Repost and reply: In light of the recent death of an internet celebrity, the topic of anorexia and other mental health issues has arisen

Repost, and two-part reply to this post. Hopefully this brings the issue into the discussion (given the recent conversation about mental health issues such as anorexia caused by the death of an internet celebrity).

Original post——

The stereotype of anxiety and depression might go like this: "those people" have enough wealth to even avoid work, but don't have enough respect or expectations to have a clear idea of ​​what they "should do", such as the most typical , Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Søren Kierkegaard, and more.

Henri Lefebvre, in Volume 1 of The Critique of Everyday Life, singles out Kierkegaard as a classic example of bourgeois alienation, the result of which is the creation of existential philosophy—that we must, through the force of will and faith, Take the leap to create meaning for yourself . Lefebvre believed that existential anxiety is always the result of some kind of alienation. When Marx formulated alienation as "the psychological pain we experience when we are separated from ourselves, each other, the product of labor, and nature," he was thinking about the way the working class suffers under capitalism, but Lefebvre framed this The theory was extended to a wider scope. Above all, we are alienated when we are detached from the fact that we are dependent on others for our survival - this is what all bourgeois have in common.

Acknowledging this dependency makes us aware of the injustice in which these responsibilities are distributed (according to class, gender, race, etc.), and getting rid of this alienation requires a radical change in lifestyle, including abandoning the inescapable elements of bourgeois morality. There is a lack of self-serving practices . This can be very difficult. I think that if we want more people to support equality and mutual love , it is important to recognize/understand this alienation, especially the alienation of the bourgeoisie.

People suffer when they are separated from others, when their material lives feel so isolated and small that they have to rely on spiritual beliefs to build any foothold for "themselves" but are unable to be full of faith in their own Faith, therefore, can only be related to religion through anxiety. Atheists would be fascinated by something similar to Dutch tulips . Seriously, everyone who has read Kierkegaard will know that he was not a happy man. He wrote "The Concept of Anxiety" and "Fear and Trembling." But maybe he would be better off if he were less self-obsessed, if he could acknowledge the value of intersubjectivity rather than pure responsibility, and not worry about his so-called independent morality (which is really just arrogance).

That's why it might be said that Simone de Beauvoir is a prime example of existentialism, because she recognized that even the strong need recognition and connection. She writes in "The Morality of Ambiguity" that in hierarchical societies, even tyrants can be harmed because they can never experience true respect because all people see is their power and what is in it. The implicit threat, rather than their entire humanity. This does not mean that we should not violently resist tyranny, as individualism is difficult to overcome, even if it is self-destructive, but realizing this can bring more people to the side of equality. The book The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett provides empirical support for this view. I like to put it in Spinoza's terms: the satisfaction of a desire is excessive when it blinds our other needs and prevents us from feeling other forms of pleasure.

Reply 1——

I want to talk about therapy, self healing/possibility of overcoming this condition.

I think Judith Butler provides an interesting framework for thinking about. While probably the most famous work on the social construction of gender, I prefer the book Self-Statement.

The book states: Our spiritual life is the product of all our previous experiences, especially those in relation to other people. This may seem obvious to some extent, but it does undermine individualism. In particular, it deconstructs the difference between attacking oneself and attacking others. If our inner and outer lives are so interconnected, is it any surprise that attacking ourselves isolates us? Recognizing that others exist within us in some sense helps foster intimacy , and although it may make us uncomfortable if we don't like a part of the other person, that doesn't mean it's not real. This point can make us more compassionate to everything inside. Self-hate and hatred of others are closely linked, and they reinforce each other.

Both depression and anxiety come from some kind of hatred, "rationalizing" isolation and alienation through self-abuse/attacking oneself, and eating disorders are just one of many forms.

I like to think about the relationship between different parts of ourselves in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s mechanical unconscious, the idea that our minds are made up of intertwined parts of the larger social environment. I think the difference, though, is that I want to negotiate and find a balance between them, rather than "experiment" by taking certain parts to extremes to make changes .

I like Jacques Derrida’s discussion of this in The Politics of Friendship. Recognizing the “other” in ourselves, and therefore the dislocation within ourselves, requires us to become ourselves. of friends, which makes friendship so important that it weakens any potential narcissism, because by loving “ourselves” as “others,” we learn to love others (and ourselves) better.

But this does not solve the specific political problem - the missing aspect is that we must see ourselves as inseparable from our social and political institutions, as part of the historical process, and how we feel about these institutions is A very real part of the process, if we want to be true to ourselves, we must act on these feelings, not repress them. I'm still thinking about what this means for myself, and as Lefebvre pointed out, this is the final hurdle where most people fail, but we can all try.

Reply 2——

I also hope to think about it from a healing perspective. I have always emphasized that any attempt to comment on this death from the perspective of new immigrants, self-media practitioners, singles, or even Sichuan fans, etc., will weaken the social significance of this matter.

The point should be to remind everyone (once again) how vital choices about healing methods are.

The traditional approach tends to view psychological problems as diseases and people afflicted by psychological difficulties as patients. So a lot of money and energy are invested in the analysis and research of pathology and symptoms, but at the same time, they suffer from insufficient connection with "patients". It’s easy to fail at the level of empathy.

Why? Because these approaches are built on structural inequalities. As the original post said, alienation is the crux; so healing needs to do the opposite, flatten the hierarchy, and recreate the connection.

I suggest another approach. Try to step back to prevent the other from becoming strategic. That is to say, we do not first define these psychological problems as diseases, but regard them as "reactions" to real-life pressures/real-life problems - as a kind of "solution" sought by the parties.

Of course, this turned out to be the "worst solution". But instead of debating how bad it is, let’s step back to the level that created it – what kind of stress state/change/impact caused the “need” to seek a solution.

If the medical perspective feels unfamiliar, let me use the political context as an analogy.

In his famous "The Great Transformation" published in 1944, the Austro-Hungarian economic historian Karl Polanyi analyzed how countries responded to the implosion of the "Belle Epoque international economic system." World War II was still raging at that time. In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, societies around the world were frantically trying to overcome the chaos caused by soaring unemployment and currency instability. Polanyi described this as a "double movement" - a push for social rebalancing and equalization away from the laissez-faire economics of highly internationalized capitalism and towards state interventionism. This is the level of motivation.

On this level, Bolshevism, Fascism, the Nazis, and the social democracy of Roosevelt and Leon Bloom were all attempts at "solutions," different responses to the same dilemma. Here they have equal properties. (Note: For related explanations, we recommend "White Paper" Episode 8 https://iyouport.substack.com/p/8-c12 )

Currently, the world is facing a new "Polanyi moment": the crisis of globalization has led to the rise of various protectionist sentiments. The growing restrictions on mobility and concerns about supply chains that have accompanied the pandemic will only accelerate the political realignment that began in the 2010s. The economic stagnation since the 2008 financial crisis has severely undermined the credibility of free-market solutions. There are deepening commercial competition and geopolitical tensions between the United States and China and between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Populist movements on both the left and the right are now questioning aspects of the neoliberal consensus .

In all these areas, there are calls to protect ourselves from the systemic risks posed by neoliberal globalization . Now, “protection” is widely cited – not just in a protectionist sense, but in everything from pandemic policy and discussions about how to adapt to climate change to debates over industrial policy and the need for welfare provisions all aspects.

In other words, we have once again reached a "need-solution" moment. The dilemma we face in the early 2020s looks similar to the one Polanyi studied a century ago—and the political stakes are just as high.

And if we are to avoid falling into the hands of the Nazis and Bolsheviks again, we need a smarter strategy.

The key is to recognize that if capitalism cannot be restrained through democratic means, populist conservative thinking will undoubtedly become more attractive among disaffected workers, and authoritarian solutions will become more likely. In other words, our focus should be on improving the external conditions that make the choice of solutions more democratically oriented, rather than focusing on explaining and promoting why authoritarian methods are wrong. The efficiency of the latter is lower in comparison, because it ignores that the results of choosing any "solution" will be shared and enjoyed by everyone. The result of dividing people through the opposition of positions will only accelerate the promotion of extremes. choose. Just like treating mental health problems as diseases, by fundamentally dividing doctors and patients, it removes the helper (doctor) from the position of "bearing the greatest risk of decision-making" and stays out of the situation, which only deepens the relationship between doctors and patients. Alienation.

Another example is withdrawal support groups. Organizers often mistakenly believe that affinity, cohesion, and psychological mutual aid/psychological massage may be more effective, so they tend to arrange for participants to talk about their successful experiences and psychological challenges, encourage each other, and "come on." And then there's the point where everyone else is either clapping out of politeness or they've already zoned out. Why? Because the organizers regard difficulty in quitting as "pathological", they have othered the participants from the beginning and fundamentally isolated them. Virtually every dependence on an addictive substance has a reason, facilitated by some kind of environmental stress. A quitter must be able to find out the cause of dependence and remove it in order to achieve successful withdrawal. The best "curative effect" of a mutual aid group should come from the moment of "connection" when participants open their hearts to each other, which is what Derrida described, "recognizing the "other" in oneself, thereby recognizing the dislocation within oneself." .

Not long ago, I saw news that the support rate of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) reached 22%, setting the highest record since the party was founded. The explanation is a good reference: voters do not support the AfD platform, they support the party's existence as a "protest party" . That is, in this case they express support not because they like what the AfD proposes for Germany, but because they agree with the criticism the AfD has made of the government. This is about global issues. Inflation/cost of living first, energy issues second....

This is a great way to emphasize that reformers’ energy should be devoted to how to better solve current problems, rather than arguing about why “voters are wrong.”

The Internet celebrity economy era will be an outbreak period of anxiety and depression spectrum psychological problems. Those who are still alive are not necessarily relaxed and happy, nor can they stay out of it. It is my hope that this death will, by reminding us of the problems we face together, reconnect us to seek solutions together.

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