Wojtek's points here nicely link this discussion with the one about social processes being "independent of human will" where the latter is understood to mean "social processes that are not the result of conscious human/social purpose." W's suggestion of misalignment between what goods/services/etc. are deemed valuable through a market process and what is humanly useful is precisely, I think, the key point in the other thread: unless market valuations are somehow embedded or corrected for via more deliberative, social understandings of what forms of goods social resources should be devoted to exploring and producing, then we will increasingly have one-sided outputs.
Of course this will be a familiar point to many here. But: (1) it is precisely by grounding the general discussion of social processes operating independently of conscious human purposes in specific examples/cases that we can specify what is and is not at issue in the broader discussion (e.g., it is not about a highly-developed social or technical division of labor per se, but rather the decisional processes of how to deploy and specialize that labor); and (2) fleshing out the precise mechanisms by which the critique that W offers a broad-brush version of here works, may go a long way to elaborating with some precision concrete versions of "alienation" criticisms (as opposed to injustice or exploitation criticisms) of capitalist institutions in a way that can also lead to strategically and programmatically important thinking about alternatives (e.g., how, if at all, is it plausible to flesh out the assertion that "capitalism colonizes whatever is left of spontaneous human interaction by channeling through the media it creates and control" in the form of a critique that does not require, as its implicit premise, either an implausibly utopian or unattractively authoritarian picture of alternative ways of institutionalizing mass communication?).
> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:04:16 -0500
> From: wsoko52 at gmail.com
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] spreading depression
>
> [WS:] There are many good points made in this discussion, but I would like
> to add one aspect that seems to provide a more direct link between
> capitalism and depression (which was Doug's original point) - diminishing
> opportunity for face to face interaction and increasing social isolation.
>
> Capitalism produced and marketed gadgets like the internet and its various
> applications (tweeter, facebook etc.) provide venues for one-dimensional
> communication, one based almost exclusively on verbal clues. This venue
> provides virtually no opportunity for non-verbal communication (body
> language) and for emphatic reaction (mirror neurons) which requires physical
> proximity.
>
> As a result, life style promoted by capitalism eliminates public spaces
> where people used to be able to interact (e.g. public squares, transit,
> cultural establsihments) pushing people into offcie cubicles, suburbia and
> long solo car commutes. On the top of it, capitalism colnizes whatever is
> left of spontaneous human interaction by channeling through the media it
> creates and control. Those media may be conducive to profit making and
> perhaps maintaining superficial interpersanal contacts and business-like
> relations, but they are not conduvice for the information rich face to face
> communication and emotional attachment it creates.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:07 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>wrote:
>
> >
> > On 2010-02-15, at 11:29 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > >
> > > On Feb 15, 2010, at 11:21 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> > >
> > >> The problem (or a problem) lies in having an accurate estimate on
> > >> depression rates in the past
> > >
> > > One reason it's annoying that that article contained no footnotes is that
> > it claimed that it wasn't a matter of frequency of diagnosis, but actual
> > increase in prevalence. You're right - who knows for sure? But I swear I
> > remember nothing like the ubiquity of depression among college students now
> > back when I was a sprite.
> > =======================
> > Could it be because of how stigmatized depression and anxiety was then that
> > no one would admit to it, not even to themselves? Seems to me depression
> > came up from underground with the development and widespread adoption of
> > SSRI's. I have friends and relatives taking these medications now and freely
> > discussing their condition in a way that was once unimaginable, contributing
> > to the impression that it is the new normal.
> >
> > As for students, this is really the first generation which has grown up
> > without conviction, and I think this helps explain the deeper sense of
> > alienation and depression which I observed first hand in our son and his
> > cohort. My college generation, broadly speaking, was able to define itself
> > politically; there was still a international socialist movement leading
> > national liberation struggles. Previous generations had religious as well as
> > political convictions which gave a certain coherence and purpose to their
> > lives.
> >
> > The intense competition to find a good job and a good mate has also
> > heightened stresses on young people. In traditional immobile societies - or
> > even as recently my parents' generation - these pressures were largely
> > absent; you knew you were either going to work the family farm or be
> > apprenticed to a trade, and your prospective mate lived in the same
> > community and may have already been chosen for you. I wouldn't go back to
> > those days, of course, but the additional freedom resulting from mass
> > education, social and geographic mobility, and the profound economic and
> > cultural changes affecting the sexes seem to have brought with them
> > correspondingly greater insecurity and the pathologies it produces,
> > especially among young males. So, too, has the shift in global growth and
> > the expansion of the international labour market over the past quarter
> > century which left this generation with far fewer job opportunities and much
> > greater job insecurity than my relatively privileged generatio!
> > n enjoyed.
> >
> > But if you looked for it in earlier times, especially during economic
> > downturns, you could still uncover a widespread incidence of depression:
> >
> > "In her classic sociology of the Depression, The Unemployed Man and His
> > Family, Mirra Komarovsky vividly describes how joblessness strained - and in
> > many cases fundamentally altered - family relationships in the 1930s. During
> > 1935 and 1936, Komarovsky and her research team interviewed the members of
> > 59 white middle-class families in which the husband and father had been out
> > of work for at least a year. Her research revealed deep psychological
> > wounds. 'It is awful to be old and discarded at 40,' said one father. 'A man
> > is not a man without work.' Another said plainly, 'During the depression, I
> > lost something. Maybe you call it self-respect' but in losing it I also lost
> > the respect of my children, and I am afraid I am losing my wife." Noted one
> > woman of her husband, 'I still love him, but he doesn't seem as 'big' a man.
> >
> > "Taken together, the stories paint a picture of diminished men, bereft of
> > familial authority. Household power - over children, spending, and daily
> > decisions of all types - generally shifted to wives over time (and some
> > women were happier overall as a result). Amid general anxiety, fears of
> > pregnancy, and men's loss of self-worth and loss of respect from their
> > wives, sex lives withered. Socializing all but ceased as well, a casualty of
> > poverty and embarrassment. Although some men embraced family life and drew
> > their wife and children closer, most became distant. Children described
> > their father as "mean". "nasty". or "bossy", and didn't want to bring
> > friends around, for fear of what he might say. "There was less physical
> > violence towards the wife than towards the child," Komarovsky wrote.
> >
> > "In the 70 years that have passed since the publication of The Unemployed
> > Man and His Family, American society has become vastly more wealthy, and a
> > more comprehensive social safety net - however frayed it may seem - now
> > stretches beneath it. Two-earner households have become the norm, cushioning
> > the economic blow of many layoffs. And of course, relationships between men
> > and women have evolved.
> >
> > "Yet when read today, large parts of Komarovsky's book still seem
> > disconcertingly up-to-date. All available evidence suggests that long bouts
> > of unemployment - particularly male unemployment - still enfeeble the
> > jobless and warp their families to a similar degree, and in many of the same
> > ways. Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in the UK,
> > and a pioneer in the field of happiness studies, says no other circumstance
> > produces a larger decline in mental health and well-being than being
> > involuntarily out of work for six months or more. It is the worst thing that
> > can happen, he says, equivalent to the death of a spouse, and "a kind of
> > bereavement" in its own right.
> >
> > "Only a small fraction of the decline can be tied directly to losing a
> > paycheck, Oswald says; most of it appears to be the result of a tarnished
> > identity and a loss of self-worth. Unemployment leaves psychological scars
> > that remain even after work is found again, and, because the happiness of
> > husbands and the happiness of wives are usually closely related, the misery
> > spreads throughout the home."
> >
> > http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LB17Dj05.html
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
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