Copyright © 2026 Knight Sac Media. All rights reserved.https://www.siliconinvestor.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=32341c.horn: Mr. Vice President. To begin, I understand that you still stand by every word in your 1993 book, Earth in the Balance ---which warns us, among other things, that the internal combustion engine is one of the greatest threats to the planet. Gore: Although the book has been attacked--- cheify by political opponents of the sweeping changes in policy it recommends --- no challenge to the accuracy of its facts or the fairness of its analysis has been sustained. c.horn: Well, before we get to all that --- I was interested in a little-noticed section of you book in which you write about "dysfunctional families" You spend a great many pages discussing dysfunction and addiction. Gore: The cleavage in the modern world between mind and body,man and nature, has created a new kind of addiction: I believe that our civilization is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the earth itself. c.horn: No, no --- I realize you believe our entire civilization is "dysfunctional." And by the way, you might go easy on words like "cleavage." But I'm not talking about our so-called addicted civilization. I mean --- Gore:The froth and frenzy of industrial civilization mask our deep loneliness for that communion with the world that can lift our spirits and fill our senses with the richness and the immediacy of life itself. c.horn: Okay. Sir, really, we'll get to that. But I was referring to the part in chapter 12 where you talk about actual people with problems. Addicts, for instance. Can you go over what you have to say on "the pathology of addiction?" Gore: Denial is the strategy used by those who wish to believe that they can continue their addicted lives with no ill effects for themselves or others.... c.horn: Denial? And you say this starts in childhood. Such children --- Gore: --- begin to look constantly to others for approval and validation they so desperately need. The new term "codependancy" descibes the reliance on another for validation and positive feelings about oneself. c.horn: Well, we've heard terrible things happen when there are conflicts between the mother and the grandmother. Could the codependancy you reference include, perhaps, a spouse, later in life? Gore: The energy fueling this insatiable search continues into adulthood, frequently causing addictive behavior and an approch to relationships that might be described, in the words of a popular song, as "looking for love in all the wrong places." c.horn: Remind you of anyone? Mr. Vice President? Ahem. In any event, how does this sort of thing, according to your theory, typically play out? Gore: As their lives move further out of balance, addicts invest increasing amounts of energy in their relationship to the objects of their addiction. c.horn: Even when they're talking on the phone about, say, troop movements in Bosnia? Gore: Once addicts focus on false communion with substitutes for life, the rhythm of their dull and deadening routine becomesincreasingly more incompatible, discordant, and dis...https://www.siliconinvestor.com/images/Logo380x132.pnghttps://www.siliconinvestor.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=3234138013210