Intoxicated by Emptiness: Baudelaire, the Algorithm, and the Human Condition...

From Virtue to Virtual Likes – The Eternal Search for Meaning in an Existential Shopping Mall

There is a strange irony in the fact that Charles Baudelaire, 19th-century poet of the spleen and wine-stained despair, may have predicted 21st-century life better than any modern thinker. In a world of curated Instagrams, dopamine-drenched scrolls, AI-generated influencers, and political operas starring aging autocrats, his command to “Always be drunk” rings less like poetic whimsy and more like a survival manual for a species perpetually dangling over the void.

But don’t be fooled: Baudelaire wasn’t advocating for frat parties and tequila shots. No, his was a deeper kind of intoxication—the desperate yearning to escape the crushing awareness of time, death, and meaninglessness. He offered three poisons: wine, poetry, or virtue. The 21st century has added a few more: algorithms, status, and Uber Eats.

So the question isn’t whether we are drunk. The question is on what—and why.

I. Baudelaire’s Original Sin: The Burden of Time

Let’s rewind to the source. In The Spleen of Paris, Baudelaire writes:

“In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time… get drunk without ceasing. But on what? On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as you wish.”

At first glance, it sounds like encouragement to go wild—hedonism with a flourish of French sophistication. But Baudelaire’s spleen is more tragic than decadent. Time isn’t just ticking—it’s crushing. And drunkenness is not joy; it’s escape. Not celebration, but sedation.

Baudelaire doesn’t want pleasure—he wants anesthesia.

Fast-forward 150 years, and we find ourselves in the same position, but with more options. We have wine, poetry, virtue—but also Xanax, TikTok, identity politics, Instagram filters, cryptocurrencies, wellness cults, ketamine clinics, and entire ideologies designed to numb us.

We are not running toward meaning—we are fleeing from it.

II. The New Drunkenness: Dopamine, Domination, and Digital Delirium

Let’s explore the many Baudelairean bar tabs we’re running in the 21st century:

1. The Intoxication of Power

Whether it’s a president annexing reality or a billionaire launching rockets for sport, power has become a drug with side effects including mass delusion, populist rallies, and disturbingly patriotic theme songs.

The need to dominate is no longer subtle—it’s algorithmic. In politics, to show restraint is to perish. Modern leaders don’t govern; they perform—gripped by a narcissistic addiction to applause, virality, and the appearance of strength. Democracy has become a stage. Dictatorships, a streaming series.

Like a child demanding total attention, the intoxicated leader rewrites truth, fires missiles for approval ratings, and sells nationalism like a multi-level marketing scheme.

The people? We cheer, jeer, swipe, and refresh.

2. Narcissism as a National Pastime

Social media didn’t invent self-obsession. It just monetized it.

Every scroll is a digital mirror. Every “like” a dopamine hit. We create perfect avatars of ourselves, broadcast curated lives, and pray to the gods of engagement. Narcissus had a pond; we have TikTok.

But beneath the performative joy is an anxiety as ancient as poetry: Am I enough? And because the answer is often no, we drink again. In filters. In followers. In fantasy. But the thirst remains.

Excessive narcissism is not confidence—it’s a wound dressed in emojis.

3. Consumerism: Retail Therapy for the Soul

Baudelaire said to drink wine. We say: Buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have for an identity you can’t maintain.

Modern capitalism has mutated into a psychological opera where fulfillment is promised via two-day shipping. Our collective drunkenness on consumption is not about products—it’s about distraction. The shopping mall is the new cathedral. The checkout cart, our confessional booth.

We purchase meaning. We rent joy. And when it fades, we upgrade.

As psychoanalyst Erich Fromm warned decades ago: We no longer “are”—we “have.”

III. The Existential Cocktail: Fear, Fragmentation, and Freud

What Baudelaire intuited—and what modern psychology confirms—is that our compulsions are not random. They are driven by a deep, structural lack. As Lacan said: we are defined by what we lack, not what we possess.

So when we binge on likes, buy limited-edition sneakers, or engage in Twitter wars over nonsense, we are not asserting identity—we are masking a void.

We are terrified of silence. Of stillness. Of having to ask the ultimate question: Why am I here?

Baudelaire’s drunkenness was a way to cope with that terrifying freedom. Sartre called it “nausea.” Camus called it “the absurd.” Kierkegaard called it “dread.” Freud just called it Tuesday.

We fill the void with anything—except presence.

IV. Even Virtue Can Intoxicate

Ah yes, the one Baudelaire snuck in like a theological dare: virtue.

Is it possible to be drunk on morality? Absolutely. Look around.

Moral intoxication—the high that comes from feeling “right”—is rampant. Online virtue signaling is a full-blown digital religion, complete with purges, rituals, and symbolic sacrifices (usually celebrities or YouTubers who tweeted something dumb in 2011).

But the danger of virtue drunkenness is that it feels good—too good. Like a drug, it numbs self-doubt and reinforces tribal certainty. “We” are righteous. “They” are monsters.

Instead of creating unity, it manufactures cliques of moral supremacy.

Even goodness, when used to inflate the ego, becomes a kind of madness.

V. So... What Now?

Baudelaire's cry echoes louder than ever: Get drunk!

But on what?

On wine, and you risk cirrhosis.

On power, and you’ll ruin nations.

On self-image, and you’ll drown in insecurity.

On consumption, and you’ll bankrupt your soul.

On virtue, and you might become insufferable.

On technology, and you’ll become its product.

The problem isn’t the drunkenness—it’s the why.

We are not intoxicated because we are joyous. We are intoxicated because we are afraid. Afraid of being alone. Of being meaningless. Of facing the terrifying miracle of our own consciousness with no manual.

So we stay drunk—not to celebrate life, but to mute it.

VI. A More Sober Reflection (A Neutral Ending... We Promise)

And yet, the need to escape is not a weakness—it is profoundly human. The desire to transcend, to forget pain, to dissolve the ego and feel connected to something larger—these are not signs of sickness. They are signs of awareness.

Maybe Baudelaire wasn’t telling us to lose ourselves in intoxication. Maybe he was saying: Whatever you do, do it fully. Commit to something bigger than time. Find awe. Find wonder. Find love, truth, or a really good bottle of red—but don’t sleepwalk through life trying to outrun death.

Being “drunk,” in the poetic sense, might simply mean: be awake to the strangeness of existence. Find your wine, your poetry, your virtue—not to escape reality, but to pierce through it. Because beneath the noise and numbness, there may be something sacred.

Or maybe not.

Either way, you’ll need a drink.