life. It is my hypothesis that the change in society termed the
Industrial Revolution (it is in fact quite a long period where
technology and science along with changes in society and cultures
created modern developed world nation societies but I'm going to call it
the Industrial Revolution) created the concept of disability and
specifically I'm talking about those disabilities listed in psychiatric
text books (though there are other categories) and within these I'm
going to talk about the schizophrenic type (but really I'm probably mean
people with psychotic disorders or something like that...perhaps the
schizotaxia genotype but that hasn't been proven yet).
In short I think I'm talking about what the next revolution of humanity
will be like and how the mentally ill will be essential and perhaps
advantaged which is sort of based on a rough idea of what Alvin Toffler
was going on about with his concept explained in his book The Thrid
Wave. What I understood of his concept was there is we are coming to the
beginning of the next major evolution in humanity and civilisation, one
where I hope there will be a lot more unity and other stuff. But I've
jumped ahead to the conclusion. Or perhaps I haven't gotten to a
conclusion yet.
What happened post-Agricultural Revolution and through the Industrial
Revolution was a certain type of human being was advantaged because they
were considered useful to the progress driven by the engine of the
masses (often the elite in terms of progress but without the masses
those individuals revered as great scientist, engineers and other stuff
could only have had good ideas which weren't put into practice). Their
usefulness in this sense were things like high (construct) intelligence
or capability to conform to the needs of the hierachial systems or
behave appropriately. Appropriateness was about politeness, conformity
and etiquette I guess. Anything less could be a disadvantage in various
areas of pre-developed world society and this became more significant a
disadvantage as these societies became the developed world nations of
the modern day.
Let's take people with learning disabilities as an example. They're
human like the rest of us and are capable of learning, They may have
other capabilities than are measured by IQ. In the period in history
before mass education (one of the system of progress which also created
disadvantage for those which didn't fit into the standard system and
which I associate with the Industrial Revolution) their lower IQ-based
learning speed or capacity was not a disadvantage because few people
were educated using the system of schools (which prepared and
conditioned children for the systems of work in adulthood), exams and
other technologies of mass education.
For the schizophrenic there were other challenges however there was
significant disadvantage for the majority. The reasons to pathologise
the schizophrenic type since it was first codified in psychiatry as
dementia praecox (Emil Kraeplin's term used in what's accepted generally
as the first psychiatric textbook) are a long list of symptoms used by
psychiatry for a variety of reasons as complex as the human condition
itself. The reference (Bleuler or Schneidner) positive (what I see as
cause in a way) and negative (symptoms or coping mechanisms for the hell
of the internal experience and from the hell of society/other people
which I perceive as effect rather than cause) symptoms weren't
dogmatically adhered to in clinical practice and the diagnosis became
used for a variety of reasons, some which people might consider
nefarious and distasteful. The things people would perceive as
distasteful in George Orwell's book 1984 are what I personally percieve
as some of the ills which happened in the history of the label of
schizophrenia. In my opinion.
For a period of time the extreme schizophrenic type disappeared into the
asylum system. This accelerated the illness in society (this is my
cheeky and what I hope is somewhat ironic play upon the application of
the paradigm of illness to something which isn't a real illness) and the
invention of the 'antipsychotic medication' (it's not really
antipsychotic and it's not really a medicine) allowed the expansion of
the subjugation of the schizophrenic type to a wider part of the
spectrum of expression of the schizophrenics' behaviours. The Great
Confinement of madness continued through the system of medication and
the state welfare system which aided the exclusion of the repressed mad
(the schizophrenics on medication to remove the behavioural symptoms of
whatever was pathologised by the label of schizophrenia and, with time,
other diagnoses) so developed world society 'forgot' that it was meant
to be designed for the full spectrum of the human condition and evermore
larger swathes of the population were conditioned into an unhuman
automoton way of being also know as "normal."
In less developed countries like Indian (now considered a developed
world nation I think?) some schizophrenics survived as Sadus. In other
countries they became artists or musicians. Perhaps some became
philosphers and others dancers. Perhaps some enterer the pornography and
prostitution industries. Some became rebels and some may even have
become politicians. Some survived through lots of conditioning but many,
many, many other schizophrenics suffered a life worse than death, a
zombie-like experience bereft of the quality of their full experience of
life and consciousness and being and other stuff.
The loss of value from the incaceration, drugging and exclusion of the
schizophrenic is a cost too high. It is a loss to the richness of the
human race. I remember posing the question, "where are the sages in this
society?", about 15 years ago. The art, music, dance and other stuff
which makes humanity so much more amazing than everyone having a car and
material stuff was lost for the pursuit of material wealth and
capitalist (and communist) ideals.
In the future the schizophrenic type will no longer be disadvantaged. I
think things are starting to change at the start of this millennium. My
question is what will these new roles and types be like?
(Cross training - humans need to be automotons and schizophrenic-capable
(and more) because it is unknown what the next evolution or revolution
of humanity will be like. Drugs mean automotons can be like
schizophrenics and schizophrenics can be like automotons. But what if
the next evolution of humanity is to manage to be both and neither
available as needed or able to be expressed and exist without difference.)
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