On 2006-07-04 12:59:00, Anonymous wrote:
"All hail Xenu."
On 2006-07-04 12:59:00, Anonymous wrote:
"All hail Xenu."
I read it, something coming from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, CCHR, said about pyschiatry being a fraud basically, it was very Tom Cruisy and questioning the legitimacy of mental illness.
While I agree that over-medication is not the answer and used to often by default, and that violations of human rights is not acceptable, I think that their hidden agenda of solving human issue with some alien fantasy and made up sci fi diaretics? (hehe) dia-whatever they call it- is equally as abhorrent. abhorrent over funny as hell and absurd if only because their preaching really harms people who need help!
So here's what i think and please poke holes in this all you want because I've thought about this issue a lot and can't get past this initial assesment on mental illness and modern day society.
I don't think mental illness is figment of psychologists and psychiatrists imaginations- I think true disroders exists, but I think that much of what is labeled as such comes from, sustains and perpetuates itself because of the manner in which we exist in and among each other, relate to one another and the systems we have in place that sustains inequality, particularly the way our economic system feeds/hinders our political 'democracy' and effects/hinders our civil society which in turn goes on to sustain teh status quo, our economic system.
So long as we don't provide a space for those who are ill equipped to function within the constraints of our free market fundamentalist society, where it's survival of the fittest (unless some philanthropist or government body comes along to support you in a necessarily paternal way) and those who can't prevail economically live with the stigma of 'mental illness' as someone who is damaged goods, or worse, lazy and at fault, will always ultimately prevail. There's a reason those who are responsiblle for acting as caretaker within our society are paid the least, care is not valued in any particular politicized manner.
I think that, at it's root, it's fundamentally a problem of representatin within our democracy and ultimately capitalism, where there are winners and loser, tend to be hindered in the ways that require follow through within and as defined by our economic system and sustained by our social mores b/c of this commitment to competition as individuals and as a nation for the sake of personal, economic and political domination.
We are not judged fairly, by our capacity and by true efforts, which never made much sense to me. Doesn't it make sense? Can't we think beyond this silly division of labor that leaves some people on doing some tedious job and others jetsetting enjoying a variety of things, why should that variety be a luxury?
Hamilton believed there were those aristocrats (smart hence rich, huh?) who needed to be protected from the lazy and poor, as if there are millions of 'those' people (why not the lazy and rich?), so part of the justification of our government was for the purpose of mediating, to make sure that the owners of means of production have their rights to delegate services to profit from the backs of their workers protected.
Whatever your opinion on servitude aside,
the quandry ends up being in my view that, much like assuming kids are manipulative and should be censored, the poor need to go through a beauracratic mess to get what is due to them when they relinquish their right to self governance to the governement, if they can't make a living the 'normal' way they must be protected. But, by assuming that these folks must be, or are more often than not, free loaders the obstacles are enourmous, the stigma attatched to being in some way inacapable of 'pulling yourself up by your boot straps' is enourmous!
So here we have in some ways the suspision of mental illness in society, the stigma it creates becuase of our irrational commitment to independence and autonomy (this twitsted notion of freedom in my opinion), commitment to protecting the rich from the poor, the poor- the needy, the ones NO BODY wants to be NEEDY in our society.
thus we have unequal wealth wich =unequal power which =unequal influence=unequal democracy -----> mentally ill not only get the short end of the stick but they and their advocates get the short end in terms of represnetation as the less than people of our nation and it perpetuates itself. The unequal power relations should be considered a joke, in my view, now adays, passing off as freedom. bah!
Capitalism alienates people, division of labor whereby care work is of MUCH LESS value, with the tremendous difference in pay for same or more effort, where racism and sexism rear it's ugly head systematically. We're not pay for effort, bu paid for ownership- some say pay for risk but that's just ridiculous and an unjustifiable rational, it's a symptom of the problem. it's unequal- things like inheritance, generally basic luck in terms of access to resources etc for stepping up in the heirarchy)... which has nothing to do with one's own value, particularly once we start to recognize what femenists have argued all along, we're interdependent, period, not like spores at Hobbes says, which has influenced American political thought greatly, that we form sponstaneously from and that we exists without connection to one another, which results in i think what arrises today, mostly on the Conservative front, but also by the left- the 'mentally ill' flounder, their alienation doesn't subside, the social stigma supported by what I've said above exacerbated their condition, which I would think
I would even aruge these 'environmental' which are social, economic but mostly political conditions CREATE mental illness.
They will be the different people in this system trying to deal with the shame that exists, being the person who no body wants to be, having to rely on paternal bs... you know, the charity cases.
I hope this makes sense.