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Thread: Mental Illness is a Political Concept

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    Lightbulb Mental Illness is a Political Concept

    Mental Illness is a Political Concept, Not a Medical One


    Many people live under the glib assumption that mental illness is a subject that the experts have got a good handle on. These experts, through the wisdom gleaned from decades of studying human behaviour in a myriad of contexts, have made a clear distinction between mentally ill and mentally healthy behaviours and thoughts, and can apply this accurately in a clinical setting. We are told that this distinction is objective and scientific, but the reality is that who is crazy and who isn’t depends more on fashion – and who is in power – than on science.

    Take the example of homosexuality. Sexual attraction to people of the same gender was considered a mental illness as recently as the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. By this, it was meant that same-sex attraction was a mental defect that could be diagnosed and, if need be, treated. Some would say that we’ve evolved past such a mentality, and this author would not disagree, but with a caveat: we could easily make homosexuality illegal again.

    All it would take would be a strong cultural shift towards a family-oriented kind of folk conservatism, and for it once again to be fashionable to be against homosexuals, and the herd could easily come to take it for granted once again that homosexuality should be illegal. If a popular celebrity made arguments against homosexuality on national television, the masses would soon be turned against it. Some arguments against homosexuality are perennial, and will inevitably become fashionable again, like the appeal to naturalism.

    The appeal to naturalism is a common argument against homosexuality. It contends that, because both a male and a female are necessary for an act of sexual intercourse to have any chance of resulting in reproduction, only this arrangement of sexes is natural. Two people of the same sex engaging in sexual intercourse cannot produce a child and is therefore unnatural, and this is therefore immoral, in the same way that having sex with animals or the pre-pubescent cannot produce children and is therefore immoral.

    One could fairly argue that there are a number of fallacies in this line of reasoning, but that’s not the point. The point is that, as long as the appeal to naturalism holds some sway among people, there is a chance that it could become fashionable again such that the masses came to accept it as obvious. If one looks at the world, and at the history of it, it’s apparent that homosexuality, like feminism and the use of certain drugs, is a fashion that waxes and wanes according to historical cycles.

    The same thing is true of other conditions now considered to be mental illnesses. The case of schizophrenia is another example of where politics trumps medicine. No-one knows what schizophrenia and psychosis really are: psychosis is said to be the loss of touch with reality, but there is no universal, objective way of knowing what reality is. What is commonly accepted as reality is something that varies greatly from place to place and from time to time, even among people who are all committed to the scientific method.

    No-one really understands why some people are crazy, but if a person doesn’t work, they need a doctor to declare them mentally unhealthy if they want to go on welfare. Sounds straightforward, but if an incoming conservative government wants to trim the number of people on welfare for psychiatric reasons by 10%, then the psychiatrists will select the 10% of their current patients that they feel have the best chance of making it and declare them to be mentally healthy. That they are the same as before doesn’t matter – the important thing is that the politics have changed.

    For political reasons, all responsibility and blame for a person suffering a mental illness has to be shifted back onto either genetics or the person themselves. The environment is seldom to blame, but if it ever is, it is the fault of the parents and the home environment, never the fault of the rulers and the social environment. Depression is never caused by society being depressing. Anxiety is never caused by society being anxiogenic. What causes mental illness is bad genes, doing drugs or some kind of quasi-mystical spiritual failure, but never the misarrangement of society.

    Some will say that mental illness demonstrates a failure to adapt to society. Fair enough, but the problem with this is that society is grossly unhealthy. For many tens of millions of people, the pressure of trying to fit into a society as fucked up as this one has pushed them beyond the limits of their psychological endurance. Their major problem is that society does not, and never will, recognise the part that it has played in making people mentally ill, because this would be a political error. This obstinance only serves to drive more people insane.

    At the end of the day, it’s politicians that that people take orders from, and not research psychologists, and so doctors who have to deal with mental illness have to use the framework laid down for them by politicians. These politicians have not been able to resist the temptation to play around with the definitions of mental illness for the sake of achieving their political goals. Unfortunately, this meddling has become so severe that the concept of mental illness is now more political than it is medical.

    https://vjmpublishing.nz/?p=10797

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    Quote Originally Posted by JamesBond007 View Post
    Mental Illness is a Political Concept, Not a Medical One


    Many people live under the glib assumption that mental illness is a subject that the experts have got a good handle on. These experts, through the wisdom gleaned from decades of studying human behaviour in a myriad of contexts, have made a clear distinction between mentally ill and mentally healthy behaviours and thoughts, and can apply this accurately in a clinical setting. We are told that this distinction is objective and scientific, but the reality is that who is crazy and who isn’t depends more on fashion – and who is in power – than on science.

    Take the example of homosexuality. Sexual attraction to people of the same gender was considered a mental illness as recently as the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. By this, it was meant that same-sex attraction was a mental defect that could be diagnosed and, if need be, treated. Some would say that we’ve evolved past such a mentality, and this author would not disagree, but with a caveat: we could easily make homosexuality illegal again.

    All it would take would be a strong cultural shift towards a family-oriented kind of folk conservatism, and for it once again to be fashionable to be against homosexuals, and the herd could easily come to take it for granted once again that homosexuality should be illegal. If a popular celebrity made arguments against homosexuality on national television, the masses would soon be turned against it. Some arguments against homosexuality are perennial, and will inevitably become fashionable again, like the appeal to naturalism.

    The appeal to naturalism is a common argument against homosexuality. It contends that, because both a male and a female are necessary for an act of sexual intercourse to have any chance of resulting in reproduction, only this arrangement of sexes is natural. Two people of the same sex engaging in sexual intercourse cannot produce a child and is therefore unnatural, and this is therefore immoral, in the same way that having sex with animals or the pre-pubescent cannot produce children and is therefore immoral.

    One could fairly argue that there are a number of fallacies in this line of reasoning, but that’s not the point. The point is that, as long as the appeal to naturalism holds some sway among people, there is a chance that it could become fashionable again such that the masses came to accept it as obvious. If one looks at the world, and at the history of it, it’s apparent that homosexuality, like feminism and the use of certain drugs, is a fashion that waxes and wanes according to historical cycles.

    The same thing is true of other conditions now considered to be mental illnesses. The case of schizophrenia is another example of where politics trumps medicine. No-one knows what schizophrenia and psychosis really are: psychosis is said to be the loss of touch with reality, but there is no universal, objective way of knowing what reality is. What is commonly accepted as reality is something that varies greatly from place to place and from time to time, even among people who are all committed to the scientific method.

    No-one really understands why some people are crazy, but if a person doesn’t work, they need a doctor to declare them mentally unhealthy if they want to go on welfare. Sounds straightforward, but if an incoming conservative government wants to trim the number of people on welfare for psychiatric reasons by 10%, then the psychiatrists will select the 10% of their current patients that they feel have the best chance of making it and declare them to be mentally healthy. That they are the same as before doesn’t matter – the important thing is that the politics have changed.

    For political reasons, all responsibility and blame for a person suffering a mental illness has to be shifted back onto either genetics or the person themselves. The environment is seldom to blame, but if it ever is, it is the fault of the parents and the home environment, never the fault of the rulers and the social environment. Depression is never caused by society being depressing. Anxiety is never caused by society being anxiogenic. What causes mental illness is bad genes, doing drugs or some kind of quasi-mystical spiritual failure, but never the misarrangement of society.

    Some will say that mental illness demonstrates a failure to adapt to society. Fair enough, but the problem with this is that society is grossly unhealthy. For many tens of millions of people, the pressure of trying to fit into a society as fucked up as this one has pushed them beyond the limits of their psychological endurance. Their major problem is that society does not, and never will, recognise the part that it has played in making people mentally ill, because this would be a political error. This obstinance only serves to drive more people insane.

    At the end of the day, it’s politicians that that people take orders from, and not research psychologists, and so doctors who have to deal with mental illness have to use the framework laid down for them by politicians. These politicians have not been able to resist the temptation to play around with the definitions of mental illness for the sake of achieving their political goals. Unfortunately, this meddling has become so severe that the concept of mental illness is now more political than it is medical.

    https://vjmpublishing.nz/?p=10797
    Solid article overall, but the portion I highlighted wouldn’t stand today — ‘cancel culture’, and all that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by barnumandbailey View Post
    Solid article overall, but the portion I highlighted wouldn’t stand today — ‘cancel culture’, and all that.
    I only posted it because the way I explain it is too esoteric or erudite and that is plain language, In the beginning it focuses in America but only because the DSM is influential even on the ICD to some degree and because I was in the USA at the time but now I'm on Mars :

    “ Truth has no manners. It is no respecter of persons. It wounds kings as deeply as commoners. It cuts down the high, and confirms the lowness of the low. It may dress up for formal occasions, but it does so only in order that it may more shockingly expose itself in front of the assembled company. And just as it respects no one, likewise there are few who respect it. But those who do are granted many favors -- power, understanding, dominion, and of course the honor of the unswerving hatred of the ignorant millions.” –John Bryant

    In the modern West there is a stifling lack of freedom, at least in many of the nations, and especially in the so called exemplar of Democracy and freedom, in the West, that represents it the most, currently, as an empire : America. America is full of hypocrisy but I will not digress too far into the full depth of its hypocrisy rather than to state while America is running around ostensibly trying to setup Democracy for other nations , like Iraq, America, in and of itself, is not even a Democracy or a Republic but an oligarchy (although, its citizens do enjoy some features of Democratic government). The American political system is a complete sham since the differences between the Republicans and Democrats are superficial since both represent big government and since there is no proportional representation system , like in parts of Europe, there is a negative feedback loop which reinforces this two party tyranny. For simplicities sake I will call this statist tyranny a Hamiltonian-Hegelian hybrid. Under Hegelianism truth follows theory rather than empirical truth where truth corresponds with the facts of reality. Americans are fond of quoting Jefferson but we live in Hamilton’s country now etc.. if we truly lived in Jeffersonian style freedom our lives would follow more under the system of him and also people like Locke and John Stuart Mill. Anyway, Hegel thought he reckoned the Noumenal realm but what he really did was spout metaphysical nonsense, according to Schopenhauer and one of his successors , known as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer had this to say on Hegel :

    “What was senseless and without meaning at once took refuge in obscure exposition and language. Fichte was the first to grasp and make use of this privilege; Schelling at best equalled him in this, and a host of hungry scribblers without intellect or honesty soon surpassed them both. But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel...’ – Schopenhauer

    I realize the irony of using a Schopenhauer quote that is not critical of ‘madhouses’ but the overall message is too important to leave out. I will not quote Wittgenstein because it is generally known among the educated that his philosophy would show Hegel’s philosophy to be nonsense since Wittgenstein’s philosophy is an entire critique of such language. Anyway, the Hegelian statist does not tolerate idiosyncratic mindsets that produce free thoughts and consequently it is also an anti-science ideology ,too, among other things. So now that we cleared that up that sets the scaffolding or context for my criticism which will follow in the libertarian or classical liberal vain and which should be protected under the first amendment of the United States. Wittgenstein only published one work in his lifetime although he would later pick up a new method I believe his first work was more objectively pure and the latter was not even finished and what was finished of it I choose not to take as profoundly as the first work, therefore, I find the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to be more authoritative. Bertrand Russell said of Wittgenstein’s later work , the Blue and Brown books, the following : “It seems to concern itself, not with the world and our relation , but only with the different ways in which silly people can say silly things. If this is all that philosophy has to offer, I cannot think that it is a worthy subject of study..." So as Wittgenstein believed that philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts I will quote from the Tractatus ,although, Wittgenstein would forbid such as ‘senseless’, if only for the reason that it might spur you on to read it in context and then ‘throw away’ the proverbial ‘ladder’ so you may see the world as it really is as Wittgenstein so famously put it , in the former and now the latter : “The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e., propositions of natural science - i.e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy - and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.” Also, it is worth noting that Stephen Hawking in his book “The Grand Design” stated that philosophy has failed to keep up with science so is now obsolete.

    Now the stage is set for my criticism of the whole concept of ‘mental illness’. Mental illness is a social construction of the Neolithic humans who dominate the geopolitical North. Neolithic humans use it as a means to enforce their status quo social stasis and force conformity on people they call eccentrics. Many of these people are actually geniuses who they try to force mental torpor upon via neuroleptics (some of which are neurotoxic). In doing this they not only impede their own group performance (from benefiting from potential new technologies and scientific methods created by the cognitive elite) but they severely impede the evolution of the cognitive elite. Even without these neuroleptics the Neolithic humans still impede the evolution of the elite while the elite group increases their performance. The Humanistic sciences, such as psychiatry, have organized religious attributes and are not real sciences proper. Rather, the Humanistic sciences are the Neolithic humans attempt to emulate or imitate the cognitive elite’s real science e.g. physics. For instance, there is confirmation bias in the social sciences, as well, as it is sometimes hard to keep social science and fiction apart since there is so much fiction in much of modern social science and so much social science in modern fiction. This is in high contrast to real sciences such as physics. Although, this may be changing to some degree in modern physics as George Ellis and Joseph Silk wrote in a controversial tract called : "Scientific Method: Defend the Integrity of Physics," which criticized a seemingly new willingness of a minority of physicists to set aside experimental confirmation of some the newest cosmic theories. Anyhow, even if the latter is true physics still has a much higher fidelity for objective truth than the humanistic sciences and social sciences. Anyway, physics is the king of all sciences in that all sciences must obey its laws. The concept of the mind and hence ‘mental illness’ is metaphysical in nature and so is nonsensical according to physics and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. According to physics the mind is a nonsensical concept (the mind and brain are not synonymous) and therefore only neurology is a real science when it comes to this realm. All psychiatry’s ostensible claim to neurological links are by definition spurious as the whole concept is nonsensical to begin with. The latter is like trying to build a house on quicksand. Also, since mathematics is the queen of the sciences and can measure or reflect anything that exists in objective reality it is obvious that you can take someone’s brain out, on the autopsy table, and measure it but you cannot measure someone’s mind with mathematics and that is because the mind doesn’t’ exist in objective reality like the brain. Rather, the mind is an abstract concept, for the brain, that makes it easier for some humans to comprehend some higher functions of the brain. Anyway, mental illness does not exist : quod erat demonstrandum

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    Quote Originally Posted by JamesBond007 View Post
    I only posted it because the way I explain it is too esoteric or erudite and that is plain language, In the beginning it focuses in America but only because the DSM is influential even on the ICD to some degree and because I was in the USA at the time but now I'm on Mars :

    “ Truth has no manners. It is no respecter of persons. It wounds kings as deeply as commoners. It cuts down the high, and confirms the lowness of the low. It may dress up for formal occasions, but it does so only in order that it may more shockingly expose itself in front of the assembled company. And just as it respects no one, likewise there are few who respect it. But those who do are granted many favors -- power, understanding, dominion, and of course the honor of the unswerving hatred of the ignorant millions.” –John Bryant

    In the modern West there is a stifling lack of freedom, at least in many of the nations, and especially in the so called exemplar of Democracy and freedom, in the West, that represents it the most, currently, as an empire : America. America is full of hypocrisy but I will not digress too far into the full depth of its hypocrisy rather than to state while America is running around ostensibly trying to setup Democracy for other nations , like Iraq, America, in and of itself, is not even a Democracy or a Republic but an oligarchy (although, its citizens do enjoy some features of Democratic government). The American political system is a complete sham since the differences between the Republicans and Democrats are superficial since both represent big government and since there is no proportional representation system , like in parts of Europe, there is a negative feedback loop which reinforces this two party tyranny. For simplicities sake I will call this statist tyranny a Hamiltonian-Hegelian hybrid. Under Hegelianism truth follows theory rather than empirical truth where truth corresponds with the facts of reality. Americans are fond of quoting Jefferson but we live in Hamilton’s country now etc.. if we truly lived in Jeffersonian style freedom our lives would follow more under the system of him and also people like Locke and John Stuart Mill. Anyway, Hegel thought he reckoned the Noumenal realm but what he really did was spout metaphysical nonsense, according to Schopenhauer and one of his successors , known as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer had this to say on Hegel :

    “What was senseless and without meaning at once took refuge in obscure exposition and language. Fichte was the first to grasp and make use of this privilege; Schelling at best equalled him in this, and a host of hungry scribblers without intellect or honesty soon surpassed them both. But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel...’ – Schopenhauer

    I realize the irony of using a Schopenhauer quote that is not critical of ‘madhouses’ but the overall message is too important to leave out. I will not quote Wittgenstein because it is generally known among the educated that his philosophy would show Hegel’s philosophy to be nonsense since Wittgenstein’s philosophy is an entire critique of such language. Anyway, the Hegelian statist does not tolerate idiosyncratic mindsets that produce free thoughts and consequently it is also an anti-science ideology ,too, among other things. So now that we cleared that up that sets the scaffolding or context for my criticism which will follow in the libertarian or classical liberal vain and which should be protected under the first amendment of the United States. Wittgenstein only published one work in his lifetime although he would later pick up a new method I believe his first work was more objectively pure and the latter was not even finished and what was finished of it I choose not to take as profoundly as the first work, therefore, I find the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to be more authoritative. Bertrand Russell said of Wittgenstein’s later work , the Blue and Brown books, the following : “It seems to concern itself, not with the world and our relation , but only with the different ways in which silly people can say silly things. If this is all that philosophy has to offer, I cannot think that it is a worthy subject of study..." So as Wittgenstein believed that philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts I will quote from the Tractatus ,although, Wittgenstein would forbid such as ‘senseless’, if only for the reason that it might spur you on to read it in context and then ‘throw away’ the proverbial ‘ladder’ so you may see the world as it really is as Wittgenstein so famously put it , in the former and now the latter : “The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e., propositions of natural science - i.e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy - and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.” Also, it is worth noting that Stephen Hawking in his book “The Grand Design” stated that philosophy has failed to keep up with science so is now obsolete.

    Now the stage is set for my criticism of the whole concept of ‘mental illness’. Mental illness is a social construction of the Neolithic humans who dominate the geopolitical North. Neolithic humans use it as a means to enforce their status quo social stasis and force conformity on people they call eccentrics. Many of these people are actually geniuses who they try to force mental torpor upon via neuroleptics (some of which are neurotoxic). In doing this they not only impede their own group performance (from benefiting from potential new technologies and scientific methods created by the cognitive elite) but they severely impede the evolution of the cognitive elite. Even without these neuroleptics the Neolithic humans still impede the evolution of the elite while the elite group increases their performance. The Humanistic sciences, such as psychiatry, have organized religious attributes and are not real sciences proper. Rather, the Humanistic sciences are the Neolithic humans attempt to emulate or imitate the cognitive elite’s real science e.g. physics. For instance, there is confirmation bias in the social sciences, as well, as it is sometimes hard to keep social science and fiction apart since there is so much fiction in much of modern social science and so much social science in modern fiction. This is in high contrast to real sciences such as physics. Although, this may be changing to some degree in modern physics as George Ellis and Joseph Silk wrote in a controversial tract called : "Scientific Method: Defend the Integrity of Physics," which criticized a seemingly new willingness of a minority of physicists to set aside experimental confirmation of some the newest cosmic theories. Anyhow, even if the latter is true physics still has a much higher fidelity for objective truth than the humanistic sciences and social sciences. Anyway, physics is the king of all sciences in that all sciences must obey its laws. The concept of the mind and hence ‘mental illness’ is metaphysical in nature and so is nonsensical according to physics and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. According to physics the mind is a nonsensical concept (the mind and brain are not synonymous) and therefore only neurology is a real science when it comes to this realm. All psychiatry’s ostensible claim to neurological links are by definition spurious as the whole concept is nonsensical to begin with. The latter is like trying to build a house on quicksand. Also, since mathematics is the queen of the sciences and can measure or reflect anything that exists in objective reality it is obvious that you can take someone’s brain out, on the autopsy table, and measure it but you cannot measure someone’s mind with mathematics and that is because the mind doesn’t’ exist in objective reality like the brain. Rather, the mind is an abstract concept, for the brain, that makes it easier for some humans to comprehend some higher functions of the brain. Anyway, mental illness does not exist : quod erat demonstrandum
    I sincerely admire how much effort you put into your posts — what you’ve said is fascinating, and, from a ‘beginner’s’ perspective, makes absolute sense.

    Coincidentally enough, I actually found out about Wittgenstein yesterday afternoon — hadn’t heard of him prior to reading about Otto Weininger (“Sex and Character”), an Austrian philosopher who predated, and inspired, Wittgenstein himself.

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