Posted by brian on May 28, 2000, at 20:33:17
In reply to Re: Useless things, posted by boBB on May 28, 2000, at 18:22:39
>boBB,
Allow me to paint with a wide brush. The first thing I thought of after reading your post was e.e. cummings:
pity this busy monster,manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim(death and life safely beyond)plays with the bigness of his littleness
--electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange;lenses extendunwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on itself.
A world of made
is not a world of born--pity poor fleshand trees,poor stars and stones,but never this
fine specimen of hypermagicalultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if--listen:there's a hell
of a good universe next door;let's goAdvances in technology are comfortable diversions, I sometimes think. But there's more to it than that. I also think of that well-worn quantum physics phrase--you can't observe without affecting that which is observed, or something like that. We are complex, sensitive, thinking animals. Our interrelationship with the world is dynamic. We change the world and it changes us. We're not constants in a changing world. We are part of our own experiments.
I think that at least the detrimental effects to the individual by industrialization are pretty well documented. Noxious fumes from chemical plants, industrial and nuclear waste -- all these have caused great physical damage. Why not depression, anxiety, etc? If science has revealed the mechanics of the human body, it has yet to tap into the infinite complexity of the brain and the mind. Nobody knows why most antidepressents relieve pain in X percent of patients, only that they do. Occasionally. So why should we assume that environmental factors (or rather, unnatural factors of modern civilizaton)have no effect on us psychologically?
And what about the other, "imperceptable" effects of modern life. Can we be so bold as to assume our ability to assimilate to technology? Modern transportation, you noted. I've often wondered if dogs stick their heads out of the windows of moving cars to make the experience more like running, and hence more acceptable. Can we adapt to this speed so easily? How about the effects of television--and not just violence or sex, or any of that stuff people occasionally get so excersized about? I'm talking about the simple flashing of images, of information coming fast and furious, to be sorted, stored, assimilated, understood by our brains? I think that this is a very valid factor for our anxieties, our depressions.
I mistrust any psychological school of thought that favors 'the bigness of our littleness' over the world to account for psychological ills. Sure, a dearth of seratonin in neuronal synaptic gaps can be a feature of depression, buy why? What might be other causes? Such a view, is in my opinion, myopic. And sometimes it can feel pretty damned claustrophobic.
There is a lot of intelligent people contributing to this board. People who know much more about brain physiology than I do. But, sometimes I am struck by a cerebral stillness--this feeling of paralysis that is expressed by fervent concerns about drug dosages, hereditary factors, brain areas that show decreased or increased activity in this or that illness. (By the way, I don't exclude myself) Indeed, as somebody else here pointed out to me, it is somewhat comforting to find a physical basis for psychological symptoms. But what about technology, what about an aura of pain in the world brought on by this technology, industrialization, modern civilization, impersonal violence, staggering poverty?
Perhaps we're a bit more like the monkey in the experiment than we'd care to admit.
I suspect many regulars on the board can anticipate the following perspective as soon as they see boBB spelled backwards, but biological and treatable are somewhat useless terms too. DuPont said "Without chemicals life itself would be impossible." The biologial and treatable poems recited in modern clinics serve to divert attention from sociocultural factors that contribute to these widespread "diseases." A society able to double atmospheric carbon dioxide levels then deny either culbability or adverse effect seems just as likely to deny the disruptive influences of overgrown ambition, and the corrisive effect on human relatioships of high-speed transportation and mass communication.
>
> Were slaves depressed? Concentration camp jews depressed? Residents of the Soviet gulag? Would medications sufficiently "treat" their depression?
>
> It amazes me how many of us are articulate at the neurochemistry and neurobiology associated with medication and mental pathology, but how few can articulate basic human needs in neurochemical and neurobiological terms. Has anyone here read any of the late 1990's text about the social and psychological impact of worldwide convergance of industrial capitalism?
>
> > i agree, the clinical definitions have meshed with the everyday to create something stigmad and subdued. it is not easy to say to people that you are depressed, and it is even harder to explain what this means apart from the colloquial definition.
> > how do you distinguish words from the ordinary while still integrating mental illness as a biological and treatable condition (without shame and stigma)?
> >
> > juniper
> >
> > > Depression: Wimpy, misleading word. It gives the impression that someone with depression simply has the blues. What did Styron in "Darkness Visible" suggest instead? Was it "Mental Storm?"
> > >
> > > Anxiety: Same thing. Too tied up in everyday language.
> > >
> > > Crazy: Ridiculous word, used as frequently, randomly and unhealthily as table salt.
> > >
> > > Any others floating out there?
poster:brian
thread:34979
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000526/msgs/35012.html