> This culturally generated demoralization is nearly impossible to avoid for the modern ‘consumer’.
> Rather than a depressive disorder, demoralization is a type of existential disorder associated with the breakdown of a person’s ‘cognitive map’. It is an overarching psycho-spiritual crisis in which victims feel generally disoriented and unable to locate meaning, purpose or sources of need fulfilment. The world loses its credibility, and former beliefs and convictions dissolve into doubt, uncertainty and loss of direction. Frustration, anger and bitterness are usual accompaniments, as well as an underlying sense of being part of a lost cause or losing battle. The label ‘existential depression’ is not appropriate since, unlike most forms of depression, demoralization is a realistic response to the circumstances impinging on the person’s life.
I imagined for a long time that I was depressed. It had never occurred to me that my condition of "existential depression", in the form of the Psalmist's Ecclesiastes, could be anything other than depression.
And the very (mis)labelling of "depression" is part of the abusive
structure of consumerism to pathologise you as a way to sell you
solutions to your weakness against it :)
Overall this is a well written and cogent piece, although largely a
rehash of Erik Fromm's thoughts on reification from 60 years ago (the
author, Schumaker, acknowledges Fromm's "frame of orientation")
"unlike most forms of depression, demoralisation is a realistic
response to the circumstances impinging on the person’s life"
As Fromm put it, a sane reaction to an insane world.
Raoul Naroll's "Moral net" makes a refreshing appearance. I see the
destruction of support networks and moral vocabulary all around.
While Schumaker claims demoralisation was limited to extreme
situations, in my lifetime I have witnessed it as active anti-morale
attacks, first from advertising industry entirely designed around
sapping self-esteem, then an unholy alliance of "industry" and
education systems that profit from intellectual insecurity and most
recently from "social media" and big-tech domination of communication
channels hell-bent on corroding our sense of personal agency.
There is some redemption in making the battle against the ennui of
consumerism have meaning in itself, as the pursuit of cultural
deprogramming, Optimistically, the "moral net" can be restored, but
only by defeating its overt and very visible enemies.
Is there a list of criteria for demoralization, hopefully written in the same form as the DSM4 criteria https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK36406/table/ch1.t1/ for depression? It seems this would have been the 4th paragraph in his article if he was really trying to make his case for the misuse of these. I did some searching and didn't find this. Perhaps related, I've been in contact with people labeled depressed and some seemed more frustrated, angry and bitter rather than having just given up, but those don't seem to be any better match for demoralized or depressed. Maybe a distinction is "what goes on inside your head" versus "dealing with other people and economics and you can't make them do or give you what you want."
3 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 21.6 ms ] thread> This culturally generated demoralization is nearly impossible to avoid for the modern ‘consumer’.
> Rather than a depressive disorder, demoralization is a type of existential disorder associated with the breakdown of a person’s ‘cognitive map’. It is an overarching psycho-spiritual crisis in which victims feel generally disoriented and unable to locate meaning, purpose or sources of need fulfilment. The world loses its credibility, and former beliefs and convictions dissolve into doubt, uncertainty and loss of direction. Frustration, anger and bitterness are usual accompaniments, as well as an underlying sense of being part of a lost cause or losing battle. The label ‘existential depression’ is not appropriate since, unlike most forms of depression, demoralization is a realistic response to the circumstances impinging on the person’s life.
I imagined for a long time that I was depressed. It had never occurred to me that my condition of "existential depression", in the form of the Psalmist's Ecclesiastes, could be anything other than depression.
Overall this is a well written and cogent piece, although largely a rehash of Erik Fromm's thoughts on reification from 60 years ago (the author, Schumaker, acknowledges Fromm's "frame of orientation")
As Fromm put it, a sane reaction to an insane world.Raoul Naroll's "Moral net" makes a refreshing appearance. I see the destruction of support networks and moral vocabulary all around. While Schumaker claims demoralisation was limited to extreme situations, in my lifetime I have witnessed it as active anti-morale attacks, first from advertising industry entirely designed around sapping self-esteem, then an unholy alliance of "industry" and education systems that profit from intellectual insecurity and most recently from "social media" and big-tech domination of communication channels hell-bent on corroding our sense of personal agency.
There is some redemption in making the battle against the ennui of consumerism have meaning in itself, as the pursuit of cultural deprogramming, Optimistically, the "moral net" can be restored, but only by defeating its overt and very visible enemies.