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Some problems just don't have good solutions. We're so used to political debates where the Republicans say "less regulation will solve X", the Democrats say "m
by tjic 14y ago
Some problems just don't have good solutions.
We're so used to political debates where the Republicans say "less regulation will solve X", the Democrats say "more spending will solve X", the libertarians say "X is none of the government's business", and each suggests that things will go swimmingly under their preferred way of attacking the problem.
Some things, though, just suck.
Schizophrenia is one of those things. You can't cure it. You can't treat it very well. There's not much to be done.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and no amount of "training teachers" or "diagnosing diseases" or whatever will change that.
It's a tragedy.
- dgavey 14y agoTragedy yes, though I do believe that if it was caught earlier and appropriate help was provided while the child was younger. The tragic outcome may have been avoided. There are a lot of people who live with Schizophrenia and live 'relatively' productive lives. I believe he could have been one too.
- wonderzombie 14y agoI think this is too fatalistic. This sets the bar far too low -- you could substitute poverty or crime in here without substantially altering the meaning. No, you cannot "cure" it or "fix" it, but the alternative isn't "do nothing." That's a false dichotomy. At a minimum you can look for ways mitigate the impact it has on our society. See the pieces elsewhere in this thread which discuss the cost to our society incurred by ER visits from the mentally ill and/or homeless. That's a trivial example. It might be worth discussing how other western industrialized nations approach this; I suspect that those countries which have some kind of socialized health infrastructure do more than the US than shrug their shoulders and avert their eyes.
- josephlord 14y agoAgree with the additional comment that the sufferer is part of the society the impact should be mitigated on.
- angersock 14y agoNot so much...the fatalism here is not unwarrented. If I give a pauper a million dollars, they are no longer a pauper--foolish noveau riche, perhaps, but not a pauper. If I repeal laws pertaining to various things, drugs for example, a great many criminals cease to be so. Mental illness, unfortunately, tends to stay with the person. :(
- wonderzombie 14y agoThat's true, but again, at least we ought to evaluate what the cost of doing nothing is. What we're doing now is pretty close to nothing, and it does have a cost, in money and in more intangible dimensions (e.g. humanitarian).
- angersock 14y agoOh, don't get me wrong--I'm very much for state-run healthcare and could be considered a proponent of socialism. I think that any civilization with as much resources as we do (we here being Americans, presumably) is criminal if it does not work to support its citizens cradle-to-grave. I was just disagreeing with your assessment that fatalism is unwarranted--we do it (caring for mental illness) anyway, because it simply must be done, but we ought not pretend that things will get better.