Western values 'are causing mental illness'

[Karmadillo]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2305849,00.html

THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.

Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety” and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.

more...

[ShockediSay]

1. Welcome globalization nt

[undergroundpanther]

2. I think the western ways

Are crazymaking too. A way of life in a hierarchical empire based in profit making generates anxiety and isolation materialism and competition until it makes us all sick.It's inhumane to make human beings into markets demographics and consumers it's sociopathic.

The antidote..
http://www.maquah.net/We_Have_The_Right_To_Exist/WeHaveTheRight_03TOC.html

Recent efforts to synthesize the dynamics of stigmatization suggest that it is a set of responses to what Coleman (1986) terms "the dilemma of difference." This dilemma can be stated as follows: It is a fact that all human beings differ from one another in a multitude of ways. Age, gender, skin color, intellectual and social characteristics are but a few of these differences. Although it is a fact of human existence that no two people are exactly alike, certain of these characteristics or attributes become defined as undesired differences or stigmas (Goffman, 1963). Which differences become defined as undesired are, to a certain extent arbitrary. In other words, virtually any difference is potentially a stigma. The particular differences which become defined as undesired are highly dependent upon the social context. Coleman (1986) and others3 assert that stigmas reflect the value judgments of a dominant group, i.e., those possessing power within a given culture. In North America, such values reflect an emphasis on wealth, material prosperity, health and physical beauty, youth, competence, independence, productivity, and achievement (Wolfensberger, 1991). People not seen as reflecting such values are consequently stigmatized.
http://akmhcweb.org/Articles/StigmaisSocialDeath.htm

[upi402]

3. or vice versa

[Pierogi_Pincher]

5. One could say that, couldn't one! n/t

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. I try to separate myself from the rat race... but it's so hard.

I grew up on a ranch... no-one around for miles. Nature, quiet, slow living. 3 channels on the TV. Moved to a city when I was 14, and I'm still trying to adjust.

People just move too damn fast. They don't take time to smell the flowers, sit quietly, or tale a slow walk outside.

It would be a better world if everyone slowed down and talked to a cow once in a while.

[fishwax]

8. i hear ya

i'm still trying to adjust to ... didn't grow up on a ranch, but grew up in a very small town. I'm reminded on a daily/weekly basis how different that experience was from many ...

[bling bling]

6. I don't doubt it at all. In fact, I'm sure of it.

We're out of touch with nature, we live by a clock, work at jobs that stress us out, don't sleep enough, don't eat right, and spend what little free time we have to recharge hypnotizing ourselves with the t.v. or the internet to get us out of reality for awhile.

Tack on a couple of additional stressors such as losing a job, getting married, moving, etc. and your brain is pushed over the edge, shuts down, and depression sets in.

Our lifestyle's are not natural in terms of how humans have lived for thousands of years. We've created routines and artificial environments that didn't exist for 99% of our ancestors. We haven't had time to evolve our brains to assimilate to the rapid changes we've made to the landscapes, to our day-to-day activities, and to our diets.

[TwentyFive]

7. Our system is EVIL! People are more productive - but make less then ever!

The admin of today does the work of 20 admins 40 years ago. With computers & software, fax, cell phone, internet..one employee does the work of twenty employees. Yet, they still 'just get by' and are probably more in debt.

Likewise, the CEO of 40 years ago only made 43 times what the average worker made. Today, they make often over 500 times what an average worker made. That where all the benefits of technology go....to a few people at the top.

and that's capitalism for you...

[rumpel]

9. Particularly so when the system is

counter-culture.
Post war Japan always had, even ugly, competition among the people, young and old. However, I believe it goes against a society of peoples who for centuries respected the elders and despised greed and materialism. The "we-mentality" turning into "me-mentality" is surely an ugly one and would have been detested by many in Japan.
Only 20 years ago, people died from overwork at their desks- great now this, too?

[no_hypocrisy]

10. The introduction of the Western diet has to be factored in as well.

With Japanese restaurants providing the western alternative to an otherwise traditional Japanese (close to macrobiotic) diet, the population also changes its eating habits. Results include hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and attendant neurological and physiological changes that come with changes in brain chemistry based on the choice of intake of food. It's internal/medical as well as societal change that is causing this phenomenon.

[Toots]

11. We've been mentally ill here for decades

It may be our biggest export. :shrug:

[IChing]

12. The ecological balance that mankind decides it will have with this planet

is proportional
to what it gets
in the long term out of it.