💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20190120 captured on 2022-01-08 at 13:46:33.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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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