Depression and Western Society's Perception of it's Validity

Topic: Culture-Specific Illness and Cure

Title: Depression and Western Society's Perception of it's Validity

Source: http://uhs.berkeley.edu/lookforthesigns/depressionsuicide.shtml, and R.R. p47-50, and Jeff Jacobson, a dear friend from home who struggles with Depression and the lack of sufficient response our culture has to it.

Relation: The concept of "Progress" in relation to our opinion that technological advancement is the epitome of civilization.

Commentary: In this day and age, living in a First world (westernized) culture, Technological advancements in the field of medicine have vastly increased our capacity to recognize and treat the symptoms of ailments across the board. However, In our flurry of technological improvement, Western culture has also begun to manifest new health detriments. Because of our skyrocketing improvement in science, Western society believes that sickness is qualified by a series of four things happening. "...First, we have to come into contact with some pathogen or vector that carries a disease. Second, the pathogen must be virulent - that is, it must be able to kill us. Third, if we come into contact with a deadly pathogen it must evade our body's immune system. Finally, the pathogen must be able to circumvent whatever measures our society has developed to prevent it from doing harm". R.R. p 48 Despite this widely accepted formulaic set of requirements to be considered "sick" or "dying" in our culture, the same scientific advancement has discovered forms of un-health that are completely independent of pathogens. This blog is going to focus on Clinical Depression, a prominent but not unique form of sickness that many consider "pseudo-sickness" or simply an excuse or state of being, despite the condition being validated by the recent scientific progress of our culture. Ironically enough, Clinical Depression is primarily if not singularly a "First World Problem", something that only crops up in western, "civilized" cultures, because the proper environment for such an illness to dwell can only be found in cultures that are convoluted and technologically advanced enough for people to feel clinically depressed. Even more ironically, despite all our medicinal technology, western society is only capable of treating such sickness in the same fashion that viruses and bacterias are dealt with; artificial medication. Despite Depression being a physical, clinically recognized condition, it is better classified by the interpersonal theory of disease, because the externalities that cause depression are the sufferer's worries, troubles, and relationships with the people and objects (both physical and abstract) in their culture. Because of our culture's inflexibility with the concept of inter-personal medicine, our preventative measures against it do not cure the ailment but bury underneath a layer of more culturally accepted symptoms. My best friend back home was diagnosed with depression about a year ago. The doctors prescribed him medication in order to make him feel better, after taking into account what he was feeling, how he was reacting to certain stimuli, and reading data on his medical history. The pills turned him from a intense, deep, passionate person into a lethargic, dopey shell of his previous self. Unlike the Chewa, as described in R.R. Pgs 48-50, western medication targeted the troubles that his condition caused, not the troubles that caused the condition. While I know that my place in all this doesn't allow me to say whether either mentality is better than the other, I can confidently be opinionated that conditions such as Depression, and primarily the way we treat it in first world countries are perfect examples of the way our society has not advanced as far as we like to think.

8/24

For me, growing up on the peninsula of the Bay Area has introduced me to a lot of culture. I got to befriend people who were incredibly rich, and people who were relatively poor, all in the same general location. My school was a huge melting pot, and I became friends with many people very different from me and my family. There were people such as my friend Adam, who invited me to Shabbat dinner every friday and had me join in the traditional Jewish prayers, and friends like So for me, the culture that I relate to isn't necessarily rooted in familial tradition, but picked up by going to friends' houses for dinner. Also, despite the seperation of my family, I have still been influenced by my heritage through the foods and customs that permeate our dinner table sessions. For example, My grandmother, who I have only met once in my life, is responsible for getting my father and I into making buckwheat stew for breakfast before an important day. Buckwheat is a staple food in russia, and even though it is prepared differently there, I can still take pride in my family's history every time I sit at the table with dad and partake in our own ritual.