In the 20th century, one of the big boost in general health was a better understanding of hygiene and its importance.
I do form the hope that in the 21st century we will make a similar progress towards mental hygiene and make sure to not create too toxic environments, give kids the kind of nurturing they need, and treat infections before they become deadly.
Some groups have managed to “teach empathy” to juvenile delinquents who are diagnosed with psychopathy. Finding a treatment is the first step. Then we need to grow as a society and realize that giving healthcare including mental one to everyone is not giving away “free lunch” but actually improving the overall society.
While I support every word you said, I am still not convinced, that the issue can be solved completely through prevention. Even though, during the last 200 years we’ve made huge progress in hygiene standards and medicine, there are still people dying, even from easily preventable or treatable illnesses. In the same manner, I believe it’s impossible to prevent all kind of psychopatic violence or malicious behaviour. Hence, the question that comes up would rather be: how to deal with the violence that’s still occuring? Are prisons or some other kind of correction facilities a part of a solarpunk utopia?
Imho Scandinavian prisons are a good example. I saw a documentary about an island where the prisoners can roam more or less freely, work and are reintroduced into society.
I am still not convinced, that the issue can be solved completely through prevention.
Alone for the reason that families are different, and sometimes even move in other countries or continents.
Regardless how great the overall system is, there will always be differences between families and locations.
Some parents just don’t care, don’t understand, did not treat their own issues. Some children cannot escape that.
Utopia? No. An utopia would have solved that issue. But solarpunk proposes to solve a lot of other issues, while we deal with these remaining one as bad, or slightly better, than we do today. IMO prisons should slowly morph into mental health facilities. May not solve all the problem but would solve a lot.
My country has psychiatric treatment facilities as part of the judicial systems (ours is mostly based on rehabilitation, not punitive). The problem with them is that being send to one of them is indefinite, until one is deemed cured. Is that ethical?
Ironically, this means that bona fide gangsters will often try to prove they do not have a mental health problem, because ordinary prison at least has a well-defined end date.
Is that ethical?
Really depends on the rest: if the justice is fair, if the treatments are really treatments, if only people dangerous for the others are kept, then I think that’s probably the best solution we have today.
Ironically, this means that bona fide gangsters will often try to prove they do not have a mental health problem, because ordinary prison at least has a well-defined end date.
I see the irony, but I think it should be the norm. Mental health problems should not be used as a joker to get out of jail. If the system both helps people with a problem and prevents people from using it as an excuse, that sounds perfect.
There is the big risk in having, and assuming, a society where some particular evil doesn’t exist. Namely, that when evil does actually appear, the society will be completely defenceless. Whether it’s disease or crime or some other problem.
I think that in general there needs to be both preventative hygiene/education/culture and some form of cure/resistance/response available to counter problems. And even then, there will be no absolute protection.
First requirement for either would be research and understanding of the threat and development of methods and mitigations. Then taking them into widespread use. With mental health, these are all somewhat under way, but probably lagging behind the more “low level” biology.
As much as I understand this discussion while discussing e.g. anarchism, I don’t see how psychopathy being cured or not in a solarpunk society changes much. Yeah, at worse there may be prisons and cops in a solarpunk society. Hopefully more humane than today. And in the meantime we try to understand psychology as much as possible to have the preventive care we need.
There are jobs where psychopaths and sociopaths can be productive helpful members of society. There’s a neuroscientist (James Fallon) who was studying brain scans of psychopaths, only to realize that HE was a psychopath (both his brain scan and his behavior; low empathy, motivated by power, isn’t bothered by manipulating others, etc). Jobs can be positions like green Berets, Navy Seals, surgeons (some times you need to inflict pain to get the job done). We need a strong support system around them, but that can be said of most positions (think government checks and balances or police body cams).
For the intentionally malicious (which can be an entirely separate group of people) I imagine two steps:
- A system of early identification. Probably starting with mental health discussions being common place, like brain scans being as common as getting the chicken pox vaccine. E.g. find the serial killer when they’re 17 years old and killing cats for fun, provide help and monitor instead of doing nothing and waiting till they’re 56 and have been a recluse for 10 years.
- Creating systems of least-restriction and gradually-increasing restriction; Serial killers and phedophiles can still garden, write, paint, build, etc. And its better for everyone if they contribute to society in some way instead of rotting in a cell. E.g. restrict phedophiles from ever being around children, restrict serial killers to remote work. Its a matter of ensuring they have no opportunity to do harm. This isn’t just a system for serial killers, but ideally would be a culture-encouraged movement of limiting the damage of people’s flaws; we keep the junk food out of sight when a friend who is trying to loose weight comes over. We help people identify if they have sesonal depression, and recommend places to live that have the shortest (or non-existant) winter season, have workplaces that keep emails, phone calls, and other interruptions at a minimum for those who have ADHD, etc. It just happens that those who demonstrate malicious intentions get forced accomodations instead of optional ones.
I (also) want to say; I’m glad to see this question.
Its easy to skim over difficult aspects, focus on the positive, and pretend a movement/idea is a silver-bullet. So I really enjoy when challenges are brought up to be addressed head-on.
Even if the question wasn’t sincere (e.g. “checkmate atheists” kinda vibe) I would’ve answered it the same. But it was really nice to look at your other posts and see that, yeah, it probably was a legit question
Thank you. I appreciate your comment. I’m very invested in solarpunk, and would give anything to see a solarpunk world come to fruition. Without addressing the challenges and finding solutions, our movement will not be as effective. I’m happy that this discussion got a lot of engagement (by lemmy standards) and got people thinking.
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mental healthcare instead of being beaten to death by cops
Fun, when I hear about sociopaths and psychopaths I am thinking “CEOs and politicians” not criminals. Same problem but calls for different approaches.
Compost them
This is something I have thought a lot about, if you look at my username you could guess why, lol.
A restorative model is a fundamental component of a solarpunk society I would feel, where the work is done to attempt to assist people in helping themselves to work through their mental health disorders as a whole. It would be recognizing where the individual is, recognizing their level of ambivalence towards treatment and then working with them over time. Perhaps a secluded land that is self-sustaining, where they can get therapy and support as they find a space for themselves away from triggers? That is one thought I’ve seen people discuss before. I feel it would depend on the individual there though, as a solarpunk society I imagine would not do a 5150 or other forms of Involuntary Commitment.
The issue is stigma, as has been for so long. It is so easy for people to be given the label of a schizophrenic, a psychopath, a narcissist, so forth, without there being actual understanding that the person is still an individual who is struggling.
Hard to say… I think first of all one needs to differentiate between the “successful” ones and those that end up more visible as criminals and the like.
I think the successful ones are the ones that do more harm to society and a Solarpunk society is much more resistant against such people than our current one that often rewards sociopathic behaviour in leadership roles.
As for the less successful ones: there is probably no easy answer to this, but it might be possible to treat with some psychopharmic substances?
As someone who thinks psychopaths can be helpful in the right job postions, I agree the mild cases of psychopaths probably do the most harm in policical positions, even more than serial killers. And I also agree its caused by a governance problem that would ideally already be solved.
Absolute not just the mild cases. I think our main problem is that we are ruled by absolute psychopaths. Or are they like us, just with too much power? Sometimes I’m not sure. How much chocolate do I eat that I don’t care about who picked it, just like a billionaire doesn’t give a shit about how he earns the money for his dick rockets?
It starts feeling more like a moral problem of giving arseholes too much power. So a ‘Have to solve now problem’ because we don’t even get to a solarpunk society without withdrawing our attention, time, money, energy from the powerful. Maybe that’s also a treatment for a lot of psycho drama - ignore it. How would we treat people like Trump or Musk if they were toddlers? When my kid was little and being awful I would rather ignore it and not give it attention, because I read about it in some long lost book about how some Amazonian tribe raises their kids. It worked quite beautifully. Not sure if this shit has a cure as long as guys like these have money and people’s attention and respect.
Edit: fixed because it read like I permanently ignored my kid
But what authority decides for or against treatment? I’d think a group would ultimately give a person some alternatives - leave, get locked up, or get treatment, but you couldn’t just force one of these thing unto a person.
leave, get locked up, or get treatment
I’ll say upfront that I’m glad someone started this conversation because I’ve had a lot of questions about how a solarpunk society would answer these questions, but haven’t made it very far in the fundamental philosophy stuff regarding prison abolition, anarchism, etc. So I could be totally off base here.
But it strikes me that exile would be a strong temptation as a solution, because it offers a lot of freedom, but a dangerous one - it could mean that a person who has already made themselves enough of a problem to get to the point where their community is presenting these options, is now on their own, possibly holding a grudge, and either able to encounter strangers on the road, in a low-enforcement situation, or able to show up at another community who won’t have any warning (unless there’s an overarching identification system which could turn any exile from one place into a way more damaging experience). Depending on what got them kicked out and what causes it, they may just learn how to hide warning signs better before escalating. Or they might form motivated groups akin to bandits.
In a society with a strong drive to internalize externalities when it comes to things like manufacturing, I feel like they’d feel it was irresponsible to cast people out to kind of stew in exile, but I have no good answers.
The whole goal of prison abolition and what to do with people who present a legitimate threat is massive, and I don’t know enough about anything involved to try and suggest solutions. But I feel like whatever they come up with will need to be somewhat workable in a smaller scale in order to be practical while a society is transitioning, probably unevenly, into being solarpunk.
Sorry I don’t have something more useful, I’m glad they brought this up and I’m grateful to all of you for discussing it.
Here’s an anecdote from real life - because theory is always light to throw around: a guy moves in with a girl, is excellent for a few months, then starts doing psychedelics, lots of psychedelics, and over the period of a few weeks starts imagining being the lord of his imaginary empire and starts being violent, first towards her pets, then her. She calls her friends for help.
In current dystopia: Friends talk to him, no change. She calls the police next. The response is painfully slow, as in several weeks slow, she goes into hiding, he destroys her things, goes on a rampage through the nearby communities, threatening people and destroying more stuff. Ends up in psychiatry eventually. Says he doesn’t remember being violent, wants to move back in with her. Psychiatry says they can’t do anything because he’s all nice and normal and release him again. Some more rounds of the same. Eventually she has to move away.
You might have heard similar stuff, it seems unfortunately to be not all that uncommon that a partner goes on a substance rampage and turns monstrous.
What would happen in a solarpunk society? What would I have wanted to do? In the heat of the situation when the impotence of all ‘authorities’ became apparent and I was triggered by current situation and past memories: get a group of people together, tar and feather him with chewing gum and glitter and put him on a train to far away.
In hindsight: After friends talk to him part 1, add a friends talk to him part 2: making him know her decision and make clear the community stands behind her. Tell him to leave.
After that, if he still refuses? Maybe back to the glitter and chewing gum solution? Probably. In the current world, in almost all situations of domestic violence the victim ends up moving away, and frankly, that fact alone makes me shiver. Which is why ‘send them away’ is a favourite solution of mine - and this does give the perpetrator a chance to try again in a new community and do better next time. Which I’m sure they want to do as well.
I also have no better answers. I know that in current dystopia, part of people chickening out in a community conflict like this is the idea that authorities are there to help, so we expect them to. And also, we don’t want to get involved in something that could escalate in violence - because none of us is violent, because it could get us into trouble, because we could get hurt. That’s the unfortunate truth for me and quite a few people I know.
In a solarpunk future, I would want to know the power of decision about such cases is brought before and decided by all the community, but with something like a veto right for victims. Victims should never be forced to share a community with their offenders, or leave their home while their offender gets to stay. That’s just not right.
This illustrates the importance of neighbourhood communities. In today’s dystopia those have been replaced by pseudo social online communities and shallow entertainment. The latter also makes us being used to constant dopamine rushes so serious stuff is avoided.
Hence, a functioning society requires closer and caring neighbourhoods. If course introverts need to be respected and everyone has a different comfortable distance but usually problem households like the one you mentioned try to go isolated because of shame or secrecy.
I’m sometimes not sure if current neighbourhood communities are all that better. People are mean in real life as well, and you can’t just block real people, so the internet is a welcome escape for many misfits of today’s dystopia. Plus, we are having this very valuable discussion here, on the internet, and I couldn’t really find anyone outside to have it with instead - not even in the next town.
But you are right, most people have bad internet habits and are quite zombified as a result, and far from even noticing anything emotional going on in their surroundings, I was fully immersed in this shit myself not too long ago.
Shame is something I still find hard to understand, even in me. It’s very deep trauma stuff where you just cannot hold your own center and commit to where you really stand. It makes the abuse possible, and not constantly falling back into those patterns requires constant work. It’s like a reflex of wanting to ease back into pleasing everyone and being nothing but nice and likeable - a constant erasing of oneself.
I think trauma is something we have to work on to reach a better society - work on it in ourselves and on a community level, especially intergenerational - and that doesn’t mean you should be forced to interact with your family by all means. Just that we should be very purposefully mix up people of all ages again.
For example, children are not raised by a village or community anymore, but by a pair of frightened parents (frightened, because of the pressure of everybody’s expecations around the child) and then by school. School is an industrial construct and resembles prison in a lot of unfortunate and intelligence-hindering ways. First to have to go in a solarpunk society would be school as we know it, and it would be one step towards a better neighbourhood community.
I’m a little shocked how many people still seem to equate sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists with other mental issues, or how we still all use a lot of the terminology brought into existence by an abusive psychiatry. I don’t see the so called ‘mental health care system’ as much better than police - they are there to keep people in line and functioning, and have been uncaring and untrustworthy every step on the way much like the police.
I guess after breaking up both this system and its terminology we have to redefine who we would declare a danger to our society, but without having to be cast into either a crime or madness framework. I guess we also would see a lot of bad behaviour disappear. For example, bot ‘autistics’ and ‘schizophrenics’ don’t tend to be violent people if others don’t freak out around them and if there’s freedom to change environments and fulfill sensory needs (vs. being locked in a classroom, hospital room, prison cell, office for x hours at a time). Society will get more peaceful when people can relearn and get better at raising children with love (which also gets easier as we fulfill the needs of all, not just the rich).
The fact that now there’s so many people imprisoned doesn’t mean we’ll see the same numbers or even close to that in a solarpunk society. Now, we have people imprisoned because it makes some people rich, we have people imprisoned because we believe only people who can keep up with awful working conditions are worthy of a dignified life, we have them imprisoned because we created a society that traumatised them to shit, we have people imprisoned because they like the wrong substance. Or we medicate them or put them in the psychiatric ward if they are weird and don’t play along.
In solarpunk we share what we have, we don’t hoard, so what is there to fight about, what is there to steal? We don’t work long hours, there’s time to take care of yourself - so mental problems will stay low. I think this could lead to where we would find if and how the cases look that remain - the rare cases of people we don’t want to have around. I’m not really sure how that would even look - I feel too locked into current society and its ‘bad’ and ‘mentally ill’ people. Maybe the thought path leads to that having to admit that as long as we are ruled by psychopath bullies, an un-psychopathic society could never exist.
Edit: mark oldschool psych terms
Narcissist here. My NPD is a mental health issue. My parents abused me, and I never learned to love myself unconditionally as a result. The ego I do have is a fragile facade. Threats to my ego can feel subjectively like threats to my life, because when I don’t have my false ego, I don’t think I’m worthy of life. Some narcisstists perceive threats to their egos as violence, and they respond with violence. I don’t act that way, but I do perceive attacks on my disability as violence, and I don’t believe anyone should have to hear that.
Material conditions are never going to solve my NPD, because I’m too old to learn to love myself unconditionally. The brain loses plasticity as it ages, and what we’re talking about is early childhood stuff. What I can benefit from is a more caring and understanding environment, and one that doesn’t attack narcisstists for being abuse victims. One that understands my special needs and provides them, even when they are social needs as opposed to physical needs.
I used to be married to someone who got damaged so seriously so early in life that a normal relationship with him was ultimately impossible and I couldn’t really provide the social needs this person needed without completely denying my own needs. The only way I found to deal with it was to move very far away. I guess if we hadn’t been married and forced ourselves to live together it could have been different - another factor here was the lack of healthy community.
I’m curious about what you perceive as attack on your disability. If it is the terminology thing: I’m ranting rather about the terminology (Narcissist, Autistic, Schizophrenic, Psychopath) as a symbol of an authoritarian, abusive psychiatric system that judges people as being disordered, out of order, without addressing the underlying causes - the trauma, the abusive setup of society, the competitive setup that causes people to be aggressive … so yes, we are all damaged, and each of us in different, specific ways that can be categorized and their categorization can be helpful for our self-awareness-process - but I don’t want to use the language of people who call me disordered when really I’m just mainly neurodiverse and for the rest mostly traumatized.
The challenge for each of us in a solarpunk society is to find a place where we are somewhat useful, or at least not of harm to others. As a neurofunky person I have already chosen a place a little away from other people because the weirded-out-ness is mutual and I need it quiet. I try to be of use without meeting too many actual people and what used to be ‘my mental health’ is now only just me again, which is very good.
I couldn’t really provide the social needs this person needed without completely denying my own needs.
I don’t believe in that. I think you made the right choice moving away and I’ve had to make similar choices in the past. Our abilities are not limitless. But I don’t believe in what you said, either. Life experiences and an inquisitive mind have given me a tremendous ability to deal with BPD and NPD people. I learned how other people and myself think with these disorders, and now I can see straight through all the trauma mechanisms and the bullshit, and I can manage people who have it. I don’t think this ability is inherently beyond anyone, it just takes the right experiences coupled with tenacity and curiosity. I don’t believe you had access to those experiences and I hold your accountable for nothing that happened. But I am frustrated with the unwillingness of some neurotypicals to deal with NDs that comes from statements like this. Inclusivity is a skill. It can be taught and learned. Nobody is beyond help from a mentor with the right skillset.
I don’t believe in that. …
That you would dismiss my inner reality and ‘kindly’ reframe it as ignorance feels rather condescending, but here we go:
I’m ND and wouldn’t dream of forcing anyone to deal with me and how I am. Why some people think others are obliged to deal with them and whatever they bring to the table I cannot understand. What part of other people’s time do you feel you are entitled to? Please mind I’m showing my ‘wtf’ reaction in my writing here but I am very interested how this inner reality of yours looks.
I’m also not sure this is what inclusivity means.
Inclusivity for me means that I don’t have to give any kind of performative attention to others - and this very thing seems to explicitly trigger people with traumas like yours - they feel shunned, left alone, like this - violently in bits.
I think this is the discovery of a very archetypal conflict in relationships and communities. I’m glad we are discussing this in a space that invites thoughtful discussion.
You hold strongly to the ideals of Solarpunk in your discussion, it is apparent in the tone your text conveys. Also I had never seen that website before, I may have to look at it in the future.
I have seen the damages the mental health system does, compared to just leaving people alone and do their thing. It’s a people-destroying atrocious system of uncare. I watched it and tried to believe in it for 20 years and I’m just done. No more. The first thing one can simply give up is self-pathologizing - why declare myself ill, if first of all the setup of society is ill, and my mental unwellness is a reaction to my powerlessness to change anything about it?
I will not deny that in many situations there is damage caused by the current Mental Healthcare Model, I have seen many who suffer from the stigmatization of their struggles, both self-inflicted by how they are told to view themselves as well as inflicted by those that they hold trust towards; however, I cannot truly agree with your belief of it being people-destroying, but that is due to my own observations and experiences on both sides of the glass window.
As I had mentioned earlier in my own comment, one of the most important steps to be taken is to change the stigma of the labels, including the label of client or patient.
They wouldn’t exist, silly.
What?
Parabolic mirrors.
I’m from a country where the main focus of the judicial system is rehabilitation. Mental health facilities are in fact part of it.
If our experience is anything to go by, you will absolutely still need to lock up certain people. For their own safety and that of society at large.
Some people cannot be cured, or resist treatment to such an extend that it is effectively impossible.
It’s an uncomfortable truth.
Launch them at the sun
There’s always room on the compost pile.
