One of the biggest issues w liberalism is this pervasive fucking notion that the words we use to refer to abstract concepts are inextricably tied to the complex web of ideas that that word attempts to tie together — like the word is an intrinsic part of the concept itself and not a term created to guide the public’s perception of that concept, or to form the case that the concept “exists” at all. People stop seeing how language is a subtle but potent form of social manipulation in of itself. It’s terrifying
So for instance when I discuss how capitalism has created the concept of “mental illness,” people believe I am claiming capitalism generated those actual bodily symptoms individual human beings experience that when grouped together in certain configurations on a wider scale have come to be known as various “mental illnesses,” instead of seeing my real point, which is that the labeling of supposed mental difference or “abnormality” as “mental illness” quite deliberately establishes a metric of “mental health” that only accepts and normalizes those who can comply best with capitalism’s exhausting demands and stigmatizes all those whose neurological frameworks are viewed as unproductive or disruptive within daily life under capitalism. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have access to medication for your debilitating symptoms or that those symptoms are “fake,” I’m saying where our society could have developed to embrace every person as worthy and valid regardless of neurological makeup so there is no such thing as inherently “abnormal” and thus compassion is extended to everyone, it instead developed the idea of mental disability as a way to ostracize a solid chunk of the public, casting them aside as invalid and undesirable so that they are not only discriminated against (a kind of dialectic where society helps ingrain a concept’s implications socially while also informing the shape those implications take), but have no choice but to spend ridiculous amounts of money on medication after medication just to get through a work day and hold a job, otherwise they are physically removed from society. This has nothing to do with how you personally experience your mental illness. This is an issue of the way our society uses language to mold a hostile, discontented, hierarchal public
The fact that much of the population must be labeled “mentally ill” to explain why so many individuals are not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle the gruelling mindset & method of action capitalism necessitates just goes to show how horrifically unnatural a system it is. It’s not us. It’s never been us
“Everything belonging to the tree is in this: its form and structure, its colours and chemical composition, its intercourse with the elements and with the stars, are all present in a single whole. The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no value depending on my mood; but it is bodied over against me and has to do with me, as I with it — only in a different way. Let no attempt be made to sap the strength from the meaning of the relation: relation is mutual.”
— Consider the Tree — philosopher Martin Buber on the discipline of not objectifying and the difficult art of seeing others as they are, not as they are to us.
“Remove everything unnecessary. Resist the onslaught of secondary ideas that come with your primary one. Don’t adulterate. The most effective way of refining your work is to keep it short and simple. ‘I didn’t really do anything,’ explained Michelangelo when asked how he created David. ‘The statue already existed in the block of stone. All I did was remove everything unnecessary.’ Rumi advises us not to talk too much, to use the fewest words possible. Consider this idea when telling your stories, when making films, when selecting images, when living life.”
countervisuality 