💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20190120 captured on 2022-01-08 at 13:46:33.
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Solderpunk has intentionally escalated (tongue-in-cheek, I
know!) the discussion[1] about the appropriateness of
certain forms of criticism with an argument based on an edge
case (someone who is "seriously and regularly depressed"),
the assertion that the materialistic philosophy of mind has
been widely embraced in Western society over the past two
decades, and a characterization of the alternatives as
outmoded and belonging to another age![2]
Despite the era-shaming, and at the risk of accompanying
Barney to dinosaur-land, I'm still inclined to believe that
the vast majority of people do have control over their
thoughts and enjoy much less control over their appearances.
That being said, it was a thoughtful piece: it was
definitely fair to point out that my original statements
presumed that *all* people have complete control over their
mental faculties when clearly that's not the case, and it
was also fair to point out that the mind is subject to the
same biological and physical properties as our other
physical organs and traits.
Yet the characterization of depression (and in a subsequent
part of the response, by implication, mental illness) as the
product of physical/material factors (such as chemical
imbalances) alone piqued my interest for a couple of
different reasons: first, because terms such as depression
and mental illness cover a wide array of behaviours and
mental states, and assign a fixity to conditions that may
not be as 'solid' as they initially appear; and more
crucially, the nature/nurture debate has not been resolved
(as far as I'm aware), despite whatever they're doing in
diagnostic imaging labs and at pharmaceutical companies
these days. It may be premature to assert that the entire
Western world has accepted a material philosophy of mind.
Let me begin with the first point, respecting the definition
of psychological conditions, and my own sense of the
implications for the nature/nurture debate and the social
construction of mental illness.
Psychologists and psychiatrists assign fixed labels to
constellations of behaviours for which they often do not
know the causes and have no definite basis for diagnosis.
The actual behaviors they see are chaotic melanges which
their professions demand that they classify and label. As a
result, they constantly make judgment calls with respect to
who fits into this or that category of mental illness, based
on periods of discussion and/or observation. Those periods
can be rather short. Are each of the people who are slotted
into each category suffering the same condition? As
first-year psychology textbooks admit, that's doubtful. Is
each actually dysfunctional? Where is the dividing line
between 'strange behaviour' and mental illness? How can we
be sure, for example, that an individual is delusional? I
have a friend who is certain that large numbers of people
are persecuting her. Are they? In some cases, definitely.
But *I* don't *think* all of them are. I also don't share
her sense of conspiracy. Who has the perceptual problem? Me
or my friend? Do we simply determine the matter by consensus
(more people think she's wrong than right)? Or by allowing
'normal' professionals to judge 'strange' patients? If so,
then...
How do we address the fact that some mental illnesses may
not be illnesses at all, but simply behaviour-sets judged
inappropriate by a peer-group? The famous example is that
homosexuality was once classified as a mental disorder in
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders. Much of
what has been called a mental disorder has also been
labelled 'sin' at some point. If I don't like your 'deviant'
behaviour, does that make it an illness? As a sidenote, I
would imagine that a lot of people who were detained as a
result of being labelled 'mentally-disordered homosexuals'
began to exhibit all kinds of additional stress-induced
behaviours that medical professionals interpreted as further
evidence of neuroses, paranoia, etc.
On the matter of chronic depression, how do we know that our
current, modern, 21st-century depictions of depressive
mental illnesses as being clearly chemical/physical/beyond-
the-control-of-the-individuals-themselves are not in part
inspired by those who profit from drug sales? If large
numbers of adults require paxil, prozac, or xanax, does that
mean that large numbers of people are suffering from
chemical imbalances that they cannot control? Or does it
mean that they are living in some kind of intolerable
circumstances that elicit fear, anxiety, or misery? Or,
possibly, that they are also the victims of pharmaceutical
propaganda ("I want to be happy like the little puffy
floating Zoloft(tm) creatures in the commercial!")? It is at
least possible that *some* fall into a combination of the
latter two categories and might benefit from a change in
environment? It may be that a lot of children don't need
Ritalin either, but would benefit from less time spent in
conditions of confinement and less adult micro-management of
their lives. Yet each one of those people's pharmaceutical
prescriptions make them part of a body of statistical
evidence affirming the extent of depression, anxiety, and
ADD. Of course, it's in the drug companies' interest that we
believe that those conditions are *all* caused by chemical
imbalances and not environment. Many probably are, but
others probably are not.
Lastly, the drug companies are not alone in staking out
profit-making territory in the realm of mental health. There
are many groups of professionals whose livelihoods and
professions thrive on the continuation of our current
understandings of mental illness and its treatment. Some
therapists will challenge our orthodoxies. Others will make
a career of them. Few chemists will spend their time
considering the environmental causes of depression. It's a
built-in bias of their profession. No one sends a doctor
golfing or to a conference in Vegas for prescribing more
rest, exercise, or a divorce.
In the end, I'm not anti-doctor, anti-pharmaceutical, or an
anti-vaxxer for that matter. I've used a lot of "likely's"
and "probably's" in this phlog because, as I've said, I
don't think that the nature/nurture debates have ever been
'solved,' and I'm convinced that social factors play a major
role in the existence, definition and diagnosis of mental
illness (along with genetic conditions, hormone imbalances,
and the like). I don't think there's much of a profit-margin
in the social-environmental side of the equation though, and
as a result it hasn't received the same attention in the
advanced capitalist setting of the 21st century.
[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~visiblink/phlog/20190117
gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~yargo/clog/yr-joking-about-others.txt
gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~visiblink/phlog/20190118
[2] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~solderpunk/phlog/discrimination-and-philosophy-of-mind.txt