Many years ago I read Susan Sontag's book, Illness as a Metaphor. She was mostly concerned with the metaphors surrounding AIDS, but she brought up a lot of the same points--that we use this combative language, this war metaphor when it comes to disease, and considers some of the implications of that language.
American culture is also a factor here--we're FILLED with the idea of self-help, from Benjamin Franklin onward--this idea that's in our bones that we can remake ourselves, redo ourselves, reinvent ourselves and if we don't succeed, it's not because it's impossible, but because we didn't 'try hard enough'. Mental illness is a particularly terrifying counterexample of that, this idea that you can try hard enough but still not be 'happy' or 'right' or 'healthy', you can do all the right things, talk to counselors, take the medications, and it still persists. I think that's part of the particular Western stigma toward mental illness--it's scary because it rebukes, as you said, that 'arrogance of humanism'.
Our justice system is also based upon the assumption of free will; if we don't have free will, then we couldn't justify the vastness of our prisons. If we don't have free will, we couldn't justify God's Judgments. Free will is the assumption of most self-help as well. Most of my personal improvements have come from brushing up against the limits of my own free will and finding little fixes, like realizing I can leave ice cream in the store but if I take it home I'll eat the whole thing.
Человек в депрессии, имхо, на самоубийство как раз не способен. Для самоубийства нужна некоторая - немалая - сила духа. Хотя, возможно, в Америке под депрессией понимают совсем не то, что имею в виду я.
America has always had a love/hate relationship with the truth. I was stunned to learn how many lies were told to pioneers to get them to move west and brave the blizzards and diseases of the Great Plains. Entire books are written on the falsehoods that get us into wars. The desire to create truth rather than deal with truth is America's strength and weakness.
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American culture is also a factor here--we're FILLED with the idea of self-help, from Benjamin Franklin onward--this idea that's in our bones that we can remake ourselves, redo ourselves, reinvent ourselves and if we don't succeed, it's not because it's impossible, but because we didn't 'try hard enough'. Mental illness is a particularly terrifying counterexample of that, this idea that you can try hard enough but still not be 'happy' or 'right' or 'healthy', you can do all the right things, talk to counselors, take the medications, and it still persists. I think that's part of the particular Western stigma toward mental illness--it's scary because it rebukes, as you said, that 'arrogance of humanism'.
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