The Danger of a Single Story

This is a very interesting 20 minute video that my friend sent me from her Anti-Racism Conversation Group. Chimamanda Adichie speaks about the dangers of telling a single story about people or a group of people. She talks about writing stories as a child and how powerful literature and stories can be. At the end, Adichie talks about resilience and people's ability to thrive despite challenges. I wrote my masters thesis on the resilience of people involved in the mental health system - another group about which we cannot tell a single story. Her speech is moving and insightful.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Check it out!

Does Nature Prove God: Excerpts from C.S. Lewis’ book The Problem of Pain

For a time, I believed that nature and science scream out evidence of God’s existence. My sister read the Tao of Physics and we had long discussions about nature and God. Just look around at sublime nature! The order within chaos of the earth among the stars blows my mind. Just looking at the Grand Canyon or the Swiss Alps or the ocean seemed proof that God exists. After much thought and reading, I am now calling that belief into question.  

Let’s look at the reality of nature – not an idealized version. The spectacle of the universe and nature is not so sublime as it is terrifying! With the consistency of death, pain and suffering among animals and humans just to survive, with black holes, and with the utter emptiness of the universe around us, all evidence points to a very dismal reality. Is God nature and revealed by nature? In the Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes: “The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held” (p. 13). Could it be possible that the revelation of God comes from outside of nature and science?     

Also, where did we get the idea that life on earth should be good, peaceful, and sustainable? Our very sun that gives us life is a ticking time bomb. Death beckons us at every corner. Where does our sense of outrage and injustice at suffering come from? I see children, animals, and innocent people suffering every day. I feel rage at the injustice in our world. But, where did that sense of injustice come from?

C.S. Lewis writes: “In a sense, [a righteous Lord] creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving” (p. 21). A small part of me believes in a just and righteous God. And if there is a God, I can’t believe in one that is proven by or synonymous with nature and science. At the same time, I want an answer to the suffering I see, because it seems wrong to me. I wonder, though, if the suffering in our world is enough to make one stop believing in God.  

Sometimes, during my depressed times, I mourn the suffering in the world. During these moments, all the world seems to be calling out in a composite suffering and it breaks my heart. C.S. Lewis makes another profound point. He writes: “…search all time and all space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone’s consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it” (p. 103). The greatest amount of suffering in the world is the suffering of one person at a time. This is no small amount and I mourn any amount experienced by others (and myself!). I actively work to end suffering. At the same time, there is comfort in putting suffering into perspective.

I have heard of the Jewish concepts of “Ein Sof” (the Deity prior to self-manifestation in the spiritual realm) and “Seder Hishtalshelus” (a concept similar to the Great Chain of Being - a chain-like process connecting the spiritual realm to the physical realm). These are interesting and new ideas to me. If there is a God, perhaps God is outside of nature, connected to us and intervening in our lives. But, if God is not nature or proven by nature, then where is the evidence of God’s existence? To this, I don’t have an answer.  

Changing Perspectives: A belief in the biology of mental illness increases public stigma

http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/3/477.full.pdf

"Mental Illness" - too spicy a term?

I was listening to NPR the other day, and Robert Siegel was interviewing author Ralph Keyes about his book, Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. They discussed how words change over time and that we constantly (and creatively) come up with new words to tiptoe around things that make us uneasy. Robert Siegel said:

“In his new book about euphemisms, Ralph Keyes takes me back to browsing through a book on my parents' bookshelf about 50 years ago. It was a psychology text, probably written sometime before the Second World War, probably for some education course my father took. And it described the precise ranges of IQ that defined an idiot, a moron and an imbecile.

“My father instructed me that those terms and the broad category that included them all, the feeble-minded, were old ways of saying what we now said more properly. Such people were not to be called feeble-minded, idiotic, imbecilic or moronic. They were to be called retarded, mentally retarded. It was only deep into adulthood that I realized after using that word, that phrase, that it had become completely unacceptable.

“So it goes with euphemisms. One generation's version of polite and scientific is the next generation's standard for ham-fisted and defamatory.”

Describing people with mental illness is no different. Words like “lunatic,” “insane,” and “mad” have evolved from time to time trying to make it easier to describe people who experience symptoms of depression, mania, psychosis, shifting moods, and strange thoughts. So, right now maybe it’s easier or more politically correct to call people who experience these symptoms “mentally ill”, but even that is beginning to shift.

At a recent conference, Charlie Morse, who runs the suicide prevention program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, stated, "I think we have to stop calling everything 'mental illness.' It stigmatizes people who have depression or anxiety, the ubiquity of suffering that we all experience. Mental illness, describing depression, is the same word used to describe schizophrenia. It drives people underground."

My problem with Morse’s quote is this: it is basically saying that schizophrenia gives depression a bad name. Many people think of schizophrenia or bipolar as the really "bad" mental illnesses - the true "crazies." This quote is basically saying that by calling everything "mental illness," we aren't distinguishing the crazies from the mix. Has the term "mental illness" gotten too spicy?   

Ralph Keyes writes: “As we’ll see throughout this book, euphemisms are created in a wide variety of ways and for a multitude of reasons. This usually involves reducing the temperature of overheated rooms. The hotter the topic, the cooler the words we rely on to discuss them…Therapists, self-helpers, and recovery groups have given us a bonanza of mild euphemistic terms to take the place of spicier ones.” 

With events like the Tucson shooting and shootings at Virginia Tech, the room is getting hotter. People are starting to feel the spice of the words “mental illness.” And people are calling for a change in the words we use. No one wants to be associated with people who experience symptoms of depression, mania, psychosis, shifting moods, and strange thoughts. “Mental illness” is the politically correct way to talk about people who experience this range of symptoms, but surely with time, this name will change.

I’ve heard that there are hundreds of words for describing snow. I don’t care if we come up with hundreds of more ways to describe “mental illness.” Call it the “blues” or depression, “madness” or bipolar and schizophrenia. As far as name calling goes, I have no problem with creativity, new words, new definitions, or more distinguishing definitions.

Ralph Keyes stated on NPR: “You know, when Shakespeare called the sex act, making the beast with two backs, we had a very creative mind at work.” I don’t have a problem with “fucking” or making the beast with two backs. In fact, I find it quite pleasurable. Call it what you will. To Charlie Morse I will say this: As far as the ubiquity of suffering goes, I have great compassion. Of course we don’t want to stigmatize those with depression or anxiety. Of course! What I have a problem with is the stigma, the vitriol and fear, surrounding mental illness in general (and around schizophrenia specifically). Changing the name will not take this away. We must find another way.