I firmly believe a lot of current mental health issues are worsened by living under capitalism, as do others. Some of the most obvious examples to me are:
- Anxiety about being able to afford food and housing, having a stable job, not having emergency medical events, etc.
- Depression from not having free time due to being overworked, or from not being able to afford entertainment and distraction, etc.
One potential remedy to mental health issues has been developing in the form of psychedelic therapy. Besides the issues related to restricting access by making the treatment prohibitively expensive (both the drug and the administering physician) that are seemingly unavoidable in profit-driven healthcare systems, I think there’s a massive danger in using psychedelics to effectively pacify people.
Psychedelics can be used maliciously, in that they can be used to help people accept their life as it is–this sounds fine, until you realize that it can be used to make people accept being exploited and being effectively destitute. I think the problem here is that the medical institutions (and probably most patients) are going to have the goal of: being less depressed, less anxious, etc. If psychedelics were actually used to “wake people up to their reality”, they’d probably become more depressed, more anxious, etc–counter to the stated goals. I think one of the first steps towards wanting to change the existing system is seeing the flaws in the existing system and how one is negatively affected by it.
Then, if psychedelics are (going to be) used to pacify people suffering under capitalism, is their widespread adoption not a bad thing? If people are willfully blinding themselves to their suffering, is any hint of revolutionary spirit being extinguished?
I don’t think these issues are unique to psychedelics, either. If existing depression treatments numb you to all emotion, good and bad, they can make existing while being exploited more bearable.
I think its no different from any other medicine. Overwhelmingly, the burden of disease in modern society is attributable to social determinants of health which all stem from societal inequality and exploitation under capitalism. Type 2 diabetes is also a disease of capitalist overproduction of calorie dense foods at the expense of healthier complex carbohydrates. Is it anti-revolutionary for someone to take metformin to treat their diabetes?
On mental health specifically, of course social and societal factors under capitalism are significant preconditions for people developing mental health disorders - however they are not the only factor. I think its a mischaracterisation to say these treatments are aimed at “pacifying” the population. They are aimed primarily at alleviating suffering, otherwise people wouldn’t take them. People don’t want to be pacified, they just want to feel better. As an aside I can tell you no depressed person is going to be doing much revolutionary organising. On the contrary someone with their depression treated is much more likely to be getting revolutionary shit done. There’s no grand conspiracy to keep the populace medicated and in line, its just the grand conspiracy to profit off a medicine that people want to buy because it soothes their psychic angst.
I see what you’re saying, and agree with the broad points. I still consider mental health treatment different than “physical” health issues, but I am struggling to clearly articulate the meaningful difference in this context.
I agree completely. However, I think that given that–barring actually changing the underlying system–the only way to feel better is to obliviate yourself to the underlying issue or to do “palliative” treatment (eg, spending more time in nature, or getting more exercise). While I agree that someone deep in depression is unlikely to have much revolutionary drive, I also don’t think someone who is generally satisfied emotionally will have much revolutionary drive.
I don’t think its a conspiracy; that is, I don’t think drug companies are pushing for psychedelic therapy because it diminishes revolutionary drive, or anything like that. I do believe that positive patient outcomes are probably the primary driver here (with profit-motive probably not far behind). I don’t think that means that there’s can’t be incidentals though, which could include what I’ve suggested could happen.