To be successful in America, there are certain implicit characteristics an individual should exude to earn respect and riches. A farcical dichotomy exists in that individuals strive to present similar, valued characteristics while maintaining individuality when in reality, the mass personality adaptation causes the homogenization of society by filtering out a range of unique traits. In our capitalist, free-market economy, the mantra of the “American dream” purports that an individual from any socioeconomic class or race cannot only qualify as a competitive participant in the “rat race” towards success but can even receive the social status and recognition that accompanies the endorsement of being the best or at least, of beating the other participants. Thus, the emphasis on self-presentation clearly stems from our society’s structure. The self-awareness encouraged among children in their formative years begins the pattern of self-serving behavior that benefits one person’s advancement as opposed to community-oriented societies that function by collective efforts to better society.
In no particular order: What do the characteristics we value demonstrate about our value system as a whole? How does dominant society address the exceptions to the rule, the outliers who resist the social pressure to conform? And finally, how is America’s global standing as hegemon maintained through the narcissism that our society cultivates in individuals? Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” in the video below addresses this last question. He parodies narcissistic American culture and the ethnocentricity that accompanies it.
Colbert suggests that one of the obvious outcomes of our self-centered approach to life includes the self-importance we feel as a nation when measured against others, and more importantly, the influence that our attitude has on foreign diplomacy and how other nations perceive us. Individually, we act in ways that allow our self-advancement instead of working towards the betterment of our society and collectively, we hinge on our superiority as a country and seek to further our role as hegemon instead of aiming towards global improvement.
Carl Elliott in “The Face Behind the Mask” speaks to the characteristics that our society values by highlighting the ones that we dismiss through medicalization, a scientific basis that condones this societal rejection. He studies the sudden prevalence of social phobia among diagnosed mental disorders in the late 1980s. “In this case”, Elliot opines, “we are medicalizing a personality trait called shyness, which has been with us for a quite a well but has not previously been called a mental disorder” (Elliott 58). He cites the historical presence of self-help literature that suggests ways for us to optimize our qualities. While this literature potentially influences the attitudes and actions of readers, the medicalization and treatment of social anxiety or of excess energy (as discussed in Tuesday’s articles about A.D.H.D.) actually alters the chemical balance in our brains. The resulting alterations in personality and emotion prove harmful to individuals because they imply that changing one’s innate nature is necessary not only for societal acceptance, but also to attain a limited form of success. Elliott calls these tendencies, “partly a matter of American cultural style” but warns that it encourages Americans to “consider barriers to self-presentation, like shyness, to be social handicaps” (Elliott 70). Thus, dominant institutions reward valued characteristics like self-confidence and magnetism by casting a shadow over traits like sensitivity and introversion.
In a Washington Post article entitled “A Rush to Medicate Young Minds” by Elizabeth Roberts, she broaches similar concerns about the harmful effects that the medicalization of less socially desirable personality traits will have on children. Roberts argues that most entities supporting aggressive treatment have ulterior motives in doing so and that none of these involve the well-being of the individual. She writes,
“Unfortunately, when a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, almost everyone benefits. The schools get more state funding for the education of a mentally handicapped student. Teachers have more subdued students in their already overcrowded classrooms. Finally, parents are not forced to examine their poor parenting practices, because they have the perfect excuse: Their child has a chemical imbalance.”
I wonder, what will this generation of over-medicated children look like once they reach adulthood? Will an individual who would have been considered healthy 50 years ago not produce a groundbreaking novel or an emotionally-charged piece of art because medication stripped that person of his or her ability to feel deeply and to experience a wide range of emotions? That will be hard to measure. However, I attempted to gain insight into how medicated individuals feel now, as we are riding the first wave of subjective diagnosing and aggressive drug-prescribing. I came across the thread excerpts posted below entitled “inadequacy..poor me” (Courtesy of VBulletin's addforums).
Elduderino writes: "I recently received an 80% disability rating from VA. Major depressive disorder, ADHD, OCD, GAD, social phobia, and alcohol dependence-in remission. I have moved back in with my mom, due to being unable to function independently. I have no friends, I underachieve quite severely, and I am generally a 24 year old loser. I spend a lot of time thinking about how my life is slipping by and I have nothing to show for it. No success. I'm not even following a normal developmental path. I see women in my peer group who are strong, independent, accomplished, etc. And they terrify me. What I go for the intelligent, science-y, literati girls. But what the **** could I offer a woman like that? For all my above average intelligence, I'm still a low performing student, and grossly uneducated. I feel like a boy in a fat bearded guy's body. **** sucks man. Anyone else feel inadequate, or like a loser whose wasted a huge chunk of life?"
Nova2012 responds: "Yes, and same disorders here (except alcohol dependence). It's pretty awful. The depression keeps me from enjoying life. The social phobia keeps me from enjoying others. The OCD keeps me from enjoying my own thoughts. The GAD keeps me from enjoying my own company. What is left? No one can tell me. They just issue platitudes like "it will get better" or "you'll look back on this and laugh." Yeah, right."
The anguish of feeling inadequate that these bloggers write about exposes another possible motive of dominant institutions for medicalizing individuals: disorders sanction the societal dismissal of these nonconformist members. No wonder they feel inadequate. Society in the form of medical professionals told them that their true selves needed personality alterations and if this failed to produce them into an active participant of our capitalist empire, society views them deviants, holding their diagnoses against them and continuing to treat them with drugs and with disregard.
Elliott introduces a twist to this flawed system in “Amputees by Choice”. He discusses apotemnophilia, a condition likened to gender-identity disorder in which individuals crave amputation. Society ostracizes this group similarly to the individuals with social anxiety disorder. Except in an apotemnophiliac’s case, he or she must convince society that the condition is legitimate instead of society pushing diagnoses on patients with questionable symptoms.
The increasing medicalization of common personality traits compounded with American self-consciousness and the desire to “get ahead” results in overdiagnosing, overmedicating, and the loss of our individuality that we tweak to fit society’s mold.
Bibliography:
Carl, Elliott. "The Face Behind the Mask" and "Amputees by Choice." Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream. New York: Norton and, 2003. 54-76, 208-236. Print.
Roberts, Elizabeth J. "A Rush to Medicate Young Minds." Washington Post. 08 Oct. 2006. Web.
The thought of there being a connection between cultural values and perceptions of normality occurred to me when I was reading some texts written by individuals diagnosed, or self-diagnosed, as the case may be, with Aspergers Syndrome. I found the picture of "normal people" that was sketched in these writings to be highly revealing; of modern culture, that is. It appeared to be the picture of a race of social and cognitive over-humans, like the upwardly mobile urban young adults in the television series Friends. Aspergers by contrast was characterized as any failure to observe the social etiquette and cognitive style of these perfect people, such as "intermittent eye contact," reluctance to maintain inane chatter out of social convention, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me was, first, the almost comical minuteness of the requirements laid out for social normality. The message seemed to be that if you are anything less than a socially alert, bright-eyed thing like Jennifer Aniston, there has to be something amiss with the neural patterning of your brain (and the culprit is always located in the brain, never in social culture or anywhere remotely above the level of the individual). Second, there was the impression that the perceived handicap of being indifferent to contemporary social etiquette is felt by the writers to be absolutely devastating; socially, psychologically and economically.
It then occurred to me that, for the writers, it must be exactly that, devastating; literally a question of being employed or unemployed, of dating or life-long celibacy, and so on. The thought then came to me that perhaps these descriptions of the Aspergers experience, in addition to being socially myopic, are also reflections of what social life really is in late-modernity. Like every other structure of our culture, social life is highly standardized, often unremittingly formal, so that even the smaller missteps in its grid are immediately registered as major deviations requiring explanation. In a culture that values self-observation to the almost complete exclusion of social awareness, those explanations are going to be individualistic-medicalistic, not social or cultural.
And this is the real sadness of medicalized life, that it robs people of a deeper awareness of the world and their own unique situation in it. It is starkly reflected in the language troubled individuals use to describe their reality; entire life stories and identities are reduced into diagnostic labels, and finally mere acronyms. So it’s going to be, "I’m AS, ADHD, GAD, etc., and it really sucks," as opposed to, "This is where I come from, this is my situation."
I totally agree with your analysis. I recommend you read the book "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks. It touches on everything you mentioned above by offering vignettes of patients he's had over the years who exhibit peculiarities or have been diagnosed with conditions like Asbergers. Also Temple Grandin is a fascinating person to learn about..she's had so much "conventional" success in our society even though she has been labelled in a way that would suggest she cannot become as accomplished as a "normal" citizen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!