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The Maddening of America

Tovarish

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Proponents of the post-American view point to the 2008 financial crisis, the prolonged recession that followed, and China’s steady rise. Most are international-relations experts who, viewing geopolitics through the lens of economic competitiveness, imagine the global order as a seesaw, in which one player’s rise necessarily implies another’s fall.


But the exclusive focus on economic indicators has prevented consideration of the geopolitical implications of a US domestic trend that is also frequently discussed, but by a separate group of experts: America’s ever-increasing rates of severe mental disease (which have already been very high for a long time).

The claim that the spread of severe mental illness has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussions for international politics of the disabling conditions diagnosed as manic-depressive illnesses (including major unipolar depression) and schizophrenia could not be more serious.

A massive statistical study, conducted from 2001 to 2003 by the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), estimated the lifetime prevalence of major depression among American adults (ages 18-54) at more than 16%. Lifetime prevalence for schizophrenia was estimated at 1.7%. There is no known cure for these chronic diseases; after onset (often before the age of 18), they are likely to last until the end of the patient’s life.
Create comment on this paragraphSurveys among US college students estimated that 20% fit criteria for depression and anxiety in 2010, and that nearly 25% fit these criteria in 2012. Other studies have consistently shown rising rates of prevalence with each successive generation, and it is argued that, if older statistics were faulty, they erred on the side of underestimating the spread of mental illness.
Create comment on this paragraphAll of this suggests that as many as 20% of American adults may be severely mentally ill. In view of disputes over the significance of available data, let’s assume that only 10% of American adults are severely mentally ill. As these conditions are presumed to be distributed uniformly within the population, they must afflict a significant share of policymakers, corporate executives, educators, and military personnel of all ranks, recurrently rendering them psychotic, delusional, and deprived of sound judgment.
Create comment on this paragraphIf it is deemed sensationalist to characterize this situation as terrifying, one may add that a much larger share of the population (estimated at close to 50% in the NIMH study) is affected by less severe forms of mental disease that only occasionally disturb their functionality.

The reason for high concentrations of severe mental illness in the developed West lies in the very nature of Western societies. The “virus” of depression and schizophrenia, including their milder forms, is cultural in origin: the embarrassment of choices that these societies offer in terms of self-definition and personal identity leaves many of their members disoriented and adrift.
The Maddening of America by Liah Greenfeld - Project Syndicate
 
0_29d2_2605168b_XL


Proponents of the post-American view point to the 2008 financial crisis, the prolonged recession that followed, and China’s steady rise. Most are international-relations experts who, viewing geopolitics through the lens of economic competitiveness, imagine the global order as a seesaw, in which one player’s rise necessarily implies another’s fall.


But the exclusive focus on economic indicators has prevented consideration of the geopolitical implications of a US domestic trend that is also frequently discussed, but by a separate group of experts: America’s ever-increasing rates of severe mental disease (which have already been very high for a long time).

The claim that the spread of severe mental illness has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussions for international politics of the disabling conditions diagnosed as manic-depressive illnesses (including major unipolar depression) and schizophrenia could not be more serious.

A massive statistical study, conducted from 2001 to 2003 by the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), estimated the lifetime prevalence of major depression among American adults (ages 18-54) at more than 16%. Lifetime prevalence for schizophrenia was estimated at 1.7%. There is no known cure for these chronic diseases; after onset (often before the age of 18), they are likely to last until the end of the patient’s life.
Create comment on this paragraphSurveys among US college students estimated that 20% fit criteria for depression and anxiety in 2010, and that nearly 25% fit these criteria in 2012. Other studies have consistently shown rising rates of prevalence with each successive generation, and it is argued that, if older statistics were faulty, they erred on the side of underestimating the spread of mental illness.
Create comment on this paragraphAll of this suggests that as many as 20% of American adults may be severely mentally ill. In view of disputes over the significance of available data, let’s assume that only 10% of American adults are severely mentally ill. As these conditions are presumed to be distributed uniformly within the population, they must afflict a significant share of policymakers, corporate executives, educators, and military personnel of all ranks, recurrently rendering them psychotic, delusional, and deprived of sound judgment.
Create comment on this paragraphIf it is deemed sensationalist to characterize this situation as terrifying, one may add that a much larger share of the population (estimated at close to 50% in the NIMH study) is affected by less severe forms of mental disease that only occasionally disturb their functionality.

The reason for high concentrations of severe mental illness in the developed West lies in the very nature of Western societies. The “virus” of depression and schizophrenia, including their milder forms, is cultural in origin: the embarrassment of choices that these societies offer in terms of self-definition and personal identity leaves many of their members disoriented and adrift.
The Maddening of America by Liah Greenfeld - Project Syndicate

So I take it the gist of articular says us Americans are nuckin futs?
 
Thank you for sharing someone else's thoughts with us. :)
 
* laughs * Always happy to help

So now that you've shared someone else's opinion about the mental illness of the west, do you have an opinion to share on the mental illness of the East and whether or not maybe Vodka isn't the best solution for Russia's massive mental health issues, as evidenced by Russia's massive alcoholism problem? Feel free to cut and paste someone's opinion on that, too. :)
 
There is a link between the rise of social media and the rising depression levels.
 
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Proponents of the post-American view point to the 2008 financial crisis, the prolonged recession that followed, and China’s steady rise. Most are international-relations experts who, viewing geopolitics through the lens of economic competitiveness, imagine the global order as a seesaw, in which one player’s rise necessarily implies another’s fall.


But the exclusive focus on economic indicators has prevented consideration of the geopolitical implications of a US domestic trend that is also frequently discussed, but by a separate group of experts: America’s ever-increasing rates of severe mental disease (which have already been very high for a long time).

The claim that the spread of severe mental illness has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussions for international politics of the disabling conditions diagnosed as manic-depressive illnesses (including major unipolar depression) and schizophrenia could not be more serious.

A massive statistical study, conducted from 2001 to 2003 by the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), estimated the lifetime prevalence of major depression among American adults (ages 18-54) at more than 16%. Lifetime prevalence for schizophrenia was estimated at 1.7%. There is no known cure for these chronic diseases; after onset (often before the age of 18), they are likely to last until the end of the patient’s life.
Create comment on this paragraphSurveys among US college students estimated that 20% fit criteria for depression and anxiety in 2010, and that nearly 25% fit these criteria in 2012. Other studies have consistently shown rising rates of prevalence with each successive generation, and it is argued that, if older statistics were faulty, they erred on the side of underestimating the spread of mental illness.
Create comment on this paragraphAll of this suggests that as many as 20% of American adults may be severely mentally ill. In view of disputes over the significance of available data, let’s assume that only 10% of American adults are severely mentally ill. As these conditions are presumed to be distributed uniformly within the population, they must afflict a significant share of policymakers, corporate executives, educators, and military personnel of all ranks, recurrently rendering them psychotic, delusional, and deprived of sound judgment.
Create comment on this paragraphIf it is deemed sensationalist to characterize this situation as terrifying, one may add that a much larger share of the population (estimated at close to 50% in the NIMH study) is affected by less severe forms of mental disease that only occasionally disturb their functionality.

The reason for high concentrations of severe mental illness in the developed West lies in the very nature of Western societies. The “virus” of depression and schizophrenia, including their milder forms, is cultural in origin: the embarrassment of choices that these societies offer in terms of self-definition and personal identity leaves many of their members disoriented and adrift.
The Maddening of America by Liah Greenfeld - Project Syndicate

bah, it's all a byproduct of political correctness trying to change human's predatory and competitive nature into sheeple. The prevalence of so many things that go against human instincts and evolutionary models in an attempt to be politically correct is the problem. Quit ignoring instincts and start learning how to mold them to a new society, not outright suppress them. That suppression is bad.
 
So now that you've shared someone else's opinion about the mental illness of the west, do you have an opinion to share on the mental illness of the East and whether or not maybe Vodka isn't the best solution for Russia's massive mental health issues, as evidenced by Russia's massive alcoholism problem? Feel free to cut and paste someone's opinion on that, too. :)

* laughs * If you are very interested know about consumption alkagolya - read. Top 10: Drinking Countries - AskMen As you can see, Russia in good company. And not the first on the list. I just do not understand, what is the connection between - does the consumption of alcohol in Russia, and to the growth of dementia in the United States? By the way in the east no are so many lunatics. They certainly are. But the marriage between them is prohibited. It is for this west scolds Putin
 
bah, it's all a byproduct of political correctness trying to change human's predatory and competitive nature into sheeple. The prevalence of so many things that go against human instincts and evolutionary models in an attempt to be politically correct is the problem. Quit ignoring instincts and start learning how to mold them to a new society, not outright suppress them. That suppression is bad.

Bravo. Your words, you can add - political correctness has led to the dictatorship gay-fascism, in the U.S.,
 
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Proponents of the post-American view point to the 2008 financial crisis, the prolonged recession that followed, and China’s steady rise. Most are international-relations experts who, viewing geopolitics through the lens of economic competitiveness, imagine the global order as a seesaw, in which one player’s rise necessarily implies another’s fall.


But the exclusive focus on economic indicators has prevented consideration of the geopolitical implications of a US domestic trend that is also frequently discussed, but by a separate group of experts: America’s ever-increasing rates of severe mental disease (which have already been very high for a long time).

The claim that the spread of severe mental illness has reached “epidemic” proportions has been heard so often that, like any commonplace, it has lost its ability to shock. But the repercussions for international politics of the disabling conditions diagnosed as manic-depressive illnesses (including major unipolar depression) and schizophrenia could not be more serious.

A massive statistical study, conducted from 2001 to 2003 by the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), estimated the lifetime prevalence of major depression among American adults (ages 18-54) at more than 16%. Lifetime prevalence for schizophrenia was estimated at 1.7%. There is no known cure for these chronic diseases; after onset (often before the age of 18), they are likely to last until the end of the patient’s life.
Create comment on this paragraphSurveys among US college students estimated that 20% fit criteria for depression and anxiety in 2010, and that nearly 25% fit these criteria in 2012. Other studies have consistently shown rising rates of prevalence with each successive generation, and it is argued that, if older statistics were faulty, they erred on the side of underestimating the spread of mental illness.
Create comment on this paragraphAll of this suggests that as many as 20% of American adults may be severely mentally ill. In view of disputes over the significance of available data, let’s assume that only 10% of American adults are severely mentally ill. As these conditions are presumed to be distributed uniformly within the population, they must afflict a significant share of policymakers, corporate executives, educators, and military personnel of all ranks, recurrently rendering them psychotic, delusional, and deprived of sound judgment.
Create comment on this paragraphIf it is deemed sensationalist to characterize this situation as terrifying, one may add that a much larger share of the population (estimated at close to 50% in the NIMH study) is affected by less severe forms of mental disease that only occasionally disturb their functionality.

The reason for high concentrations of severe mental illness in the developed West lies in the very nature of Western societies. The “virus” of depression and schizophrenia, including their milder forms, is cultural in origin: the embarrassment of choices that these societies offer in terms of self-definition and personal identity leaves many of their members disoriented and adrift.
The Maddening of America by Liah Greenfeld - Project Syndicate
It is no mystery to those with a temperament to grasp it that an emphasis in the mental (the mind, where thinking occurs), an emphasis on thinking and the "classical" things outside our self, and a deemphasis in the soulistic (the soul, where feeling occurs), a deemphasis on feeling and the "quantum" entities within our self, will have negative individual and collective neuropsychological repercussions.

This has always been the challenge of the new global west, epitomized in its extreme by the economic materialism of the U.S, where win-lose, dog-eat-dog hierarchical economics reigns.

Though other old global and eastern cultures have struggled with the opposite condition (emphasis of the soulistic and deemphasis of the mental), the optimum goal, I believe, is to create a dynamic balance emphasis between the two, between our focus on the outside of us and the inside of us, "regulated", if you will, by that very center of our being, our heart, that part of us that experiences "I am".

For some people that regulating process is difficult, for a number of reasons, some having to do with specific biology, some having to do with culture, some having to do with degrees of unrecovered dysfunction from childhood.
 
There is a link between the rise of social media and the rising depression levels.

I believe this, I see it in people. The more time spent online, the more miserable they seem to be, more moody.
 
It is no mystery to those with a temperament to grasp it that an emphasis in the mental (the mind, where thinking occurs), an emphasis on thinking and the "classical" things outside our self, and a deemphasis in the soulistic (the soul, where feeling occurs), a deemphasis on feeling and the "quantum" entities within our self, will have negative individual and collective neuropsychological repercussions.

This has always been the challenge of the new global west, epitomized in its extreme by the economic materialism of the U.S, where win-lose, dog-eat-dog hierarchical economics reigns.

Though other old global and eastern cultures have struggled with the opposite condition (emphasis of the soulistic and deemphasis of the mental), the optimum goal, I believe, is to create a dynamic balance emphasis between the two, between our focus on the outside of us and the inside of us, "regulated", if you will, by that very center of our being, our heart, that part of us that experiences "I am".

For some people that regulating process is difficult, for a number of reasons, some having to do with specific biology, some having to do with culture, some having to do with degrees of unrecovered dysfunction from childhood.

In America, worship - Pride. (vanity), Envy, Anger.( wrath), Sloth, (acedia, sadness), Greed, (covetousness, avarice), Gluttony, Lust. As a consequence - The Maddening of America.
 
* laughs * If you are very interested know about consumption alkagolya - read. Top 10: Drinking Countries - AskMen As you can see, Russia in good company. And not the first on the list. I just do not understand, what is the connection between - does the consumption of alcohol in Russia, and to the growth of dementia in the United States? By the way in the east no are so many lunatics. They certainly are. But the marriage between them is prohibited. It is for this west scolds Putin


Of course there's no connection between depression in the United States and Alcohol Abuse in Russia. But there is a connection between depression in Russia and Alcohol abuse in Russia. It's classic self medicating in a country that's rife with depression and other mental illnesses. That's all I was pointing out... you know... the "Physician, heal thyself" thing. :)
 
Of course there's no connection between depression in the United States and Alcohol Abuse in Russia.

The question was worded differently. - "I just do not understand, what is the connection between - does the consumption of alcohol in Russia, and to the growth of dementia in the United States?" Although, I agree - depression and alcohol go together. In Russia the growth of living - and marked reduction in alcohol consumption. And how are things in the U.S.? If an Idiots join Alcoholics - will be quite bad.
 
The question was worded differently. - "I just do not understand, what is the
connection between - does the consumption of alcohol in Russia, and to the growth of dementia in the United States?" Although, I agree - depression and alcohol go together. In Russia the growth of living - and marked reduction in alcohol consumption. And how are things in the U.S.? If an Idiots join Alcoholics - will be quite bad.

So you folks just got sick of vodka and switched over to Krokodil and Heroin ?
 
So you folks just got sick of vodka and switched over to Krokodil and Heroin ?


"I just do not understand, what is the connection between - does the consumption of alcohol in Russia, and to the growth of dementia in the United States?" Topic is not about Russia. Or you have nothing to say?

("...you folks..." - You mean the Russian? Then you confuse Russia and the United States. Russian fight against drug trafficking. U.S., unfortunately .....)

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