Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

FTA: "Throughout history, societies have existed with far less coercion than ours, and while these societies have had far less consumer goods and what modernity calls “efficiency,” they also have had far less mental illness. This reality has been buried, not surprisingly, by uncritical champions of modernity and mainstream psychiatry. Coercion—the use of physical, legal, chemical, psychological, financial, and other forces to gain compliance—is intrinsic to our society’s employment, schooling, and parenting. However, coercion results in fear and resentment, which are fuels for miserable marriages, unhappy families, and what we today call mental illness."

How many great people did we lose because they weren't 'compliant' enough to conform properly? I can sure think of a few.

The evidence he supplies doesn't actually prove the coercion is the cause. There is no scientific data presented, just speculative statistics and linkages to possible causes. The neurobiologist D.F Swaab wrote a book called "We are our brains" that talks about the issues outlined in this article and provides scientific proof to show how various illnesses like schizophrenia can come about. Many of these illnesses have biological and physical connections to be brought about in a person.

I am not advocating for coercion being a good things, but manipulating a person to do something is not the same as guiding them down a path that has been generally beneficial for the majority, like going to school.

I'd like to see some concrete evidence that people in the past did in fact had "far less mental illness", and it is not just a result of them not being diagnosed. Most of the mental illnesses we know have been defined within last 100 years. In the past they may as well have been known as anything from demonic possession, and magic, to being stupid, being a brawler or a person ill-disposed.

Secondly, I wouldn't underestimate the amount of coercion that was going on in the past. Sustenance farmers probably didn't feel much direct coercion (besides the days when the nobility showed up to collect their dues), they were just mostly scared of going hungry. But factory workers in the early Industrial Revolution? Miners before, during and after that? Militaries of various times? If coercion causes mental illness, it should be reflected in the historical records. It's probably worth checking.

Are you talking about the Met-158 mutation? If not, which?

I agree that the real culprit is stress-- biological differences to processing and coping with stress are likely the actual mechanism at play rather than generalized "coercion" like the article suggests without providing evidence. Our society is intensely stressful, and provides no real permanent reductions in stress level.

> I wouldn't underestimate the amount of coercion that was going on in the past.

Don't forget about the Inquisition. Most people hear that and think of the burning of witches and heretics, but that institution alone had a much wider array of non lethal punishments for all sort of behaviors considered "undesirable".

I have been in the Inquisition museum at the city of Guanajuato during the holidays, and they had a remarcable number of painful or even midly unconfortable artifacts that got used on people doing the pre-modern equivalent of littering. Victims would not face lasting harm, but the judicious infliction of pain plus public humiliation [1] was enough to keep them toeing the line more often than not.

[1] A remarkable example was a sort of iron flute. It was heavy and it had manacles for both hands and neck so that the transgressor would be forced in position as if playing it. They would attach it to the victims and send them back home for a few days to reflect on their sins, which was alteration of public order, or "wild partying".