrow and borrow and borrow. But what we don’t want is to have to save and wait for what we want. We want it now. So we toss our common sense on the same discard pile as frugality and thrift. After all, they are such funny old habits best forgotten. And we turn our heads from reality to fantasy. To embrace a dream from which we hope we never have to awaken. As Huxley says in “Brave New World:”

"And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is."

We, who are otherwise mature, are willing to live a charade, a farce - indeed, the human comedy because we are addicted to debt. We haven’t the national will to live within our means and being the world’s greatest debtor nation I fear we'll one day face worse than a debtor's prison. And that’s how I feel today.