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>> we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Are "we" a

>> we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Are "we" and "them" the same collective, subjecting themselves to their own analysis? Or is the "we" the collective of those who are apparently not mentally ill, with "them" being the group being targeted for labelling? If the latter, what is your justification for assessing a group of people you do not belong to? Your own manmade "science", with no basis in factual laws of nature required? What is mental illness, as defined by our society? It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first. Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them, while having no choice but to slave away at a job they despise, performing menial tasks that feed corporate greed while not providing a single meaningful contribution to their community... and for what purpose? To perpetuate the meaningless existence we have created for ourselves? Society did not have to work out this way, but somehow this is where we have ended up. It's depressing beyond belief, and it's no wonder so many people are fucked up.

SwellJoe 10y ago
"Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals ..." The great thing about facts is that they're true whether you believe them or not. Schizophrenia has been documented (not by that name but by description) more than 2,000 years ago. You can't blame modern capitalism or the industrial revolution or modern cities or whatever for schizophrenia.
- developer2 10y ago
  Documentation is recorded by fallible and biased human beings. Much of history is not accurately recorded, whether due to a) not having all the facts, b) trusting the word of third-party sources who may be lying or themselves not be in possession of all the facts, and/or c) being biased to record the history from one's preferred one-sided perspective rather than including both sides of the story verbatim. Any piece of documentation that was not witnessed first-hand by many individuals, with none of them disagreeing on the totality of the facts, is unreliable and forever suspect. The moment someone writes down a fact that was witnessed by someone other than themselves... that "fact" is no longer actual fact. Please tell me about the facts of Jesus's time on Earth. Too far in the past? Fine, tell me exactly why the US occupied Iraq. No, not what you were told or what you read - the information you obtained in person during the decision-making process. Can you?
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    So, it sounds like you would dismiss all historic knowledge, including written history, even from multiple sources? That doesn't seem like a very good approach to learning about the past. Skepticism is fine, but, really, we have to work with the data we've got. We can put modern interpretations on that data, based on new knowledge and understanding of science, but disregarding all of it it seems rash.
E6300 10y ago
> Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses. > It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first. No. Not all things are subject to relativism. If you believe you're indestructible and do something that gets you hurt or killed, then your cognitive functions have objectively malfunctioned. It doesn't matter if you realize it or not. > I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them What about, say, some European monarchs who went crazy due to generations of inbreeding?
- developer2 10y ago
  >> Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses. You're likely right about the parent's intention. It's somewhat ambiguous with their sentence structure as that second sentence reads fine without the first, with the "them" referring to the "most people" after the comma. Upon second reading, I can see it makes more sense for "them" to refer to the previous sentence's "mental illnesses". There should have been a semicolon between and some restructuring. :) However, I am still not satisfied with that distinction. The "we", even without an intentionally spliced "them", is still being used to try and say "we as a whole", when the reality of the statement is "we as a subset of the whole". Specifically because almost no "mentally ill" person will self-identify as such without having been subjected to years of subjugation to do so. Please find me the group of people, with a statistically significant size, who are both mentally ill and working to define the term "mental illness". They will be few and far between. This reminds me so much of Jane Elliott's lifetime spent trying to teach people who claim not to be racist that they are in fact flat out racist. It's not a perfect analogy, but the root of the problem is very similar.
  - E6300 10y ago
    I don't get your point. Cats also don't refer to themselves as cats, and yet they're still cats. They're cats even if there's no one around to call them cats. Also, this: > the mentally ill only wind up labelling themselves as that after years of pressure into conforming to that label by those around them is not true. For example, a chronic depressive is perfectly capable of seeing that something is wrong with them, because their illness doesn't impair their cognition.

SwellJoe 10y ago

"Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals ..." The great thing about facts is that they're true whether you believe them or not. Schizophrenia has been documented (not by that name but by description) more than 2,000 years ago. You can't blame modern capitalism or the industrial revolution or modern cities or whatever for schizophrenia.

developer2 10y ago
Documentation is recorded by fallible and biased human beings. Much of history is not accurately recorded, whether due to a) not having all the facts, b) trusting the word of third-party sources who may be lying or themselves not be in possession of all the facts, and/or c) being biased to record the history from one's preferred one-sided perspective rather than including both sides of the story verbatim. Any piece of documentation that was not witnessed first-hand by many individuals, with none of them disagreeing on the totality of the facts, is unreliable and forever suspect. The moment someone writes down a fact that was witnessed by someone other than themselves... that "fact" is no longer actual fact. Please tell me about the facts of Jesus's time on Earth. Too far in the past? Fine, tell me exactly why the US occupied Iraq. No, not what you were told or what you read - the information you obtained in person during the decision-making process. Can you?
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  So, it sounds like you would dismiss all historic knowledge, including written history, even from multiple sources? That doesn't seem like a very good approach to learning about the past. Skepticism is fine, but, really, we have to work with the data we've got. We can put modern interpretations on that data, based on new knowledge and understanding of science, but disregarding all of it it seems rash.

E6300 10y ago

> Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses. > It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first. No. Not all things are subject to relativism. If you believe you're indestructible and do something that gets you hurt or killed, then your cognitive functions have objectively malfunctioned. It doesn't matter if you realize it or not. > I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them What about, say, some European monarchs who went crazy due to generations of inbreeding?

developer2 10y ago
>> Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses. You're likely right about the parent's intention. It's somewhat ambiguous with their sentence structure as that second sentence reads fine without the first, with the "them" referring to the "most people" after the comma. Upon second reading, I can see it makes more sense for "them" to refer to the previous sentence's "mental illnesses". There should have been a semicolon between and some restructuring. :) However, I am still not satisfied with that distinction. The "we", even without an intentionally spliced "them", is still being used to try and say "we as a whole", when the reality of the statement is "we as a subset of the whole". Specifically because almost no "mentally ill" person will self-identify as such without having been subjected to years of subjugation to do so. Please find me the group of people, with a statistically significant size, who are both mentally ill and working to define the term "mental illness". They will be few and far between. This reminds me so much of Jane Elliott's lifetime spent trying to teach people who claim not to be racist that they are in fact flat out racist. It's not a perfect analogy, but the root of the problem is very similar.
- E6300 10y ago
  I don't get your point. Cats also don't refer to themselves as cats, and yet they're still cats. They're cats even if there's no one around to call them cats. Also, this: > the mentally ill only wind up labelling themselves as that after years of pressure into conforming to that label by those around them is not true. For example, a chronic depressive is perfectly capable of seeing that something is wrong with them, because their illness doesn't impair their cognition.