So two people have died recently. Actually, millions of people have died recently, but of the people who have died recently, there are two which I would like to talk about. One is Whitney Houston, who died yesterday, as I'm sure you're all aware. The other is Isabelle Caro, who actually died a-year-and-a-bit ago, but for some reason the story came up today and it ended up making me think about a lot of the same things as Houston's death.
So when Houston died, the reaction of several people was not "this is sad", or "I am not very emotionally involved with this situation but recognise that it is regrettable", but "so what, she was an alcoholic drug addict, screw her!". This did not make me very happy with the human race. For some reason, we seem to have got it into our collective consciousness that people with substance addictions are fundamentally weaker and more flawed than everyone else, and, as such, it is not necessary to feel regret or sympathy when they suffer or die.
Here's the truth: anyone could develop a drug addiction. Anyone at all. People do not become drug addicts because they have different and grander flaws than everyone else, they become drug addicts because they have exactly the same flaws as everyone else. Also, once addiction takes hold, it is a mental illness like any other. It is stupendously ignorant to feel superior to someone who is struggling to come clean but hasn't managed it yet, because breaking a chemical addiction is one of the hardest things that any person can do.
The same goes for anorexia. We have the tendency, as a society, to look down upon people with eating disorders as obsessively narcissistic and superficial idiots, who will do anything to fit some deranged perception of beauty. But eating disorders go much deeper than that. Anorexia and bulimia are symptoms of deep-rooted mental illness, which, like all mental illness, is caused by a variety of complex factors which few (if any) of us understand yet. Which is to say that eating disorders are illnesses, not character flaws. The correct response to the revelation that someone is suffering from an eating disorders is not "ugh, that vain bitch", because that does precisely nothing to help the situation, and assumes that you as a person are immune to the social pressures and psychological trip-switches which cause damaging behaviour such as anorexia. The appropriate response is however you would react to learning someone had cancer, or bi-polar disorder.
It's not hard to see why we like to think that addiction and eating disorders only affect "weak people". Part of the natural human response to learning about some new evil in the world is to think "oh my god, what if that happens to me?"; and one of the natural responses to that is to assure yourself that no, of course it would never happen to you, because you are too clever/strong-willed/healthy/darn important to be taken down by something like that. And so, we assure ourselves, those druggies and anorexics must simply be inferior to us, and we are on some higher level of humanity where we do not have to concern ourselves with such matters. It's comforting to think of addiction and mental illness as something that exists outside of you, that only affects other people. And so we stick to it, by whatever means necessary.
But we are, of course, bullshitting ourselves (to borrow a phrase from technical psychological jargon). Anyone could develop a drug or alcohol addiction, and anyone could be subject to just the right sort of pressure to make them starve themselves or self-harm. Just as anyone could be raped, or violently murdered, or killed by a car, or destroyed by cancer. And let's not forget that we're all going to die, and have our physical remains devoured by worms and maggots. This is the truth of the matter. We are all irrevocably flawed sentient beings subject to a wide variety of misfortune.
What is the point of reminding ourselves of this? To get over the dangerous tendency to think that misfortune only happens to the weak, and subsequently to react with scorn when we would do better to react with sympathy. Our assumption that drug addicts and anorexics have done something to bring their suffering upon themselves is another symptom of that "winners and losers" mentality which I hate so much. Yes, I know it's comforting to think that you are better than other people, but guess what: almost everyone is thinking exactly the same thing. And all of you are wrong. If you want to divide the world into winners and losers, without deluding yourself, then you must either place everyone in the "winner" category or the "loser" category. Why? Because we are all subject to the same internal flaws and external limitations that will stop us achieving everything that we want to achieve, and we also all possess amazing bodies and brains that we can use to better ourselves and our species and our family and our world.
So mourn Whitney Houston and Isabelle Caro, and recognise that they are not the victims of some internal weakness unique to them, but of the same human fallibility that afflicts and eventually kills all of us.
So when Houston died, the reaction of several people was not "this is sad", or "I am not very emotionally involved with this situation but recognise that it is regrettable", but "so what, she was an alcoholic drug addict, screw her!". This did not make me very happy with the human race. For some reason, we seem to have got it into our collective consciousness that people with substance addictions are fundamentally weaker and more flawed than everyone else, and, as such, it is not necessary to feel regret or sympathy when they suffer or die.
Here's the truth: anyone could develop a drug addiction. Anyone at all. People do not become drug addicts because they have different and grander flaws than everyone else, they become drug addicts because they have exactly the same flaws as everyone else. Also, once addiction takes hold, it is a mental illness like any other. It is stupendously ignorant to feel superior to someone who is struggling to come clean but hasn't managed it yet, because breaking a chemical addiction is one of the hardest things that any person can do.
The same goes for anorexia. We have the tendency, as a society, to look down upon people with eating disorders as obsessively narcissistic and superficial idiots, who will do anything to fit some deranged perception of beauty. But eating disorders go much deeper than that. Anorexia and bulimia are symptoms of deep-rooted mental illness, which, like all mental illness, is caused by a variety of complex factors which few (if any) of us understand yet. Which is to say that eating disorders are illnesses, not character flaws. The correct response to the revelation that someone is suffering from an eating disorders is not "ugh, that vain bitch", because that does precisely nothing to help the situation, and assumes that you as a person are immune to the social pressures and psychological trip-switches which cause damaging behaviour such as anorexia. The appropriate response is however you would react to learning someone had cancer, or bi-polar disorder.
It's not hard to see why we like to think that addiction and eating disorders only affect "weak people". Part of the natural human response to learning about some new evil in the world is to think "oh my god, what if that happens to me?"; and one of the natural responses to that is to assure yourself that no, of course it would never happen to you, because you are too clever/strong-willed/healthy/darn important to be taken down by something like that. And so, we assure ourselves, those druggies and anorexics must simply be inferior to us, and we are on some higher level of humanity where we do not have to concern ourselves with such matters. It's comforting to think of addiction and mental illness as something that exists outside of you, that only affects other people. And so we stick to it, by whatever means necessary.
But we are, of course, bullshitting ourselves (to borrow a phrase from technical psychological jargon). Anyone could develop a drug or alcohol addiction, and anyone could be subject to just the right sort of pressure to make them starve themselves or self-harm. Just as anyone could be raped, or violently murdered, or killed by a car, or destroyed by cancer. And let's not forget that we're all going to die, and have our physical remains devoured by worms and maggots. This is the truth of the matter. We are all irrevocably flawed sentient beings subject to a wide variety of misfortune.
What is the point of reminding ourselves of this? To get over the dangerous tendency to think that misfortune only happens to the weak, and subsequently to react with scorn when we would do better to react with sympathy. Our assumption that drug addicts and anorexics have done something to bring their suffering upon themselves is another symptom of that "winners and losers" mentality which I hate so much. Yes, I know it's comforting to think that you are better than other people, but guess what: almost everyone is thinking exactly the same thing. And all of you are wrong. If you want to divide the world into winners and losers, without deluding yourself, then you must either place everyone in the "winner" category or the "loser" category. Why? Because we are all subject to the same internal flaws and external limitations that will stop us achieving everything that we want to achieve, and we also all possess amazing bodies and brains that we can use to better ourselves and our species and our family and our world.
So mourn Whitney Houston and Isabelle Caro, and recognise that they are not the victims of some internal weakness unique to them, but of the same human fallibility that afflicts and eventually kills all of us.
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