There seems to be a link between mental health problems, climate change and celebrities. No, do not let anyone tell you that these are individual problems.
On 8 October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report showing that there is a large and rapidly growing international problem. Governments do not know what to do with that problem. As a result, the consequences are likely to be gigantic in terms of human suffering.
The following day, on 9 October, The Lancet published an international report on mental health. The conclusion was that there is a rapidly growing problem. Governments do not know what to do with it, so the consequences are likely to be enormous in terms of human suffering. At first glance, these seem to be two very different problems: climate problems and mental health problems. What do they have to do with each other? But in my opinion there are a number of important commonalities.
The dominant ideology of our time is neoliberalism. That is a philosophy developed by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwich von Mises. This philosophy spread quickly and effectively with the help of the rich and famous. They sponsored faculties, think-tanks and newspapers and helped people in the government to make such ideas so familiar that it was almost impossible to view the world through other glasses. They argued that the only legitimate thing citizens can do is individual and economic. The invisible hand of the market, helped by ourselves because we are self-serving, solves the social problems. This is how we become rich and create a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Of rich and poor. Everything that hinders that natural hierarchy, such as regulation, taxation, political action or attempts at social reform, is out of the question. Even politics is unjustified in this philosophy.
Central to this value system is the idea that there are no structural, social problems. Our only real problem is the disruption of the functioning of the free market. Associated with this is the idea of one of the greatest exponents of neoliberalism, the British former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who once said:
there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.
If you deny the existence of structural problems and if political action to address those (non existing) structural problems does not stand a chance, then the guilt of powerful structures shifts to individuals. You do not have a job? This is not due to structural unemployment. Then you are certainly lazy and not enterprising. No more money in your account? This is not due to the high living expenses. You are probably feckless and cannot deal with money. Are you too fat? That is not because the food industry invests in technology and psychologists and neuroscientists who look at how they can break your resistance. No, you simply have no willpower. Strangely enough 66 percent of people have no willpower in the last 40 years. Do you have a mental illness? That cannot have a social cause, you must have got to work on yourself.
That ideology has penetrated deeper and deeper into our lives. Even if millions of other people suffer from the same problems as you, we see that as individual problems. Instead of tackling these problems together, we try to solve them on our own. If that fails, we also blame ourselves for that. Eventually we keep going round in circles and we end up in a downward spiral. Then you get a system in which we try to buy off unhappiness with pills, without tackling the structural problems that are at the root of our unease.
Something similar is the matter with climate destruction. This is not the result of social and political problems, because there isn’t such thing. It must be because you buy the wrong stuff. You have to become a green consumer. Buy better items. But green consumption is like clean coal. A contradiction in terms. It is not about buying the wrong things. We just buy too much of everything. That mass consumption is driven by economic growth; one of the biggest causes of climate change. Large-scale political action is needed by governments that leave fossil fuels in the ground, allow less cattle on our land, close airports and invest in clean technology. But that is not allowed, so we have lost the last resort to deal with this existential crisis.
The problem with the fact that we do not solve those two major crises is that we do not tackle it structurally. But can those crises also have a common origin? Or partially? Can they not be caused by the same things?
One of the things that the Lancet research points to is the social desert and fragmentation, leading to loneliness and fear. That would be strong drivers of mental disorders. What we also know is that loneliness leads to consumerism. You buy all sorts of unnecessary things to fill the void in your life, but the emptiness remains. It is a kind of vicious circle.
A discussion in German psychology shows that people who see themselves as consumers rather than citizens, almost immediately start to act more egoistically and asocial. But it also deprives us of the interest in the problems that we cause. We pollute the planet more and we are less interested in polluting it. Consumerism seems to influence us in many different areas. It not only damages the fabric of the world, but also our involvement with it.
You cannot understand why consumerism grows so strongly without talking about the role of celebrities. I do not see the whole culture of known persons as marginal and not as an accidental feature of capitalism, but as the core of the current capitalist project. As a multinational, you have to find ways to make yourself attractive to potential customers. The machine needs a face. That must be someone who is as familiar to you as the neighbors.
The role of a Kim Kardashian, for example, is try to get a piece of your mind and playing our virtual neighbor, on behalf of the brand she represents at that time. Hello, I use this fantastic new ear brush. Did you know that you needed it? It is so good that you put it in your ear and the other ear is clean too.
It is a disastrous system. For climate and for mental health. Another interesting research published in the International Journal of Cultural Studies shows that people who identify themselves most with celebrities, volunteer less than average. They join groups three times less and they will less vote or protest. By this celebrity culture, there seems to be an overall decline in democratic engagement.
What are we going to do about these two disastrous problems? What do we do with climate destruction and mental health problems? Do we continue to swallow pills? Do we no longer buy plastic bags but a hemp bag so we can take home unnecessary junk in a green way? Or do we come together and recognize that our problems are structural? Do we talk about it or will we let our behavior be determined by shame? Let us gather together to discuss these issues of common interest. Communality combats social isolation. We need to create a sense of belonging that is so often absent in our lives. Together we are strong. Alone, we fall apart.
