by John Young
Notwithstanding the shiny veneer of material prosperity predominating American consumerist culture, there is a massive undercurrent of mental anguish among the Folk letting us know in stark terms that all is not well. It is estimated that, in 2000, over 750,000 Americans attempted suicide. While not all succeeded, it is now the eighth leading cause of death of adults, and the third largest cause of death among teens, having tripled for males since the 1960’s. The incidence of depression in our country has increased between ten-fold and twenty-fold since 1950, and during that time the average age of onset of symptoms has dropped from 29.5 to between 14 and 15.(1) If current trends continue, the World Health Organization has predicted that depression will become the world’s second largest cause of debility, after heart disease.(2)
You don’t have to be a doctor to see what this portends, nor do you have to be a historian to see that the rise of rates of depression parallels many other changes in the Western world. Clearly, this societal sickness is a serious problem that must be addressed.Having occurred so recently,it is clear that the causation is largely environmental rather than genetic. It therefore stands to reason that we can do something about this scourge within our community.
There is a compelling reason why dealing with the environmental causation(s) is preferable to massively medicating the population: the medications are incompatible with child birth due to both decreased libido and risk of birth defects. Likewise, the medication approach is unsustainable in the long run, and is of questionable efficacy. So uncovering the root, and dealing with it, can help our Folk re-establish positive mental health.
So what is the root cause of the depression epidemic? In my review of hundreds of books, articles and studies, one factor — a factor of keen interest to EAU members — has stood out from all the rest: a sense of alienation from modern consumerist culture. As one researcher described matters, “Depression and its myriad allied disorders are symptoms of a society that has lost its way, forcing us to live in a manner inimical to our human, genetic nature …” (3)
In an increasingly atomized culture where many of us rush to work, rush home and spend far too much time in front of the television; work and electronic entertainment (artificial environments) have replaced real social interaction and ties with friends, family and neighbors. Our society has become increasingly mobile, with workers moving thousands of miles to improve their economic circumstances — making more permanent (and sustaining) social bonds difficult to maintain. Participation in church and religious institutions has declined dramatically; and a phony politics has served to divide our people along unnatural lines and further preclude close ties.
Not surprisingly, since human beings evolved as community-oriented creatures, this loss of community has had a negative impact on our mental health. According to one study “It is generally agreed that social ties play a beneficial role in the maintenance of psychological well-being.”(4) According to another study, a well-developed social network correlates with positive mental health effects, whereas a non-existent or dysfunctional social network corresponds with a greater risk of depression.(5)
Another researcher delivers a scathing indictment of our culture:
“The faith encouraged by consumer culture is a faith in money, technology, and consumer products, and it is a faith that often has significant adverse side effects, including addiction and withdrawal. Americans who don’t share the faith of such a culture will likely feel alienated from society, and alienation—from either one’s humanity or one’s surroundings— is painful and can be a source of depression. I believe that many people feel alienated in consumer culture …”(6)
Even Pope John Paul recognized that the epidemic of depression assailing our people has a cultural cause. A news article from 2003 stated: “Pope John Paul II warned Friday (Nov. 14) that a consumerist society preoccupied with material well-being has helped to make depression the most common psychiatric disease in the Western world.”(7) The article goes on to quote the Pope as saying: “The phenomenon of depression tells the church and all of society how important it is to offer to people, and especially to the young, models and experiences that help them to grow on the human, psychological, moral and spiritual plane.” (8)
Most recently psychologist Oliver James has defined consumerist values to be a virus called Affluenza. He describes the matter thusly:
“The Affluenza virus is a set of values which increase our vulnerability to psychological distress: placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. Many studies have shown that infection with the virus increases your susceptibility to the commonest mental illnesses: depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder.”(9)
Going on, James pulls no punches:
“The virus values prevent you from fulfilling fundamental human needs which seem to exist in every society. Whereas you want a better car or greater intelligence or bigger house, you can survive without them; the same is not true of Needs.
The precise content and labelling of such needs is debatable, but four are very commonly identified: security (emotional and material), connectedness to others, authenticity and autonomy, and feeling competent.
Around the world, rural communities are less prone to illness than urban ones, nonindustrialised communities less so than industrialised ones.
My explanation … is that the virus promotes Having over Being and the confusion (through advertising) of wants with needs. Only through getting us to want more and to be someone else can economic growth and the profits of a tiny elite be continuous.”(10)
It follows from the foregoing that the reintegration of our Folk into a more authentic, more organic culture that is more conducive to their wellbeing is an important goal. Globalism and consumerism claim far too many lives and create far too much human misery: it’s time to establish something better.
I don’t want to unnecessarily depress you by defining a huge problem, and leaving you without viable solutions!
Short-term solutions that we can implement in our everyday lives include:
1. Commitment to a positive cause larger than ourselves that provides meaning to our lives.
2. Active engagement in a symbiotic community of people who we can support, and who will support us during tough times; including strong extended families, certain churches, and some political groups.
3. Disengagement from the primary purveyor of consumerist culture: the television.
4. The affirmative and explicit adoption of a positive and definable ethical system.
5. Clear personal identification of belonging to a particular ethnic or religious community.
Remember – for these to have salutatory value, they must be adopted and expressed in unambiguously positive ways!
Sources
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(1) Levine, Bruce (2007), Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic, Chelsea Green Publishing
(2) World Health Organization (2007), http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/definition/en/
(3) Murray, B. & Fortinberry, A. (2004), DEPRESSION: A Social Problem with a Relationship Solution, AHP Perspective, June/July 2004
(4) Kawachi, I.1; Berkman, L.F. (2001), Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Volume 78, Number 3, 1 September 2001 , pp. 458-467(10)
(5) Wade, T. D., & Kendler, K. S. (2000). The relationship between social support and major depression: Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and genetic perspectives. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 188, 251-258.
(6) Levine, Bruce (2007), Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic, Chelsea Green Publishing
(7) Polk, P. (2003), Pope Says Consumerism Helps to Spread Depression, Religious News Service
(8) ibid.
(9) James, Oliver (2006), On the Money, The Observer, Jan 1, 2006
(10) ibid.