Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!cbosgd!ucbvax!UNH.CS.CMU.EDU!hank.walker From: hank.walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Mental illness and Authoritarianism Message-ID: <12231711220.14.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Mon, 18-Aug-86 02:36:30 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12231711220.14.MCGREW Posted: Mon Aug 18 02:36:30 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Aug-86 00:31:17 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: hank.walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 34 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu To: "Keith F. Lynch" When I say "mental illness" I am talking about behavior that is obviously insane to all those around the person, not what some psychiatrists say. One thing I've learned is that psychiatry and psychoanalysis have not yet become sciences. Essentially all progress has been through the discovery of a few drugs. How these drugs work is not yet understood, and a patient's reactions to the drugs is unpredictable at that. Smoking and drinking may be stupid, and may be addictions, but they are not insanity. The real issue here is one of authoritarianism, and whether it should exist in society at all. Whenever I hear people saying "don't judge or try to restrict their behavior, it's not hurting anyone besides themselves" I am reminded of the type of parenting that can best be defined as "let them find their own space." The result of that kind of parenting is an ill-mannered savage. Similarly if we allow people to do things that the VAST majority thinks is insanely foolish, or just plain insane, the result is a large number of people leading miserable lives who don't have the ability to improve their lot. The life expectancy of a mentally ill person on the street is a few years at most. Visit a laundromat late on a winter night. My reference to suicide in my last message was no accident. The mentally ill have a very high suicide rate. Even if they are not on the street, they are undergoing constant mental torture. They often know that something is terribly wrong, but can't do anything about it. Those who lack the constant support of friends and family live in a solitary hell. Libertarians would say "Oh leave them be, so what if they die." I'm with Ed Koch who says "Fuck that, I'm dragging them in off the street before they freeze to death." When something is obviously right (obvious to nearly everybody), you don't let some abstract political philosophy stand in your way. -------