Kia Matthews posted an excellent mock apology on behalf of the overweight after discussing the universal scorn to which they are subject. One might write one for the mentally ill, too. There are similarities, particularly with regard to the points of contention that make such discussions so fraught: (1) the relationship between genetics and behavior, nature and nurture, determinism and will; and (2) questions of personal responsibility and social responsibility, particular as they relate to costs to society.
(Indeed, I wonder how long until “being out of socially-desirable shape” will be a named disorder in an edition of the DSM, but I digress).
As with standards of physical health, standards of mental health blend objective science with subjective assumptions about what a person ought to be, and like obesity mental illness reflects both genetic factors beyond the determination of the individual afflicted and volitional decisions made over time.
Thus they are both problematized by existing between culpability and blamelessness. Is the schizophrenic who doesn’t take his medicine at fault for obeying the commands of his voices? Is there anything “wrong” with schizophrenia, or is it the normative social standards of our time that condemn it to illness when it was once deemed mystical? Is the overweight man eating unhealthy food at fault for his condition, or is his metabolism? Or is it merely the contemporary obsession with body image that raises any of these issues? Is there indeed nothing “wrong” at all with being overweight? Or are both matters of degree?
In addition to being mentally ill, I’m also an alcoholic. Does that fall into the same category? I put it to you. Are the following dissimilar? Specifically, should our judgments about the culpability of the individuals involved be dissimilar?
- an obese person eating unhealthily
- a beautiful person neglecting his intellect
- a mentally ill person resisting treatment
- a successful person who lacks empathy
- a drug addict using or an alcoholic drinking
- an ignorant person failing to educate himself (holding a stupid placard at a rally which reflects his ignorance)
- a neurotic who does not seek therapy
The conditions noted above all mix genetic predisposition and social circumstances with volitional choices made over time; all can in theory be overcome via decisive willpower, and indeed there exist tools to assist individuals who wish to overcome all of them through straightforward, logical, intelligible steps. All are also considered, to varying degrees, morally wrong by significant numbers of people (although which are wrong, how wrong, and why are subjects of contention). All, it has been argued, deleteriously affect society in addition to the individuals in question.
We seem to expect different levels of self-determination and self-overcoming from different sorts of people. Do we believe that human will is sufficient to defeat genetic predisposition, and if so is it always? Or do we think that will is itself part of our nature? Do we find mental and physical “faults,” if they are indeed faults, to be equivalent?
Is there any moral fault which we cannot contextualize as something pitiable, rather than contemptible? Are there any which we cannot say are simply different rather than pitiable?
We are socially inclined to apply different standards of culpability to human behaviors without examining how we derive those standards or what it would mean to apply them with logical consistency.
It interests me, for example, that people are casual with their derision of the overweight and the mentally ill and the stupid (“That fat moron is crazy!”), but less with the poor or the addicted. Is the allotment of poverty less fair than the allotment of insanity, obesity, or stupidity? Is poverty or addiction harder to overcome? Is fairness what permits mockery, or do we just mock whatever we can get away with?
I tend to think that in almost all these cases -even for ignorance, which is widely mocked in this milieu- judgment is shallow, uncompassionate, and intellectually mistaken; too many of the categories are lazily constructed and too many of the values are distorted. But perhaps I’m wrong. Would anyone care to disentangle this controversial mess?
