Depression results when meritocratic self-blame meets limited opportunity

Evidence

Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities. As psychologist Oliver James put it in his book The Selfish Capitalist, “in the entrepreneurial fantasy society”, we are taught “that only the affluent are winners and that access to the top is open to anyone willing to work hard enough, regardless of their familial, ethnic or social background — if you do not succeed, there is only one person to blame.” It’s high time that the blame was placed elsewhere. We need to reverse the privatisation of stress and recognise that mental health is a political issue. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1605

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: ‘the privatisation of stress’ — how diagnosis turned systemic strain into individual pathology since Thatcher.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: empirical evidence tying depression rates to meritocracy ideology and inequality, beyond Oliver James’s polemic.
• XREF: connects to: Self-blame converts revolutionary anger into individualized depression — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 27; Depression emerges when entrepreneurial self-belief meets blocked opportunity — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1605; Therapy’s real flaw is privatizing systemic problems as individual self-work — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1923 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Depression emerges when entrepreneurial self-belief meets blocked opportunity #corroborates (0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1605
• Self-blame converts revolutionary anger into individualized depression #expands (0.85) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 27