Dehumanization

Today's Telegraph and Guardian both have articles that expose the rapid and expanding dehumanization of society, encouraged in the UK by Cameron's government, and in the US by a multitude forces already beyond control.

In the Telegraph the elderly are told to go back to work and to downsize their living spaces. People in the UK have a far different attitude towards the property they live in and have made home than the peripatetic Americans, who think nothing of upping sticks and moving into retirement accommodation. There is still a sense of community and place in the UK that is unknown today in the USA. If there are no jobs for young people, how does the government expect old people to find work? And given the dehumanized environment in the workplace, to suggest that elderly people go back to work who have been subject to a lifetime of stress and oppressive bosses is simply cruel. And how are the elderly supposed to downsize in a country where there is a chronic shortage of housing? What about the negative, sometimes fatal impact of being removed from familiar surroundings?

The Telegraph also has an article about axing hospital chaplains to hire more nursing assistants because, it is said, chaplains have 'no clinical benefit'. The implications of such a statement—that people are bodies only, and those bodies are merely mechanical—are horrifying. What dark age are these policy makers living in? The evidence of the interdependence of body and mind is overwhelming. Reports on hospitals show that they are neglectful, uncaring, lonely places, especially for the elderly. Their bells are not answered; they are left in their waste, offered unpalatable food, not fed, ignored, sometimes actively abused. Whatever one thinks about religion, chaplains help to relieve the degradation of being stuck in such circumstances.

O yes. And RBS has decided to cancel its annual lunch for elderly past employees. How much could that lunch have cost in comparison to the millions of pounds of bonuses offered to executives, not to mention the wastrel gambling culture of the banking system in general?

The Guardian contributes an ominous article about the new diagnostic handbook for mental illness being published in America, which classifies normal human emotions as mental illness, so that a person grieving for a spouse would be considered 'abnormal' with the label of chronic depressive disorder, and recalcitrant children would be classified as mentally ill with an 'oppositional' disorder. This suggests a multitude of opportunities for supporting parental abuse. On the other hand, serial rapists could use the handbook to escape jail.

'Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology and Head of Institute of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, said the revisions "could only make a bad system worse". The diagnostic approach, a tick-box list of symptoms leading to a label, was always "hugely problematic", he said. What is termed "oppositional defiant disorder" is dubious, he said: "Since my children say 'no you are an idiot, dad' repeatedly to me, by definition my children are ill." He also disagreed with the label of paraphilic coercive disorder: "In my view, rape is a crime and should not necessarily be regarded as a disorder. It gives people an excuse for that behaviour," he said.'

The Independent features an article that exposes the bumper profits being made by the energy companies while 5.5 million homes are in 'fuel poverty'—and doubtless people will die as a result. A little further down is an article in which care home staff admit abusing the helpless people who were entrusted to them. And finally there is a long article on loneliness—to be classified as mental illness in the new diagnostic handbook—a whole new spectrum of possibilities to make you to feel guilty: if you show any human qualities, you're sick. But there will only be more loneliness as public policy continues its relentless program of turning people into ciphers, fragmenting communities and segregating people into socio-economic, age-related and cultural ghettos.

'Contexts bring meanings from the whole of our selves and our lives, not just from the explicit theoretical, intellectual structures which are potentially under control. The power-hungry will always aim to substitute explicit for intuitive understanding. Intuitive understanding is not under control, and therefore cannot be trusted by those who wish to manipulate and dominate the way we think; for them it is vital that such contexts, with their hidden powerful meanings that have accrued through sometimes millennia of experience, are ereadicated.' (McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary, p. 319)

Are you ready to be a robot?