I'm willing to bet that the welfare of the average schizophrenic is quite poor essentially everywhere in the world, a handful of tribes supporting them for myth-related reasons notwithstanding.
While this may be true, hearing that you're useful is important.
As someone that society has basically forgotten about, realizing that I won't be useful has recently crushed me.
I would not presume to speak for schizophrenics. My quirks are bad, but not that. But the welfare of a person is greatly improved by the feeling that they'll be useful.
Deluding yourself into thinking you're useful is much easier when there aren't external forces making it entirely clear that this is false. I can see that in a society without too much coercion, people with problems would be much happier simply because they aren't called out to prove themselves on a daily basis.
I say "called out" rather than "asked," because it fits much better. The feeling that you have to do something very important is so pervasive. If you're not doing that, then what are you doing?
Which is why it feels like you're called out to prove you're useful, rather than requested.
I hypothesize that in a society that doesn't do that, schizophrenics' welfare would be much improved.
Excellent point. Many schizophrenics have poor quality of life, but support from friends, family, and society and large can prevent it from degrading further, and even make it a lot better. Some people with schizophrenia can even be relatively functional, even without medication, if they have a good social structure. I could be wrong, but from what I've heard, with therapy and decent support, they can basically recognize their hallucinations and most of their delusions as internally generated and try to ignore them. That's still a terrible way to live, and they also still have the negative symptoms (which even most serious medication can't treat very well, if at all), but schizophrenia isn't necessarily a doom sentence.
And especially with medication, it can be manageable. John Nash, for example.
> I'm willing to bet that the welfare of the average schizophrenic is quite poor essentially everywhere in the world
Actually schizophrenics in the developing world do significantly better than those in the US. That said, McKenna's models of shamanism weren't actually valid across cultures -- shamans actually played completely different roles in different societies.
My experience in a developing nation is that schizophrenics, provided they were not actively dangerous to their surroundings, were well cared for by family and their general environment. The 'village idiot' (even in the big city where I lived) - their words - was free to roam the city and generally watched out for by everyone.
Of course, the flip-side was that those with mental illnesses (or other disabilities) who had no family would generally have a miserable existence.
Edit: the equivalent I've found here in the West has been Evangelical churches. I strongly suspect some of the 'prophet' or otherwise 'specially anointed' characters to be (mildly?) schizophrenic.
You lose your bet. Outcomes for schizophrenia (recovery) are substantially better in developing countries compared to developed ones, sometimes called the WHO paradox. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26640277
As someone that society has basically forgotten about, realizing that I won't be useful has recently crushed me.
I would not presume to speak for schizophrenics. My quirks are bad, but not that. But the welfare of a person is greatly improved by the feeling that they'll be useful.
Deluding yourself into thinking you're useful is much easier when there aren't external forces making it entirely clear that this is false. I can see that in a society without too much coercion, people with problems would be much happier simply because they aren't called out to prove themselves on a daily basis.
I say "called out" rather than "asked," because it fits much better. The feeling that you have to do something very important is so pervasive. If you're not doing that, then what are you doing?
Which is why it feels like you're called out to prove you're useful, rather than requested.
I hypothesize that in a society that doesn't do that, schizophrenics' welfare would be much improved.