I was reading that Capitalism Realism book that is so often recommended here, and Fisher claims that the left should view mental illness as a structural problem of contemporary capitalism instead of the personal defects of individuals. But despite all the praise Fisher got for his book here, nobody seems to be talking about it, and I remember many cases, like when we discussed Gábor Máté and his idea that addiction is a social problem instead of a personal one, which closely resembles what Fisher is talking about, everyone was making fun of people blaming capitalism for their own faults. Or every time someone says that anti-depressants and modern psychology are scams, they are called a conspiracy theorist and unscientific. Not to mention that even if we were to pursue this topic we would have to deal with the right-wing claiming that we are just simply weak. The internet is already full of "great" advice that basically amounts to "lol just like be happy and stuff."
I think it's undeniable that capitalism makes us mentally ill at least to some extent. Just look at countries with massive suicide rates and poor communities with addiction problems. It's been a long time since I've listened to some of the talks Maté did, so I can't really talk about his ideas. Does he have any books or articles worth reading? What I can say, though, is that mind-numbing work is fucking depressing and that the over-prescription of opioids due to it being profitable gets communities hooked on drugs. I also don't know if you're implying leftists here blame society's ills on individuals instead of capitalism/society as a whole, or that right-wingers/liberals are doing that.
Tyler Peterson
I'm not sure about suicide. I'm from a country that's well known for being suicidal, some even went as far as to claim that it's in our genes, and it seems to be transhistorical. Actually I've been meaning to look into suicide but couldn't find any serious books on the topic, or academic papers broad (or specific) enough, that were available for pirating.
I'm not very familiar with his works, only listened to that talk of his that was posted here ages ago. I guess you've heard it also: youtube.com/watch?v=AaAJQR_9Dg8
He makes similar claims to Fisher, that addiction (and many other illnesses) are claimed to be caused by individual weakness, personal choice or the properties of the drugs, instead of being the results of social problems. He then brings up the Vietnam war as a counter-example, during which tons of the American soldiers were addicted to drugs, but once they returned to their homes only a small minority remained to be. He actually goes so far to claim that addiction is specific to capitalism.
I tried to say that leftists don't care while right-wing, "muh bootstraps" people especially, blame the individual for social problems.
Thomas Myers
My poor West Virginia, long has been your suffering.
Eli Gutierrez
What creates mental illness is most often mental illness itself, it runs in families, abuse and genetics being it's prime causes.
Jaxson Turner
I'd say it's more broadly the modern industrialized society. That's one point where the anprims are right.
Poverty has a strong link to mental illness, and capitalism necessitates poverty at some level.
Beyond that though, I think there's a stronger link to capitalism's destruction of our environment and communal spaces combined with the sheer amount of time and energy that it consumes from the day-to-day life of most people engaged/trapped in the capitalist system.
Basically, people that are continually and constantly stressed out by a system which regards them as cogs with which to generate surplus value end up feeling like shit.
Owen Morales
How many mentally ill people have you known well?
Samuel Kelly
It doesn't create it but it certainly exacerbates it and causes people poor people to go untreated.
Ian Phillips
The number of people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, addictions and compulsions of various kinds, is quite possibly enormous. They are becoming almost normal.
I've known two people who are hardcore paranoid schizophrenic. Both were fucked-up by capitalism. One suffered childhood abuse, lived as a Traveller and was traumatised by the repression of the movement, fled to India and was fine for awhile but then got tortured by the BJP, ends up back in Britain and homeless. The second came from a very authoritarian family, suffered police violence, then found his roommate was in MI5.
Isaiah Jenkins
I don't see how this follows from this post. Unless you take capitalism as "the way things are", in which anything and everything is caused by capitalism, making it meaningless as an explanation.
Seems unlikely.
Owen Ortiz
Some people can take more capitalism than others. Genetic biodeterminism can be a way of putting the cart before the horse. Psychiatry is not an objective science, but an industry that exists within capitalism like any other. The APA, responsible for the DSMV, is basically a trade organisation with links to the pharmaceutical industry. When over half of people in a society suffer from 'mental illness', you start wondering if the problem lies with the people or with the irrationality of the society itself.
Cooper Long
Hold on a second. Are we talking about mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, and stress? Or are we talking about people who have a few screws loose?
Luke Young
the society we live definitely fucks people up, and that's not an exclusively first world problem.see how any poor places in the third world are filled to the brim with dive bars? self medication.
Aiden Peterson
agreed
Luis Davis
How many do you know that aren't? Unless of course you prefer to call it "stupidity" instead.
It has the usual crocodile tears and [citation needed] anti-Soviet "facts", but still interesting. Russia's depopulation since 1991 has been the biggest one in peacetime the world has ever seen. And yet, 26 years after the fact, I'm yet to find a study on how many of these missing souls are emmigrants or excess deaths. I haven't seen the ones mentioned in this link, maybe they'll answer my question.
Anyway, Russians are all already fucked in the head, and capitalism is making it even worse.
Isaac Sanchez
So capitalism?
Joshua Adams
We can talk about both but I was thinking of depression, anxiety, stress, addiction, these kinds of things.
Matthew Morgan
gambling addiction and debtor's guilt are capitalist diseases
Jaxon Anderson
Capitalism not only causes you mental illness, but it also perpetuates it with institutionalized "treatments" that are meant to divert the blame from the system itself by internalizing social scale problems to an individual level.
Easton Peterson
t.Deuleuze This is most likely true when it comes to the pharmaceutic industry, but it's not so much of an intentional cover up for modern industrial age problems, it's just that profit is the primary incentive in our current system so that's the natural outcome
I think mental illness is inherent in a society where we are forced into menial labor or "careers" we could really give two shits about, so we seek to distract ourselves in the fastest and most effective way possible, be it any of the addictions we are supplied with. I.e, drugs, gambling, sex, food, shopping Our world is molded to bore us 80% of the time and the rest is for us to waste what we earned to make ourselves feel less empty. When 80% of our life is futile and worthless except for adding more cash flow, and we are no longer with purpose besides, our minds go crazy. We are made to create, to mold this world into whatever we wish it but our free will is taken away and we have money offered in its place but since we think we need monetary things to survive, we just keep the system alive. We don't think for ourselves because we don't have to. Our mind makes up for that unused brain activity by offering us anxiety, we all feel like we should be doing something more rewarding or something more in general. Depression is because our mind recognizes the monotony and we aren't a monotonous species. We're the most interesting and most intelligent but we spend our intelligence and energy providing for other people and taking it out on our closest families and friends and ourselves. It makes a whole lot of sense because we should be working together to do what we are good at, recognizing strengths and embellishing them and finding ways to incorporate them into day to day life to benefit everyone rather than forcing a status quo and reducing everyone to production value and test subjects.
Viva la let's blow everything the fuck up and start over.
Ayden Phillips
Mental illness isn't something to trivialize like this. Feeling a bit down about your shitty job doesn't make you clinically depressed. Mental illness is an actual chemical imbalance in the brain, and can only be diagnosed by a doctor. It isn't caused by capitalism. You are hurting actual mentally ill people by comparing your struggles to theirs.
Kayden White
nice idpol you got there. Does being depressed means you have to accept psychiatric ideology uncritically?
Alexander Murphy
This is what a SWM sounds like, everyone.
Benjamin Nelson
what if i'm 'mentally ill' and i disagree with the naive scientific reductionist view of mental illness?
Alexander King
You only talked about what it is, but not what causes it. It's a pretty widely accepted fact that most people live pretty unhealthy lifestyles because it is demanded by their jobs, can't afford to live healthier or directly poisoned by pollution. To claim that health and capitalism has no relation to each other is absurd.
Hunter Thomas
it's idpol because you are imposing a specific ideology under the guise of 'respecting mentally ill peoples struggles', which is an insulting platitude imo. Of course the fact you are unhappy has nothing to do with this shitty world of ours, your brain is just broken and only the pharmaceutical industry can fix it.
Oliver Powell
The pharmaceutical industry is shit. My point is that you shouldn't pretend you have it as tough as someone who is actually depressed.
Chase Thomas
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get over "depression" it's an invented mindset and should be forgotten about
Adam Davis
Peak bootstrap mentality.
Sebastian Harris
...
Ryan Lopez
You just have to smile more and be grateful to be alive :)
Colton Jenkins
Oh god, I was waiting for this. Yes, so what ? Do you think they magically appear out of nowhere ? Seriously, saying "mental illnesses are due to chemical imbalances" doesn't imply anything about their causes. I mean, you are aware that seeing a plate a good food when we are hungry or having sex will change our electro-chemical activity in the brain, right ? If you get repeatedly beat up as a child, it will cause you to have this sort of imbalances.
I know there is a strong genetic component to mental illnesses, as alcoholism and mood disorders run in my family, and I'm an alcoholic who had experienced bouts of depression myself. But I wouldn't dismiss environmental causes so fast. Schizophrenia take different forms in India (and shamanic cultures) than in the West for example, as weirdos are more accepted there and therefore feel less paranoid. In a more general manner, mental illnesses had different manifestations throughout human history.
Sorry if I came as rude, but I'm tired of this meme. Yes, they are imbalances, but caused by what ? And that's not even exploring the question : Imbalances compared to what ? Depression is so common nowadays that you can wonder if it is really an imbalance or a natural reaction to our environment.
Gavin Watson
but what if I aspire to something beyond taking my pills and being a functional worker drone who's only mildly miserable most of the time? I feel like modern capitalism turns many things that should be political issues into mere technical/medical issues.
Jace Torres
I've read too that they tend to report intrusive thoughts and voices as being generally more benevolent than schizophrenics in the West, where they claim they're more antagonistic.
David Green
Uh that's not for you to decide, the market will tell you what to do.
Asher Adams
Aspergers and personality disorders are either manifestations of trauma, disassociation, or due to environmental factors like runoff, horomones, preservatives, recalls like lead and other toxicity concentrations out of public knowledge, and pharmaceuticals to boot. Then they provide spectrums on how fucked their manipulated minds are. Increased rates of autism after being exposed to chemicals and carcinogens known to be released in concentrated amounts through pregnancy and breast feeding, and the stigma surrounding both. Folic acid being used as a parallel to folate which is actually beneficial for fetal brain development, is actually becoming a large issue. It's synthetic, just as in hexafluorosilicic acid and the supplementing of it in our water sourcing. Pteroylglutamic acid is folic acid and is not folate and blocks folate absorption later on in life. Also causes depression, chronic fatigue and cardiovascular issues.
Many long term causes and affects.
Live above the manufactured bullshit and be lifted above your created health issues. Don't be your illness, cuz it ain't you. All that bullshit.
Linked to that site for other readings, might not of been clear. Other hintings towards long term causes and effects on prevalent issues we face health wise in our society.
Adam Scott
only possible answer:
yes
Bentley Hernandez
SPK! SPK! SPK! SPK! SPK! SPK! SPK! SPK! OK! KILL KILL KILL FOR INNER PEACE BOMB BOMB BOMB FOR MENTAL HEALTH KILL KILL KILL FOR INNER PEACE BOMB BOMB BOMB FOR MENTAL HEALTH THERAPY THROUGH VIOLENCE WORKING CIRCLES EXPLOSIVES
Wyatt Brooks
What's with hammer & sickles and them always getting trips of truth?
Oliver Cruz
I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My identity is alternatively that of Demi Lovato, Kurt Cobain, or a WebMD page as far as psychiatrists and most psychologists are concerned. I choose to remain unmedicated and although it's worked out fine in spite of a recent stint of financial/housing insecurity I'm tired of having to paranoiacally determine whether I seem "manic" to others. It's driven me to double down on a sort of systematic negativity within which social malaise is dealt with through idiomatic speech and uncompromising beliefs. Promoting lay psychoanalysis is the only way out of this as far as I'm concerned.
I realize that I may be, seem, whatever off-centered compared to most people but it stings on a personal level that so many medical practitioners are shallow, poptimist faglords who cringe whenever they hear a dissonant note in music.
Tyler Sullivan
I'm genuinely having trouble telling whether you're being satirical or not, since that's definitely something someone would say, but not here.
That's not really what the "chemical imbalance" hypothesis refers to. It's specifically the idea that some people's brains have the wrong amount of chemicals and that's what causes the disorder. This imbalance is often thought to be genetic, or simply innate, and you cure it through pharmaceuticals. It's not just saying that mental states are chemical or physical in nature, which is obviously true. It's a hypothesis built upon no evidence and exists entirely to justify the world as it is and put the source of the problem onto some inevitable imbalance, which of course can be cured with this special medication.
It's one of the most insidious things about Capitalism: causing the problem and then making a profit off of mitigating it, which of course is what pharmaceuticals do. Of course they work, they allow you to continue functioning without endlessly suffering, but they do not cure.
What do you mean?
Christopher Ward
It's just a visceral sense of alienation. I'm always trying to find new ways to communicate ideas that suspend my own anxiety as much as they do entertain others. I wish to do what I can to bridge this perceived gap between myself and the rest of the world and my awareness of that effort is off-putting. I just want to stop thinking for once in my life.
It sounds silly but I can relate a lot to Zizek and his mannerisms.
Cameron Williams
*hits bong* dude deep lmao
Carter Morgan
yeah im gay
Hunter Smith
Interesting. I've never thought like that. I wonder if that's the implicit thinking of a lot of artists. That their work is trying to bridge the gap.
Ayden Walker
Tangentially related, but your post reminds me a lot of this essay by the russian painter Kandinsky- I relate a lot to it as an artist. Perhaps you might get something out of it, although given it's about the spiritual in art, it may be a bit *spooky* for your taste semantikon.com/art/kandinskyspiritualinart.pdf
Eli Hernandez
Whatever the nature of mental illness, psychiatry and psychology under capitalism is a gigantic moneymaking scheme designed to maintain the system above all else.
I suppose I'm lucky I didn't wind up with tardive dyskenisia like some people did due to neuroleptic drugs. Seen peoples' lives ruined by that shit.
John Carter
Mental illness is caused by genetics, neural injury, brain tumours, poor diet, alienation, and one own thought process. Capitalism plays a role in some of these but not all of them and isn't the sole cause.
Matthew Collins
capitalism "can" cause mentall illness about as much as obsessingover such pseudointellectual books and unironically posting on this board or mastubating too much to weebshit
go read a real book for once. maybe a real science book that explains you what a "mental illness" actually is
Noah Cook
this is what a schizophrenic person WOULD say…
very unlikely
Juan Lopez
Oh shit, I just remembered a good one. Back until 1995, Fiji culture emphasized a round, big-bellied figure, and costume said one should pork out at every meal. Yet actual eating disorders were virtually non-existant. The same year, TV finally spread thoughout the country. As early as 1998, eating disorders had skyrocketed, and teenagers who watched more TV were more likely to have body image issues.
