By Josh Pendergrass
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
I have a secret that I usually keep locked up inside of myself, hidden from even those who know me well: I suffer from depression. At times it is a deep, bottomless depression, an intense loneliness, serious end-of-the-world-thoughts depression.
Admitting to this is tough, but it comes with another admission: I reject the idea that there is something wrong with me or that my depression is a disease. In fact, I think that the whole framework of looking at mental illness solely as individual pathology is misguided. I don’t say this to minimize the pain of those who suffer from mental conditions, but rather as part of an attempt to re-examine mental health from a perspective that is more humanistic, taking into account the interconnectedness of human beings and their cultures. This is not an attempt to project my experience onto others: I understand that every individual’s subjective mental experience is unique. It is simply an attempt to examine mental health from a different viewpoint, one that acknowledges the symptoms in the individual but places the causes at the level of society. Possibly by looking at mental health in a new way we will be able to discover new solutions.
Mental health is a hot-button issue these days. Rates of depression, anxiety and other mental disorders have been on the rise, and the trend is particularly striking in young people. The suicide rate continues to increase. Unfortunately, the numbers show that even as new drugs and new techniques for treatment are developed, mental illness continues to proliferate. So where are we going wrong?
The generally accepted narrative tells us that mental health problems are rooted in individual pathologies. From this perspective it makes sense to look at brain chemistry or genetics or family relationships as the source of mental illness.
While these factors certainly play an important role, the problem is deeper than this. To fully understand what is going on requires a broader view that encompasses cultural and sociological factors. What are the effects of our globalized society and the culture that it creates on the mental health and behavior of individuals within that culture? After all, as human beings we are biological organisms operating in a complex ecosystem, and just like all other living organisms our behavior is at least in part a response to our environment.
The anthropologist and psychologist Gregory Bateson is known for his theory of the “ecology of mind”, which posits that human behavior can’t be separated from its cultural context. The two are highly interconnected , and are constantly feeding back into one another. In order to analyze the individual elements of a system we need to understand their relation to the whole.
From this ecological, interconnected viewpoint, it is impossible to see individual pathologies as the cause of our society’s mental health crisis: if mental health and behavior are continuously influenced by cultural factors, then a high percentage of mental illness in a population could be indicative of sicknesses not just in individuals, but in society as a whole.
The truth is that no one fully understands how the human brain works. No one really knows the exact causes of mental illnesses and it is impossible to draw concrete conclusions about their origins. But even as we learn more and more about neurochemistry; even as we train more and more mental health professionals; even as more and more Americans use prescription drugs to treat mental illness – the unfortunate fact is that the number of people suffering from mental conditions is going up, not down. We need to try different approaches and to start asking different questions.
So what are the major cultural influences in our society and how do they affect us? What are the core values of the culture we live in?
We live in a globalized society that is built around the idea that growth, even unlimited growth, is good for us. This is why politicians and economists so often emphasize the importance of growth. This growth-based culture has profound effects on our behavior and environment.
As human beings we all have a basic need for belonging, a need for community, and a need to feel that we are loved and accepted for who we are. Unfortunately our globalized culture hijacks these fundamental human needs for the purposes of the market and growth. In doing so, values and behaviors are encouraged that are good for the global market, but bad for our individual and collective mental health. We are taught that in order to have a sense of belonging we need to be constantly consuming. We need to have the newest technological gadgets in order to be “connected” and to be full participants in society. We are taught that our individual sense of identity, as well as our deep desire for connection and friendship, can be attained only by acquiring the products and services that advertisers are selling us. This culture teaches girls and women that their attractiveness and ability to be loved depends upon achieving an unattainable level of beauty. It teaches us that our personalities and our sexuality need to fit neatly into predefined categories. It turns everything in the world, including human beings, into commodities. The global economy is a system that imposes culture from above; it is a system in which the need for growth has a profound impact on culture and values.
The values that this global culture promotes are those of imperialism: growth, competition, and domination. However subtly, it creates and enforces systems of oppression. We live in a system in which positive social interaction and cooperation are discouraged. Success in this society requires us to compete with those around us for limited resources, while the benefits of growth filter upward to an incredibly tiny segment of the population. Global society is a winner-take-all environment in which pathological behavior is rewarded and individuals displaying the most anti-social traits are the most successful. Obedience to authority, skill at manipulating people, and the ability to overlook the suffering of others are all qualities that are encouraged.
To be maladjusted to this culture doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. In fact, it may mean that something is right with you! There is a huge amount of evidence showing that human beings are actually innately cooperative, not competitive or selfish. If competition and selfishness were the norms of human behavior we would tend to see them in our most basic social structures. But this doesn’t seem to be how families or friendships work. For example, think about when you’ve shared a pizza with friends. If humans were inherently selfish, then why is everyone hesitant to take the last slice? This is not to say that humans cannot also behave in selfish or greedy ways, but the idea that these are our natural tendencies is misguided. Evolutionary psychologists have shown that cooperative groups of human beings would have been able to out-compete those groups whose members were more selfish, and therefore the genes that encourage cooperation would have provided an evolutionary advantage.
A society built around the values of growth, competition and manipulation is one that requires us to go against innate tendencies toward cooperation and pro-social behavior. Being maladjusted to this type of culture may very well be a sign of a healthy human being. As the psychologist R. D. Laing said, “Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.”
The good news is that seeing mental health and culture as interconnected allows for solutions that work for both the individual and society. I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do believe in asking questions and thinking outside of the box. I believe that a re-imagining of our culture of consumption, growth, and competition is possible. We can change the stories we tell ourselves about how our society works, and we can choose the ideals that we want to shape our culture.
Psychologist Bruce Levine likens those suffering from mental illness to canaries in a coalmine. They are the ones with unique sensitivities to environmental stimuli. When coal miners saw their canaries falling off of the perch they knew that something was wrong, that conditions in the mine had deteriorated and it was time to get out. Could it be that our mental health crisis is a sign of something deeply wrong within our culture; a signal that it is time for us to get out of the mine before it is too late?
There are other instances where biological systems go awry and display unlimited growth. It occurs in the human body, in which case growth is the disease known as cancer. Is it possible that global society is like an organism afflicted with cancer? The economy is growing exponentially on a planet that is finite. It may be more than just our mental health that is dependent upon our ability to cure our addiction to growth.
The next step is ours to take. Do we continue on a path toward extinction, or will we begin the process of healing ourselves and our culture, so we can build the kinds of societies that can successfully inhabit this planet?
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Josh Pendergrass is an amateur philosopher who lives in the hive of New York City. He loves music, culture and new ideas; and hopes to someday live in an environmentally and economically sustainable society.
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Resources:
http://the2x2project.org/the-declining-mental-health-of-millenials-is-depression-the-new-normal/
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/05/children-cyberbullying-self-harm-gaming-mps-concern
http://www.youngminds.org.uk/training_services/policy/mental_health_statistics
http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2013/04/29/americas-mental-health-care-crisis-a-story-in-numb?page=2
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201212/the-evolutionary-biology-altruism
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Photo credit: Santhosh Sivaramalingam, winner of the Planet Local Photo Contest 2014
The Economics of Happiness 
Agree with all of the this. In addition we have to ask our brain experts like Dr. Perlmuter who wrote The Grain Brain some questions like what affect our burning of carbon is having on our brains. For instance it has been reported that carbon monoxide is hundreds of times more likely to bond with ones blood hemoglobin than oxygen and it is cumulative as we become saturated. It mimics being tired and how many other environmental toxins are able to pass through the blood brain barier is something our doctors should start researching just as our scientists have researched the harms of global warming. The rare and aggressive cancers downstream of tarsands the keystoneXL would speed up would be a good place for our scientists and doctors to demand we stop to study the harm we are doing to ourselves.
Thank you Josh. I am with you and share, step by step, all your ideas and insights. I also have lifelong depression. I’d love to create a web of people who think out of the box with regard to mental health. In my day job, I am a communication strategist with mental health organizations–trying to undo the framework of “illness” in my own, subtle and slow way. I hope you will connect: http://www.blythedolores.com I have a number of drafts on my blog (unposted) about my take on mental health, maybe your article will encourage me enough to publish them. Thank you!
Nice post. It got me thinking of a talk I went to by the authors of The Spirit Level where they talked about why inequality makes us feel inadequate and how this feeds into mental illness. It isn’t just growth that is problematic, but also the hierarchical, competitive society that fuels it – all of which stems from a fundamental precept of separation: a framing at odds with what we now know to be true. Here’s an excerpt from my summary of the talk – hopefully it’s of interest.
“In the old naïve view inequality was only seen to matter if it created poverty. Now we see a new take: inequality matters because it brings out features of our psychology to do with dominance and subordination, superiority and inferiority – and these affect how we treat each other. If this all seems self evident, it’s because it affects each and everyone of us every single day. Social evaluative effect is as intense as it has ever been in human history: our frame of reference is now global, and shoehorned into a race to the top we can’t ever hope to compete in. We have been conditioned to see this as a private weakness, but – as Wilkinson pointed out in closing – part of overcoming this might be to see that we all have these fears.”
http://elhombredelsur.com/2014/05/27/how-inequality-affects-us-the-spirit-level-lecture-series/
Thanks for sharing, it’s appreciated.
D
Thank you so much! Josh. This is well-balanced and thought-provoking. Theodore Roszak’s “The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology” echoes and deepens this perspective. “The species that destroys its own habitat in pursuit of false values, in willful ignorance of what it does, is ‘mad’ if the word means anything.” So we medicate our prophets to shut them up.
Great article!
Reblogged this on iriesatya.
Some good stuff here. I’ve thought a lot about the link between social/economic/interpersonal factors and what the DSM calls the “mood disorders” such as anxiety and depression. In my work with adolescents, I’ve been able to gather more anecdotal evidence than I would ever have wanted to support your theory, as well. There are a lot of “good kids” who seem perfectly well-adjusted, but who are medicated to the gills because of the pressure to excel/compete. One thing I would add is that, in addition to our obsessions with growth and materialism, the ideal that everyone has the potential to be extraordinary is leading a lot of folks down to a pretty dark place, when they try their best and realize they’re probably going to live relatively average lives, as far as the world is concerned. With billions of other people in the world, it’s pretty tough to be the best at anything, which can’t help but lead to a lot of people dealing with the shame/disappointment of feeling as though they’ve come up short.
I stumbled across another page on the internet that makes some of the same observations as you, and gets into some possible remedies, as well. It’s a bit radical for some, but there are good points raised. Link below.
http://www.weareplanc.org/we-are-all-very-anxious
Best of luck.
Thank you for a great post. I saw myself reflected. A few years ago I realized that my issue was that my personal values clash with our society’s prevailing values, notions of “progress”, and what seems to be in our future if we continue on this path. After that, I felt that whether I was depressed or plain disappointed, sad, angry, my perspective changed. Still felt like I was up to an unsolvable problem–we, as humans are following our human nature and thus creating the future we deserve. This was still very depressing and hopeless. Very recently I started hearing some alternative voices and I now I do believe that it’s not so simple as that. We are complex and capable of many behaviors and emotions, from greed, competition and ruthlessness to generosity, cooperation, empathy. Our culture and system dictates what we value and reward, what we nurture. I am feeling a lot more hopeful now, and trying to learn as much as I can from all those working for positive and deep change. Still trying to figure out how I fit in and contribute.