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This article is not about escapology, the art of escaping physical means of restraint.

For Escapism Travel Magazine, see Escapism travel magazine.

Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant aspects of daily stress. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people do to try to help feelings of depression or general sadness.

Escapism has occurred consistently throughout human history. Some believe that this diversion is more inherent in today's urban, technological existence because it de-facto removes people from their biologically normal natures. Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency of people to remove themselves from the rigors of daily life. Principal amongst these are fiction literature, music, sports, films, television, roleplaying games, pornography, recreational drugs, the internet and computer games. Many activities that are normal parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, exercise, sexual activity) can also become avenues of escapism when taken to extreme. Over-eating, for example causes obesity. It is a very unhealthy practice of escapism.

In the context of being taken to an extreme, the word 'escapism' carries a negative connotation, suggesting that escapists are unhappy, with an inability or unwillingness to connect meaningfully with the world.

Some social critics warn about attempts by the powers that control society to provide means of escapism instead of actually bettering the condition of the people: for example, Karl Marx said "Religion is the opium of the people". This is contrary to the thought of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who argued that people try to find satisfaction in material things to fill a void within them that only God can fill.

Others may argue that means of escapism are provided by capitalism to those who desire a form of "escape." Some fictional escapist societies are the Eloi of The Time Machine as well as those depicted in certain dystopian novels. Examples of this are Fahrenheit 451, where society uses television and "seashell radios" to escape an otherwise bland life and Brave New World where drugs and recreational sex are used.

However, there are some who challenge the idea that escapism is fundamentally and exclusively negative. For instance, J.R.R. Tolkien, responding to the Anglo-Saxon academic debate on escapism in the 1930s, wrote in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" that escapism had an element of emancipation in its attempt to figure a different reality. His friend C. S. Lewis was also fond of remarking that the usual enemies of escapism were jailers.

A German social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfillment, however regressive they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is mere 'daydreaming' or 'escapism' from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, it can be seen as an "immature, but honest substitute for revolution".

• Escapism - What & Why? Explanation of the rise of escapism from an altruistic perspective.

• Ernst Bloch, Utopia and Ideology Critique