TToday, we claim to care more than ever. A focus on creating a “culture of kindness” is at the forefront of our minds. Miserable Mental health statistics.Whether or not to recognize World Mental Health Day, and even control The words we use to discuss issues, people want the world to know that they care.
However, we also live in a society that demands accountability for our actions. And today, that doesn't just mean our private behavior, but also our online activities. That would be unfair — So Given our ability to anonymize ourselves, we can say we live in a digital panopticon, but we need to recognize that our interconnectedness is a double-edged sword. In some ways, interconnectedness can provide us with stronger support networks, but in other ways, those networks can attack us with the brutality and psychological force that can hurt a person. may be hostile to.
The complex issue of mental illness defies the simple slogans we tout.states that “It’s okay if it’s not okay.” Not being able to ask if it's okay to be with someone do not have No problem. Depression doesn't just make people cry a lot, it makes them unpredictable, fragile, callous, and even threatening.
This is not to deny that bed is often the most comfortable place for people with depression. Heavy duvets and yellowed pillows give minimal comfort. The bed provides comfort, security, and a wall against what appears to be a boring, alien, and threatening world outside of it.
It is these perspectives that lead to a depressing state of mind. Small demands can become mountains to climb, adding to both fatigue and frustration. My heart turned inward and I became so obsessed with problems that I couldn't tell which ones were big or small. Overreactions are common, both when crying and self-harming, and when dealing with others. When someone challenges us to strive beyond what is acceptable, the threatening glint of annoyance in our eyes is rarely far away.
As Salman Rushdie wrote in his essay truth, our modern reality is multidimensional. In this essay, Rushdie was discussing the role of news and the internet, and this logic applies not only to the increasingly complex social and political realms we navigate, but also to the prediction of mental illness. I wonder if the same applies to impossibility and multidimensional reality.
On the one hand, modern reality is necessarily multidimensional, fragmented, and fragmented; on the other hand, modern reality is a very specific, indisputable set of facts. How can you make a claim?
The behavior of depressed people and our reactions to it is rarely analyzed in any significant way.Popular depictions of depression in constantly entertaining comedies and more little miss sunshine, We will mainly focus on the emotional spiral of depression, excluding less acceptable modes of behavior. Starring Steve Carell movingly as a humiliated academic, the film focuses on his triumphs in contrast to his own failures, yet his actions during a depressive episode receive most of the attention. He is contrasted with his younger brother-in-law who is not so “bright”. Instead, only a brief mention is given compared to the focus on his suicide attempt.
In today's culture, we focus on harm. In fact, when I teach John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle, my students always talk about Mill's lack of emphasis on psychological harm. They find it frustrating that Mill does not take into account people's emotional wounds. For them, it becomes even more mysterious when they learn about Mill's own early mental health problems.
Today's society is closer to Joel Feinberg's “offense principle” than to Mill's harm principle. Feinburg's offense principle focuses on the concept that something said or done constitutes harm if it is done simply to deeply hurt someone and for no other reason. This principle is implemented not only in politics but also in social life. It's not limited to selfish politicians preaching kindness to us in one speech and later immediately demanding “accountability” for something, but almost all of us That's what I'm doing.
Our “culture of kindness” masks deep-seated misconceptions about the mentally ill. This is evident in the tragic reality that our mental health problems are skyrocketing. That doesn't mean everyone in these statistics necessarily has a mental health problem. More and more people are confusing depression with melancholy, or a rational response to a stressful situation. But statistics cannot be completely ignored either. For example, the rise in self-harm among teens reveals an alarming trend that we don't seem to have the tools to correct.
There's also Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. The sweetness of the American heart, I am concerned about the role that social media and endless screen time play. The pressure on everyone to “live their best life” creates an atmosphere of constant competition and fear of missing out or being left behind. This, combined with the infantilization of young people who have delayed 'adulthood' and increased pressures on their academic and social lives, is a toxic combination. For Lukianov and Haidt, the result is that the younger generation will be increasingly unable to cope with life's large and small reversals, exacerbating existing problems.
However, this type of discussion ignores the traditional forces in the pursuit of mental health. When we're talking about a “support network” today, we're actually talking about family and friends. In an increasingly fragmented society, the concepts of family and community disintegration are rarely properly considered. Acting as if we are all happily independent cosmopolitans misunderstands the important role that society and beliefs play in our own well-being.
It was no coincidence that when Durkheim was driven to study suicide by the loss of a close friend, he realized that the social pressure caused by religious feelings made a huge difference in people's behavior. The world can be a cruel and scary place, and without sufficient community relationships it can also be a terribly lonely place.
This is the unintended end result of maximalist liberalism.
There is no easy way out for everyone. If we truly want to begin a journey towards national spiritual well-being, we need to escape the complacent narrative that currently occupies us. The answer is harsh, controversial, and perhaps more rooted in opposition to our current way of life than we would like to admit.It's not as simple as just putting down the phone, we need to be aware of our increasingly disconnected state
This is the unintended end result of maximalist liberalism. A society where we all conduct our own “living experiments” without considering the impact on the wider community or others. We spend our lives saying, “You should do this,'' without even thinking about whether it's a good thing to begin with. Perhaps for our collective well-being, we need to start expecting more from each other in how we live and respond to each other. We need to stop repeating the mantra of empathy and start actually practicing it.
