[krapp]

>In a traditional society, if you exhibited “schizophrenic” tendencies, you are immediately drawn out of the pack and put under the care and tutelage of master shamans.

This is a form of coercion in and of itself. And as there's no such thing as prophecy, or magical cures, it turns out to be a profoundly unhelpful kind of coercion, both for the "shaman" and the society in general.

[butterfinger]

But is it any more coercive than putting those kids into psychiatric care and putting them on drugs that just make them not feel anything anymore?

I'm schizotypal myself and I can say those methods of coping with this have not helped me at all. By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind. I think that having a centuries old tradition of identifying and using these thoughts would have helped me better than talking to psychiatrists that don't have the slightest clue about what goes on in my mind.

[krapp]

>By now, I understand most of my paranormal thoughts are just windows into the unconcious mind.

Probably because a scientific framework of mind exists which you have access to, which allows you to accept that what goes on in your mind doesn't always correspond to reality. In a shamanistic society, you might still be led to believe you had magic powers, and that it was all real, and that you had to follow certain rituals to purify yourself or to interpret the signs from the gods, or whatever. Is that useful? Do shamans really know anything more about what's going on in a person's mind than doctors?

Both are coercive, though, which was my point. "Non-coercive" societies are still coercive, they just draw the lines in different places than modern societies do.

[meric]

Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann found that voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the United States, the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful.

What if these voices are reflective of the emotional state of the people around them, as this quote suggests?

In that case, that is a kind of "magic", a special ability only you possess, that is real, and if you followed certain rituals your own emotional state could stabilise to such a point where you have the ability to detect what people are feeling.

And if this is true, then yes, a shaman would know more about what's going on in a person's mind than a doctor.

If you close your eyes, it doesn't mean the world isn't real. Just because you can't see something with the scientific framework, yet, does not mean it cannot be true.

Anyway, I don't see what coercion has got to do with shaman's in particular. There was plenty of people captured as slaves, in conflicts between prehistoric tribes, and that's a lot more coercion happening than in a schizophrenic being picked out as a shaman. There's probably less mental illness in prehistoric societies, because people probably didn't care much about a slave going crazy, it's likely unsurprising that happens, and you just kill them off.

I think coercion comes in cycles. Just after U.S. independence from Britain was probably less coercion than before U.S. independence. Today there is probably more coercion in U.S. than in 1850. There is less coercion today in Shanghai than in 1960, but probably more than in 1925.

[MawNicker]

It's all as real as humans are real. Every person has a mind that exists partially beyond the objective reality we all share. Those experiences are real even if they don't represent reality. They affect reality to the extant that humans do. Schizophrenia is dissociation from objective reality. A mind that is disproportionately subjective. An echo-chamber of thought. Even as a disability and not a "magical power" it does inspire a compensatory inclination. Like lip reading for deaf people. They have a mind that is desperately seeking the truth they know they are without. Truth as simply the coordination of thought and reality. A society able to mediate this inclination would be a treat to live in. It is, unfortunately, certainly not the one I live in. No one has time for that shit. Isn't there some way to just "fix" these people? They're obnoxious. Don't tell them I said that I don't want to be blamed for making them worse.

We've internalized a world of psychic war and we see nothing but liabilities. If we had the same reverence for wackos that we do for other victims we may be far better off. The wackos certainly would be. Is that coercion? Can you see anything else?

[krapp]

I can see for miles and miles.

But i'm arguing specifically against the shamanistic point of view in the gp. Should we treat mental illness exactly the same as any other? Absolutely. The stigma behind mental illness, I believe, is a vestige from the days when most people thought such things were the work of demons. People can't accept that someone who thinks and sees the world so differently is just as human as they are. But reverence? No. Being told that you've been touched by God can be a prison of its own.

[MawNicker]

I didn't say anything about God. They aren't like other people. It can be distinctly useful. They just need to be respected. Maybe that would have been a better term than revere. The respect does two things. It helps them exist; They need it and we ought to help them. In doing so we learn useful things about ourselves. They're exaggerations of a part of us. I think this is the point of the GP. A society fit for a shaman is a better society for everyone else. This is congruent with your idea that they're just wackos. They have no idea how they're being helpful.

[butterfinger]

Yeah, you're right. We're probably on the same page about both of these methods being coercive.

My initial point was just that there's probably a big number of cases of mental illness in traditional societies that we can't diagnose because our ways of coping with these are so different that they manifest in completely different ways.

[malka]

Both are coercitive, but one locks the individual away, and the other one gives him purpose.

[krapp]

false dichotomy - "locking someone away" is not the only way modern society deals with the mentally ill.

[Apocryphon]

Alright, one accords the mentally ill special, positive status, and the other assigns them negative stigmas

[mercer]

But repression (medication) or fixing (therapy) is closer to 'locking away' than it is to giving purpose or providing acceptance.

[zappo2938]

This is the same with children who are ADHD. Also, in France children who had symptoms of ADHD and were disruptive were made apprentices in kitchens usually around the age of 14 or 15. This might have changed in the last 20 years. It's why a lot of French chefs are notoriously psychotic, many of them were troubled children given a chance to put their energy to good use in a kitchen. [citation needed]

[hderms]

Yeah, but what if it was substituted with art, or something similar. It's possible to produce a society which values mentally ill people without necessarily coercing them.

[krapp]

What if they don't want to make art? Being mentally ill doesn't necessarily grant one creative insight. What if they exhibit antisocial or violent behavior?

[dmix]

You mean what if they don't fit into our status-quo middle class concept of society? Well then we ostracize them... and parade the ones of that do fit the fantastical ideal as unappreciated genius.

[aranazo]

> ...as there's no such thing as prophecy, or magical cures...

Isn't that quite a strong claim?

[snowwrestler]

No stronger than the claim that such things do exist.

It seems fair that an assertion offered without proof can be dismissed without proof.

[krapp]

If it is, it's backed up by quite a bit of evidence.