I keep coming back to the thought that anti-depressants and the mass-adaptation of therapy – both of which are designed to pacify clients – are the reason that the Western world has gotten so bad with such little push-back.
In the past, Major Revolutions broke out over shortages of food and infringements of freedom (like the French and American Revolutions). And today, just the president of South Korea declaring martial law got the streets flooded on no notice. Hong Kong had massive resistance movements over the CCP censoring their media; Yet the USA has been declining for decades and people mostly let it happen. Yes there were protests – Occupy Wall Street, the Veteran anti-war movements, and yesterday’s No Kings protests – but we are facing state-sanctioned mass-terrorism, and now have Gestapo “secret agents” storming our streets; and people largely let it happen.
Looking at the proponents of targeted violence the USA has seen: Kirk’s killer, Tim Robinson, was a Mormon from Utah ; they’ve got religion and don’t believe in therapy. Trump’s attempted assassins were a young Republican man who realized Trump was a part of the international pedo ring; and two different elderly guys. Luigi Mangione, the alleged shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, supposedly had many grievances with the healthcare system. These are all profiles that make me believe they’d largely reject therapy.
Meanwhile in spaces branded “progressive”, following the script on mental health seems to be the norm. One of the ways spaces are deemed progressive is by “acknowledging mental health”, which mainly means encouraging therapy and copy-pasting a bunch of disclaimers. Of course, the bigger picture of their movements are to improve the system, which would improve our mental health; but it feels like the “ask for help” virtue-signaling around mental health is far more prevalent than argument that “Yeah, you should feel that way. We shouldn’t put up with this shit any longer.”
I’m not making any broad call-to-action here. I’m just trying to dissect the idea that has baffled me for years: How the system could be pushed this far. How fascist politicians and greedy corporations alike could make the system this bad, and people continue to tolerate it. How feminists and the queer community could be this visible, and yet as fascists declare war on them I’ve hardly heard any calls for violence. Yet alt-right teenagers go out and attempt to blow up pretty cheerleaders because they can’t get laid; burn down houses of politicians they don’t like; randomly assault trans women on the street. What empowers them, and why are we so passive?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I mean, people getting rid of the stereotypical shame of antidepressants is a very good thing…
Not just for them, all of society benefits when they take their medication. And “influencers” being open about it helps their listeners take it if they need it to.
Like, even if you think “influencers” and their listeners are “crazy”, them taking prescribed antidepressants is a good thing.
Complaining about this gives the same vibes as republicans complaining about kids being treated for autism. If there’s no treatment, it doesn’t mean they don’t need it, it’s just hiding the problem.
I just don’t see how any of this is dystopian, but the article was paywalled. So maybe it got to that part later.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Bypass paywalls clean still works great. You just have to install an older version of Firefox first to install it and then upgrade because newer versions block the install process.