/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6583128]

What do you think about the proposition that what we call insanity is nothing more than the inability to effectively perform in a capitalist society?

[Anonymous No.6583162]

Gross oversimplification.

[Anonymous No.6583181]

>>6583128
>implying there are no mental hospitals in non-capitalist societies
I have to assume this is b8 OP, or you're just too stupid to reason with. I have hidden your thread and one other action that rhymes with cage

[Anonymous No.6583182]

>>6583128
/lit/ - literature

[Anonymous No.6583189]

>>6583162
>>6583181
what is wrong with Op ?

[Anonymous No.6583199]

>>6583181
>>implying there are no mental hospitals in non-capitalist societies

It's pretty amazing that despite being presented with a cartoonish simplification of an argument this is the best rebbutal you can come up with

[Anonymous No.6583201]

>>6583128
replace capitalist society with human society and I'll agree

no other way to judge ill-mental-health other than inability to "fit in." From my experiences on drugs, insanity is no less of a reality than sanity.

[Anonymous No.6583209]

>>6583128
Idealistic fuddle. Are the unemployed "insane"? Are the precariat "insane"?

Go fucking read the anti-psychiatry movement's works on the relation between capitalism and insanity.

[Anonymous No.6583218]

so, are you saying insanity doesn't happen in socialist countries? interesting.

... what was the name of that Russian serial killer again?

[Anonymous No.6583241]

Insanity is an inability to function in society. Specifying "capitalist society" carries the implication that there wouldn't be insanity if it weren't for capitalism, which is laughably untrue. Someone experiencing severe psychosis would be just as disconnected from a socialist society as a capitalist one.

[Anonymous No.6583245]

>>6583241
so you agree that the deifnition of insanity depends on the society wherein the insane perosn lives ?

[Anonymous No.6583246]

>>6583199
Was OP's characterization of Foucault's views on insanity unfair? Surely he wrote far more words on the subject but that was the crux of his argument, no?

[Anonymous No.6583253]

>>6583218
>socialism
Those societies where the value form reproduced itself in an expanded form through wage labour and was accumulated as capital?

[Anonymous No.6583259]

>>6583245
There are cultural differences regarding mental health, same as with anything, yes.

[Anonymous No.6583348]

The part where everyone ITT has fucked up is that its not ALL insanity. Im sure we can agree that Diogenes would be considered insane in our society. If I was some Wall Street hotshot, made tons of similar friends, and suddenly decided wealth and the rat race mean jack shit to me and give away all my money im sure my peers would consider me a madman

[Anonymous No.6583395]

>>6583348
Insanity is an imprecise term that is pretty much useless if we want to talk about psychology/psychiatry in a practical sense, rather than applying meaningless academic theory to it. I suppose the point of this thread tends more toward that meaningless philosophizing, this is /lit/ after all, but as someone who works in the field it's hard for me to take that kind of abstraction seriously at all.

[Anonymous No.6583497]

>>6583128
Only partially. But partially, yes.
Mental illness has a faaar more varied and longer history. If you have read Foucault you would have known not only this but that such generalizing statements are very suspicious.

[Anonymous No.6583513]

Well, it is the direction we're going in. We have to perform as perfectly rational economic agents, we ourselves are our own enterprises. So what you see is that more and more people are starting to take medication in order to be able to perform.
One obvious problem with this is that the individual psyche or body becomes the site of solving social conflicts. What Ulrich Beck was saying in Risk Society is even more true today.

[Anonymous No.6583895]

North Korea 1# sane country

[Anonymous No.6583961]

>>6583895
North Korea is a capitalist society, free enterprise has existed there for decades, if not always

[Anonymous No.6584012]

>>6583253
le trot face

[Anonymous No.6584030]

>>6583961
>commietard logic
if it is not Utopia then it is captialist

[Anonymous No.6584032]

>>6583128
/true

[Anonymous No.6584050]

>>6583128
however there are different form of insanicty
mostly ocurring are psychoses

id say a psychotic stops to supplant the view of the other, which is constitutive for subjectivity.
we are all trying to become the protagonist in the story of our life. however we only imagine the one reading this story. the psychotic sees him and hears him. the voices and the view that are following him.
maybe this breakdown is now more frequent as there are more holes to glue over in postmodern society and anyone who isnt able to find a fetish breaks down.
maybe in capitalism this condition is ever more stigmatize as the victims of it tend to produce no actual value anymore whereas in ancient societies they could be regarded as oracles as they were literally able to reflect society onto its members

[Anonymous No.6585717]

bump

[Anonymous No.6585784]

>>6583128
I almost agree with it completely

[Anonymous No.6585798]

>>6583181
>implying there are non-capitalist societies.

[Anonymous No.6585802]

>>6584030
>regular tard logic
If they don't eat hamburgers they are communist

[Anonymous No.6585846]

>>6583181
It's pronounced sag-eh

[Anonymous No.6586115]

>>6583253
well, you're obviously from one of those countries, and judging by your response, i'd say you're insane. /thread

[Anonymous No.6586123]

I think whoever thinks it has never experienced mental illness

[Anonymous No.6586227]

does being sociopathic qualify?

[Anonymous No.6586235]

>>6583181
Since the only non-capitalist societies are hunter-gatherer ones, that would be correct.

[Anonymous No.6586239]

>>6586227
sociopath is just memespeak for meanie

[Anonymous No.6586266]

What do you think about the proposition that what we call a man is really nothing more than a featherless biped with broad, flat nails.

[Anonymous No.6586316]

>>6583128

Seems true. And I see nothing wrong with it if it were. Capitalist society best society.

[Anonymous No.6586385]

>>6583128
I'm reading The ghost road, in which one of the main focal points is the perspection of insanity in the first world war.

Very much in line with your statement. Madness in the novel is either the mental fragementation induced by truama, or the inability to meet the demands of war.
Is it insane to desert your country in war?

[Anonymous No.6586390]

>>6583128
>posts foucault
>doesnt post the father of general semantics who said this a generation beforehand

[Anonymous No.6586411]

>>6583201
>>6583199
>>6583201
>>6583209
>>6583241
>>6583259

yall faggots can't even into neuro-semantics
disruption of the instrument used to measure and conceptualize the environment leads to erroneous results. morality is not a component, fitting in is not a component.
the hermit or a monk is not considered insane. neither does committing a crime imply mental illness.

the mere fact that so much of /lit/ likes works by deranged authors so much indicates a skewed perspective that they themselves have. a containment board for nutjobs if you will.

[Anonymous No.6586414]

>>6583128
>inability
Other way round.
Capitalism is irrational.
Insanity is a rational response to an irrational world.

[Anonymous No.6586424]

>>6586414
capitalism is the best econonic system.
even before marx, capital existed, necessitating a capital driven society for all of antiquity. even teaching monkeys about money leads to them prostituting themselves for food.

underground markets still existed in the soviety union where there wasn't any "capitalism"

what faggots fail to understand is that marx did not invent capitalism, he merely described what was happenning in europe, the decline of monarchy and the rise of the merchant class as overtly having power. they always covertly had the power in a country anyway as it was the merchants who financed any war. if you pissed off the merchants, they'd fuck off to normandy and raise an army while your poor ass is at home sitting on a pile of nothing.

[Anonymous No.6586433]

>>6586424
advocacy unprovoked
"capitalism is the best econonic system."
read again. I did not contradict this statement.

[Anonymous No.6586435]

>>6583128
Insanity is the inability to effect meaningful communication with the average person.

[Anonymous No.6586548]

>>6586435
>average person
ya mean homo economicus?

[Anonymous No.6586561]

>>6586548
I mean an IQ 100 warehouse worker.

[Anonymous No.6586575]

it's hard to disagree with the claim that insanity is socially constructed; it's a pretty basic point. diagnoses of mental illnesses are not nearly as straightforward as physical ones.

really pumped for all the good responses to this comment that always happen here whenever someone posts the phrase "socially constructed" or "social construct."

[Anonymous No.6586582]

People really do go insane and think the TV is sending them messages and their family are aliens like in the movies.

Anyone author who posits this theory is deliberately promoting bad ideas to undermine the country they are targeting.

[Anonymous No.6586612]

>>6586561
But that's still circular logic. You take the statistical norm then you normalize people accordingly. What you're not examining is if that statistical norm is the product of previous normalizations. And of course it is. Warehouse workers with IQ 100 didn't always exist.
But more concretely, to medicalize your psyche (e.g. via pills) is the norm today, especially in the US, but it's becoming common even in eastern parts of Europe. There's a Derridian point here: it is natural to supplement the natural.

[Anonymous No.6586629]

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

[Anonymous No.6586833]

>>6583128
Dumbest thing I've heard all day.

[Anonymous No.6586858]

I have a friend who keeps spewing this opinion, but it's bullshit (for the most part). There is some truth to it, ADHD for instance seems to be just a matter of a personality that doesn't work well in society, but if you're going into proper mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar or similar illnesses then it's clearly an actual illness. Having a voice in your head telling you to kill your parents is not a side effect of modern society.

[Anonymous No.6586864]

>>6583201
>From my experiences on drugs, insanity is no less of a reality than sanity.
Doing drugs does not give you experience about being mentally ill.

[Anonymous No.6586866]

insanity is just a term, among others, belonging to the natural language, which some science refines in qualitive and quantitative manners, which is used to exclude people form other people who are in charge.

[Anonymous No.6587311]

>>6585802
>deludedtard logic
the lack of hamburger buns is a feature of utopia

[Anonymous No.6587340]

Hey, hey, you all guys saying this is a dumb opinion, you do realize that this is an oversimplification by OP who hasn't read any Foucault and just skimmed wikipedia and mixed it with his already existing ideas from pop culture, right? You do know you aren't refuting his actual arguments right now, right?

[Anonymous No.6587344]

>>6586424
>capitalism is the best econonic system.
>even before marx, capital existed, necessitating a capital driven society for all of antiquity.

Simply because capital has been around for a while has no bearing whatsoever on its value. Maybe the reason why its been around so long is because those who benefit from it are the ones who are able to maintain it? you've got two perfectly good examples right there in which those with wealth were capable of biting back

[Anonymous No.6587360]

>>6587344
no but the quality of life under capitalism, the quality of material good, the security, and even the working conditions are all good arguments for it when compared to most alternatives. The only alternative that has shown any promise is mixed systems with markets + social safety nets.

[Anonymous No.6587362]

>>6586424
capitalism isn't a synonym with market or trade.
our current relation between market and every aspect of life wasn't the standard in previous eras, even if we can retroactively understand older processes that way as long as we avoid paying attention to how things were seen at its time.
constantinopla had a huge proto-bourgeois rebellion and instead of the french revolution they just killed a few hundreds and covered the market in sand. context matters.

[Anonymous No.6587375]

how is Detroit doing? isn't it great having a country that can partially go bankrupt while other parts are richer than ever? i'm really glad that the global economy allows the exploitation of the poorest parts by the richer parts, that way the people having it easy can assume everything is great!

[Anonymous No.6587395]

>>6583128
correct
but that doesn't tell you much

[Anonymous No.6587397]

>>6587375

[Anonymous No.6587406]

>>6587311
What makes NK communist, in your opinion?

[Anonymous No.6587412]

>>6587406
Wikipedia, what makes it not in your opinion?

[Anonymous No.6587432]

>>6587412
There is no common ownership of the means of production.

[Anonymous No.6587460]

>>6587432
common ownership is a pipedream and will produce stagnation due to the interests of partners. This reality forces the communist regime to adapt

[Anonymous No.6587466]

>>6587460
Sure, but NK still isn't communist.

[Anonymous No.6587479]

>>6587466
close enough, USSR and NK are the reality of communism

[Anonymous No.6587490]

>>6587479
>close enough
How is something that doesn't even resemble communism "close enough". You're being daft.

[Anonymous No.6587498]

>>6587479
>>6587490
that's like saying the democratic republic of the congo is the reality of democracy because it has it in the name

[Anonymous No.6587531]

>>6587490
>>6587498
>by that logic capitalism does not exist either
pfft, keep cracking them eggs. One of these days you will get your utopia.

[Anonymous No.6587567]

>>6587531
>>by that logic capitalism does not exist either
Who are you quoting?

Also nobody expects a utopia. Can you only strive for something if it is perfect?

[Anonymous No.6587606]

>>6587567
society should strive for something is that is better, communism is a massive failure. The true believers of communism have deluded themselves that following their murderous ideology is the path. They pretend that all of failures are not the result of communism and that this time they will get it right. Meanwhile the fruits of capitalism and the welfare state have increased freedom, quality of life, security, and opportunity. Time to admit communism is only good for mass suffering and genocide.

[Anonymous No.6587611]

>>6587606
If communism is a massive failure (it isn't) what is capitalism? A system that exploits countless people, keeping them in misery and destitution, is a success to you?

[Anonymous No.6587625]

>people who don't know anything about mental illness using it as a rhetorical tool to promote their favorite political ideology

Embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.6587673]

A platitude that some might see as insightful due to their inability to practice the power of thought.

"You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded"

Humanity has no claim to absolute truth or purpose, therefore any definition we come up with is just a construct that only applies within a bubble (another construct). It's all just senseless loops, there's hardly any point in talking at all above bare necessities - bound to be meaningless nonsense.

[Anonymous No.6587675]

>>6587673
Wittgenstein, by the way.

[Anonymous No.6587678]

>>6587673
are you saying there's no such thing as mental illness?

[Anonymous No.6587687]

>>6583128
Slavoj Zizek: A communist society would be a society where everyone would be allowed to dwell in his or her own stupidity. You know who gave me this idea? Even Fred Jameson who said what if you imagine communism not as a perfectly normal society but, like a crazy society that you find on some Bruegel painting/proverbs, you know. A madman here that is a man thinks that is a man who thinks he is a chicken, there is a man who thinks he is Napoleon, you know. All these madmen politely existing wouldn't it be nice?

[Anonymous No.6587717]

This thread is cancer. Here have a little chemo and see if it works.

Capitalism = private property, wage labour, production for profit and a free market
Communism = A stateless, classless society where the workers own the means of production and things are distributed from ability to need
Means of production = Things you use to produce; a factory, a hammer etc.
the state = a group of people who successfully claim the only legitimate use of force within a given territory

While Capitalism certainly exasperates mental illness, especially through alienation it's not the sole cause; what we call mental illness occurred in medieval Europe before capitalism had developed. If anybody has information on mental illness in "primitive" societies that would save me a great amount of time. I haven't read Foucault's book either so I don't know what his point was.

[Anonymous No.6587762]

>>6587687
So does a communist society allow people to hurt themselves or others out of "his or her own stupidity"? Or does is simply pretend that never happens and the only kind of madness is benign Hollywoodized caricatures such as the man who believes he is Napoleon or a chicken?

[Anonymous No.6587781]

>>6587717
>If anybody has information on mental illness in "primitive" societies that would save me a great amount of time.

they're usually called saints or shamans

[Anonymous No.6587852]

>>6587678
I said what I said quite clearly. All definitions are only true within finite constructed systems. Anything more requires absolute universal truths and knowledge of them. Insanity exists within the finite, constructed system that is society. It does not exist inherently, it's a concept dependent on society and language.

[Anonymous No.6587862]

>>6587717
that's a bit simplistic. "capitalism" should be contrasted with the historical "despotism" and "barbarism", where despotism is the invention of the state and state codes and capitalism is the explosion of all barbaric, cultural and state codes (indeed it is the constant explosion of all these codes in commodity circulation)

[Anonymous No.6588509]

>>6587611
the least worst system

[Anonymous No.6588540]

>>6583128
You need a better word than insanity. There are people with genuine disorders who can't function in any sort of society, because their psychosis are so mind altering that they speak to people that aren't physically there to begin with, and concoct ''realities'' that only help in destroying themselves even further. At that point it has nothing to do with ideology or culture, you're just fucked.

''Weird'' ''anti-social'' and the non medical use of ''autism'', maybe. Insanity, no.

[Anonymous No.6589127]

>>6587311
"In defense of burgers" by Anon

[Anonymous No.6589161]

>>6587678
He's saying that mental illness is a human invention.

The invention may well be useful, that's also perfectly in line with Witty. But there is no one phenomenon in the real world to which the words "mental illness" correspond exactly.

[Anonymous No.6589349]

>>6583128
Sounds about right. Capitalism is merely the systematization of human nature, and insanity is an abnormal/ill state of the human mind.

[Anonymous No.6589394]

>>6589127
why do you hate burgers anon?