A Future with No Future: Depression, the Left, and the Politics of Mental Health
This article is very “inside baseball” for the far left. As far as I could understand, the article basically says: depression is caused by the world being terrible, and the world is terrible entirely because of capitalism, so depression is mostly capitalism’s fault. Therefore, we on the left (the article is explicit that it is only for “we on the left”), must learn that therapy is a kind of important political collective act to help us recover from our depression so we can fight capitalism, and not be fooled into thinking it’s something that our depression is something we have individual agency over.<p>I guess.<p>I don’t have a deep understanding of depression, except that it is a very real and difficult thing that many people struggle with. So let me caveat that first.<p>But I have to say, my gut reaction is that it’s rather sad to take a worldview that makes things so dire as to say one’s own depression and the apparent increase in depression around the world is entirely due to the politics you oppose.<p>To me this reads as the tragic consequences of ever escalating polarization. Instead of seeing the politics around you as merely diverse ideas held by your friends and neighbors, you see it as something more like a species differentiator - and “they” are in control. Well, yes, that would be dire.<p>But out in the real world it turns out the vast majority of people on the right and the left are not so far out to the wings of their ideology, and that if they sat down over a nice meal they could have a great conversation and really enjoy each other’s company, perhaps even learn from each other and positively influence each other.<p>The political world around us is indeed depressing, but I would argue we shouldn’t wish that we could get out of bed so we can “throw a brick through a window,” but perhaps instead so we can work toward understanding and reconciling with our neighbors instead.