Treating mental illness as brain chemistry depoliticizes it and serves capitalist interests
Evidence
The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its de-politicization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital’s drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of repoliticizing mental illness is an urgent one if the left wants to challenge capitalist realism. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 82
The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its de-politicization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital’s drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRIs). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of repoliticizing mental illness is an urgent one if the left wants to challenge capitalist realism. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 82
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes arguments in the Frankfurt School on psychologization replacing norm-creating ritual and religion. — connects to: Mental health problems are captured discontent that should be redirected at Capital — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 164; Biochemical explanations of mental illness serve capitalism by depoliticizing suffering — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1408; Biologizing mental illness conveniently depoliticizes its social causes — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 82 (+7 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Rewires the entire debate on mental health causation: neuroscience instantiation is conceded while its explanatory emptiness is exposed — the move that matters is asking why the chemistry is low, which reopens the social. Dense enough to sit with.
- SEED: Angles toward repoliticizing mental illness — an essay on the ideological labor done by ‘chemical imbalance’ framing.
- DEFINE: Cleanly distinguishes neurological instantiation from causation — a precise conceptual clarification worth keeping.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 82
Broader Connections
- Biochemical explanations of mental illness serve capitalism by depoliticizing suffering
#corroborates(0.97) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1408 - Biologizing mental illness conveniently depoliticizes its social causes
#corroborates(0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 82 - Neoliberal policy privatised stress into individual mental illness
#corroborates(0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1601 - Brain science disguises ideological presuppositions that philosophers must expose
#corroborates(0.78) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 54 - Neuroscience that skips theorizing biological-to-mental transition risks serving ideology.
#corroborates(0.75) - Neuroscience without a theory of transformation exposes itself to ideological co-option
#corroborates(0.72)