In 2004, global pharmaceutical sales surpassed the $500 billion threshold for the first time. With fewer than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for almost 50 percent of global sales. Roughly half of all Americans used at least one prescription drug daily.

— Medicating Modern America

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ما يحدث هو أنّ الأخ الكبير يتم استيعابه (internalized) فيتحول من طاغيةٍ يراقب تصرفاتك لكنه يترك لعقلك وخيالِك الحرية بالتصرف كيفما يشاءان، إلى ما يشبه الضمير فيحاسبك على كلّ صغيرةٍ وكبيرة. عندها، حتى آخر ملاذٍ للحرية، وهو الذات والعقل (الذي ليس لقيصر ولا السلطان قدرةٌ عليه) ينقلب إلى مخبرٍ سري وموظفٍ لدى الأخ الكبير.

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It is true that today, more than ever, you are free to do whatever you want.
But it is also true that today, what you want is largely dictated to you by the big Other. Our dreams, desires, and thoughts are becoming increasingly shaped by the Other, be it the government, some mega-corporation on another continent, or some edgy teen on TikTok.

In the past, your identity and thoughts used to be shaped by your family and the small community you live in. Who 'The Big Brother' was, was obvious (sometimes he was literally your big brother). And therefore the way to resist him and gain some measure of freedom was also straightforward.
But now, The Big Brother has become like God; transcendent, hiding, and unknown. In the past, you believed in what you believed in, because that's your parents or friends belief. Now you're under the illusion that you, like Descartes, arrived to your beliefs through sheer reason and freedom of thought. This makes the struggle for freedom much harder, because the oppressor is worse than hidden, he is thought to be non-existent.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Today, we do not deem ourselves subjugated subjects, but rather projects: always refashioning and reinventing ourselves. A sense of freedom attends passing from the state of subject to that of project. All the same, this projection amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint – indeed, to a more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation. As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the I is now subjugating itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.

— Psychopolitics, by Byung-Chul Han

Just started reading it tbh, but I think it's a great book on the subject Murtadha mentioned

أكو بعد كتاب، ما قاريه بس حسبما أعرف هم مرتبط بالموضوع:
Manufacturing consent, by Noam Chomsky

'House of Memories'

أَفدي ظِباءَ فَلاةٍ ماعَرَفنَ بِها
مَضغَ الكَلامِ وَلا صبغَ الحَواجيبِ

وَلا بَرَزنَ مِنَ الحَمّامِ ماثِلَةً
أَوراكُهُنَّ صَقيلاتِ العَراقيبِ

ما أَوجُهُ الحَضَرِ المُستَحسَناتِ بِهِ
كَأَوجُهِ البَدَوِيّاتِ الرَعابيبِ

حُسنُ الحَضارَةِ مَجلوبٌ بِتَطرِيَةٍ
وَللبَداوَةِ حُسنٌ غَيرُ مَجلوبِ

— أبو الطيب المتنبي

العَراقيب: جمع عُرقوب، وهو وتر يمتد من خلف الركبة إلى الكعب. يسمّى أحيانًا بالوتر العَقبي (Achilles tendon)

When people talk about their moral principles, they either talk about how they would ideally want to behave (how their better selves would behave, not their real selves), or they use these socially acceptable moral principles to cover up their socially unacceptable immoral behavior.

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"المبادئ، يمينًا إنك تجلس على المبادئ مِثلَ جلوسك على خازوق، فلست تجرؤ أنْ تقوم بحركة واحدة على ما يشاء هواك"

- الجريمة والعقاب ج1