People Crack Under Pressure

[Tony Abdo]

People want to believe that the world is getting better.      It is part
of the need to have a positive outlook to function.      I'm OK, the
world is rosy.    As such, a sort of quasi religion has sprung up.   A
belief in high tech progress has become almost a patriotic prerequisite
in capitalist society.

In medicine, this translates into a primordial belief that the system is
working for our good.       That doctors are using science to get us
better.    And that there is an unending march forward in medical
advances.

Sure, this is not the total view.    Most people just don't want to
think about illness at all, unless it is forced on them by necessity.
Out of sight, out of mind.      But when crisis begins, faith also
begins to spring forward.     Faith in the capitalist medical
professionals.

So let's take a brief overview of mental health, and see how little
benefit the capitalist medical system really has to offer.     The
record here, is as dismal as it is in other aspects of health care.
And the pro-system propaganda is even more insidious.

In brief,  people are being told that the medical system is conquering
depression and schizophrenia.      We are bombarded world wide, with a
constant bath of propaganda that new scientific advances are being made
on these fronts.      Especially important is the battle against
depression, since it is something that we are all exposed to in our own
daily lives.

Key here,  is to question whether depression and schizophrenia are the
major portion of the spectrum of mental illness in society, just because
the medical system focuses on this.      An even greater problem is
aggression and violence.

But aggression and violence are sponsored by capitalism, so medicine has
tended to only become involved in this issue with patients that have
committed official criminal acts, as defined by law or other public
authority, such as the school system.

And key to all these probems of depression, aggression, and even
schizophrenia, is stress.     Here is a dilemna for capitalist medicine.
How can stress be treated?

Stress can be treated two ways.      It can be reduced, or it can be
moderated by "happy pills".       What a terrible situation for
practioners of medicine for profit!

"Happy pills" are abused and become part of the problem itself.
PLUS, they are prohibited in large part,  by an elite that realizes that
a drugged horse runs slower.   Here is the real ideological stance of
church and state, reduced to a nutshell.    A drugged horse runs slower.

So why not tackle the problem from an angle of reducing stress in our
lives?     Why doesn't capitalist medicine campaign scientifically for
reducing disease causing stress in society?      Clearly, with less
stress, we would need less "happy pills", or "antidepressants".

The answer is simple, and parallels why capitalist medicine cannot
struggle seriously against overuse of antibiotics, either.      It has
to do with the need to accept capitalist disease causing structures
without mention.      Or funding and well paid employment gets cut off.

Capitalism loves stress for workers.     Speedup is indigenous to the
capitalist system.      It is held up as its highest virtue.      Stress
is progress.      Stress is efficiency!

The whole foundation of capitalism is speedup.      The assembly line is
speedup personified.     But capitalism didn't stop here in its efforts
to "rationalize" economic activity.      Speedup was introduced into all
areas of personal life.     Fast food, highways, cellular phones,
computers; all represent speedup introduced into daily living, non-stop.

Capitalism is dependent on a mentally ill, stressed out society.
And it continually tries to speedup the line, everywhere.     An
interesting example is seen in volume.     Compare sound levels in
cinemas and at concerts, with the sounds of traditional music.

So how can capitalist medicine treat mental illness?      The answer is
simple.   It can't.     It can only pretend to do so.     And just as
capitalist medicine has botched up treating infectious disease, it is
producing a larger and larger number of botched up victims of its
medical practice in the area of mental health.

It is this inability of capitalist medical structures to maintain an
ecologic balance between health and disease,  that is creating the
biggest crisis world wide for capitalism's survival.      Capitalist
medicine cannot check the profit making need for continual speedup on
all assembly lines.

Our health is going to sink on board this Medical Titanic.

Tony Abdo