One aspect of the depression epidemic

A phrase you seem to hear repeatedly these days: “It is what it is.”

I think it can be interpreted as an expression of dejection.

There are news articles about how the pandemic has exacerbated an epidemic of depression. No doubt the etiology of depression is complex and primarily a function of personal-situational factors, but such doesn’t fully explain the epidemic.

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/epidemic-depression

https://www.ncmhr.org/downloads/Anatomy-Of-An-Epidemic-Summary-Of-Findings-Whitaker.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_an_Epidemic

A factor is the social reality that we face.

I’ll express it in a way that you might not have heard before: The most significant macro-level problem of our lives is that the fundamental civilizational trajectories have resulted in an insanity of hypertrophy.

Insanity of hypertrophy. Doesn’t exactly ring a bell, right? Let me explain …

It’s been like the proverbial frog-in-slow-boil situation. What has been going on has been gradual enough that few sense it during the span of their lifetime. Therefore the problem is not recognized re: people saying: “This whole direction is problematic and needs to be reversed.” Very rare to hear that! Edward Goldsmith said it explicitly in his book The Great U-Turn.

What we hear, instead, generally, is … “more growth” … “more development.”

Maybe we hear: There could be abundance for all with green development, even ecological remediation and regeneration, after systemic change toward socialism. “The problem is capitalism.”

It’s true that capitalism has no appreciation for “externalities” (anything other than profitability, i.e., ecology, justice, community, health, happiness, etc.). Capitalism is a dumb system where micro-level atomized strivers each try to maximize their own growth and profitability irregardless of macro-level considerations. Nonetheless, capitalist economic relations (i.e., private ownership of productive assets) is not the fundamental problem. The proof is that socialist experiments have not resulted in amelioration of the problem.

The fundamental problem is the trajectory toward over-development; toward a world of congestion, noise, complexity, and hypertrophy in all aspects of life. A world where development has expanded the dominant institutions and expanded the overall Technosphere, while decimating the basic context of social life in which we evolved and in which the vast majority of humans lived until very recently: local community (tribe, band, village, town).

And so what we face, what we have to contend with, is depressing.

It’s objectively depressing. It’s enervating, frustrating, and intimidating.

Such colors everything and leaves us disappointed in the stuff of our lives ... our endeavors, relationships, jobs ... to the point of shrugging our shoulders and resigning ourselves to: “It is what it is.”

Happiness and satisfaction are projected in the media. Young people are led to believe that that ought to be their reality. I remember being depressed in my twenties. One reason was a deep sense of intimidation. I was supposed to become a man, handle life, be competent, succeed. But I was facing what felt like an enormous mountain of challenges. Find a career. Succeed in the career. Hold up the sky. Home ownership. Relationships. Parenting. All the while: having fun, creating pleasure, cultivating happiness.

Mastering the Leviathan.

We operate under the collective mystique that the modern social reality in the advanced countries is characterized by affluence, cultural sophistication, health, and security. So we ought to be happy. It makes us even more depressed to not, after all, be happy.

It would help to recognize the truth of our situation: the social reality “out there” is insane — a monstrosity of surfeit, scale, and complexity; distance, opacity, and impersonal institutions. The depression epidemic means that our suffering has a social dimension.