The Final Circle of Paradise by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

 


The above cover is for the Russian edition of The Final Circle of Paradise by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a novel raising a number of provocative philosophic questions revolving around politics, society and what it means to be human.

I'll focus on a key element: a newly created drug called "slug" that comes in the form of a small electronic piece that can be easily plugged into an electrical outlet. And once activated, slug generates an artificial reality decidedly more intense, more pleasurable, more ecstatic than our normal waking reality, so much so one can become instantly addicted and spend nearly all day and night lying in the bathtub under the spell of slug, "the final circle of paradise"- until (gulp) the probability of brain hemorrhaging causing death.

So the obvious question: to what extent should the manufacture, sale and use of slug be permitted? What if slug would instantly relieve people of their chronic pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia or obsession to things like food, sex, pornography? But how about slug being used as simply a recreational drug? And what if, as in the novel, there is a real possibility of the entire human population becoming addicted to slug leading to the end of any striving for social and cultural development and change?

In our brave new 21st century world of addiction to things like opioids, computer games, TV and mass media, these questions have a weight far beyond the abstract.


Arkady and Boris Strugatsky