At a personal, humanistic level, I have compassion for Britney Spears
and Heath Ledger, his family, friends, whoever.
But why should I care any more about these two, than of the BILLION
people who live with on less than a dollar a day. The BILLION people
who are starving to death, lack proper shelter, etc. Why are the
intimate lives and personal disfunctions of celebrities more important
that that? Big deal, he's an actor? So what? Big deal, she's a singer,
so what? How many children died of malnutrition yesterday that could
have been saved if wealthy people donated an extra 1% of their income
to charity instead of spending it supporting celebrity culture?
The whole has massive pressing problems and the amount of media
attention focused on celebrities is ridiculous and absurd.
Posted by Blogger John | 5:21 PM
Just a minor quibble with your writing. Your use of the expression
"get better" with respect to mental illness is a bit of a simplistic
expression for something that is considerably more complicated.
Your compassion for her is admirable. And, as usual, your thinking and
writing great. Keep up the great work!
Posted by Anonymous Tom | 6:04 PM
John: I'm using the high profile example of these two figures to
highlight a problem that's endemic to the entire population. People
know and follow celebrities, and through this familiar association --
and as you quite rightly put: a misappropriation of priorities -- I'm
hoping that people get my message about mental health and its stigma.
Posted by Blogger George | 6:23 PM
Tom: Your point is well taken. Given more time and energy I might have
elaborated a bit more about what can and should be done.
Posted by Blogger George | 6:24 PM
I totally agree with George's point, and have expressed it myself with
respect to Spears before (though I have always found her a little
painful to contemplate, as the Spears phenomenon has exalted
humanity). However, I think there's a sense in which the cultural
construction of Spears as "successful" has been damaging, and to some
extent I see a real upside her implosion as a warning to those who
might otherwise have taken her as an example to be valorized. Further,
I think the popular construal of success for a young pop star like
Spears probably exacerbated whatever tendency she (and other young
women like her) already had toward manic depression.
Those vilifying or demeaning her may do so out of spite, but if they
weren't simultaneously propagating a distracting and counterproductive
view of mental illness at the same time, they would be performing a
sort of social service by identifying a dangerous outcome for the
fame-seeker.
Posted by Blogger Nato | 7:05 PM
The news yesterday that Ledger had died of an apparent suicide made my
heart sink...
Is that what they are saying? I haven't gotten that impression from
the news. They mentioned it as a possibility, but lots of sources
strongly deny that as the cause of his death.
I find it tragic when people die under any circumstances, but suicides
make it doubly so. Mental health is a grossly undervalued aspect of
personal health and very few resources are devoted to helping people
cope with problems such as depression and anxiety.
There are plenty of resources, but people don't want to use them
because of social stigma. Do you know how people react to you when you
have a history of suicidal ideation? I do. That's why in order to
mention it, I've decided to post anonymously.
Actually, I take that back: we care about Britney insofar as we need
to take a piss on people who are more popular and successful than we
are.
I heard some estimates that Britney Spears generates $120 million in
the American economy each year. It's not money she makes for herself,
but money she makes for the media that report on her.
And you wonder why she gets reported on so much...
Her hair-shaving episode was indication that she's likely having
suicidal ideations.
Now that's arm chair psychiatry if I've ever seen it. I have a more
likely explanation: she shaved her head a few days after she had
checked into rehab and checked out abruptly about 10 hrs later. More
than likely, she realized she was going to have to undergo a hair test
for drugs (a common procedure at drug rehabs), and didn't want any
positive test results that might jeopardize her custody battle. Of
course, that preceded all of her latest antics.
It's sad that the system isn't set up so that a person could be
flagged and offered help. I'm not even sure what to suggest in this
case...
Yep, that's what happens when you have so much money that you don't
have any responsibility to others. An ordinary person with bipolar
disorder would screw up on the job or something, and, needing
desperately to keep their job, or their marriage, or their kids, would
be pressured into seeking treatment.
Spears has already lost her kids but it looks like she simply doesn't
give a damn. She continues to skip the court hearings.
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 11:06 PM
Just a gratuitously erudite nitpick, but
"...generates $120 million in the American economy each year"
is misleading. Advertising, for example, "generates" a great deal of
money, but when you look at it, this nominal figure disguises the fact
that almost all of that represents and opportunity cost of economic
resources consigned to oblivion. For example, a hurricane "generates"
a whole lot of money because of all the rebuilding, the salaries of
actuaries, etc etc, but really a stock of goods amounting to far more
than the value of the "generated" economic activity has been erased.
Likewise, ads and other disposable-type entertainment represent
resources diverted from generating durable goods and services.
In a sense, only Spears' personal artistic output really counts as a
"contribution" since the rest of it represents devoting resources,
including the time of talented people, to produce goods with an
extremely short shelf life and which only entertains in the most
ephemeral way.
Also:
"Spears has already lost her kids but it looks like she simply doesn't
give a damn. She continues to skip the court hearings"
Perhaps she has a crippling aversion to what must feel like a public
pillory? I don't know how depressed and humiliated she's feeling
(especially given the social stigma attached to mental illness), but
I'm guessing it's a lot. I'm not saying she's handling it well - it
seems evident that her life has not equipped her to deal with this
kind of setback - but it seems something of a leap to say that she
just doesn't care. Except perhaps insofar as a deeply depressed person
stops caring about almost everything.
Posted by Blogger Nato | 2:51 PM
Let's remember that she hasn't been diagnosed with a mental illness
yet. She was involuntarily committed a few weeks ago and they found
nothing. You can lie to a certain extent, but a depressed person
doesn't go gallivanting around, shopping constantly, taking trips to
Mexico, and so on. They are for the most part bed- or house-ridden. If
she's bipolar, she would have episodes of both. I don't see such a
pattern.
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 4:06 AM
I'll admit, anon, I don't know anything about her life that hasn't
been summarized on a Google News frontpage. I don't insist on the
mental illness interpretation.
Posted by Blogger Nato | 6:14 PM
It's virtually impossible not to be kept abreast of her latest antics
in this media climate. But you can go on one of those celebrity
exploitation websites, like Perez Hilton or TMZ, and do a search for
her name. You'll find almost daily updates of her antics.
In terms of a possible mental illness, there are lots of things we can
rule out.
- She's not schizophrenic. Schizophrenia usually begins in one's early
twenties, and she's already 26, so there would have been signs of it
years ago. Further, schizophrenics usually have paranoid delusional
thoughts and tend to adhere to conspiracy theories and say lots of
crazy things. I have heard nothing of the sort with regards to her. At
the severe end, they have full-on auditory hallucinations, and mild
visual hallucinations.
- She's not bipolar. Bipolar never results from environmental
stressors. It's genetic in nature. It is a condition where one's mood
swings are wider than a "normal" person's. The bipolar sufferer may be
depressed, house-ridden, not want to talk to anybody for days, then
will suddenly become hyperactive with racing thoughts and speech.
Again, I don't see that pattern.
A propos, a unipolar manic state has sometimes been suggested in
transhumanist circles to be a blessing because it makes you
constitutively hyperactive, goal-seeking, etc. But one psychiatrist
that I talked to who treated a man with this rare condition described
it as hell. The guy constantly had racing thoughts and would ramble on
about nonsense for hours at a time. He could get very little done
because of his lack of concentration.
- If she had a biological predisposition toward depression and
suicidal ideation, this would have been evident from her early teens.
Nothing of the sort has ever been mentioned, so I disqualify any
biological predispositions toward depression.
- She COULD be depressed due to certain recent life events, but again,
her behavior contradicts such a diagnosis. A depressed person wouldn't
be as active as she is.
- It is my opinion that she's simply reacting to a highly stressful
situation and has bad coping skills. That's not mental illness per se,
but it could be helped by therapy.
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 4:33 AM
Anon, I would more or less have to take your word for it regarding
Spears' actions - I certainly have no desire to research the
particulars of her history.
As a bit of a backgrounder, I have a very close friend who, like her
father before her, began to suffer from increasingly serious chemical
imbalances at around 22, becoming increasingly worse until her
suicidal ideation became almost constant at about 25. Medication has
since ameliorated her symptoms, but she remains far less emotionally
functional than she was at 23. She suffers from serious social anxiety
and depression, but apparently not the "garden variety," hence her
late onset and the dubious efficacy of her medical regimen.
Posted by Blogger Nato | 11:53 PM
I'm with John. Only more so.
I believe that the troubles and deaths of super-rich people offer the
rest of us some guilt-free schadenfreude. For all of the jealousy,
envy, feelings of uselessness and depression that the existence of the
wealthy engender in billions of others... a few public deaths every
now and then is the very least they can do for us.
My care, concern and sadness is reserved for the billions of suffering
humans whose suffering is only amplified by the existence of these
money-hoarders. The money-hoarders themselves can feel free to die for
our amusement at their leisure.
mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com
Posted by Blogger mnuez | 5:27 AM
I just listened to your podcast and I'm with you on the Britney thing.
I can imagine taking a certain relief at the demise of somebody who
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