Last Thursday, professor of sociology, anthropology and political science at Boston University and distinguished adjunct professor at Lingnan University in Honk Kong Liah Greenfeld led a lecture titled "The Cultural Foundation of Mental Illnesses" in Pearlman Hall for the last meeting of the Sociology Colloquia series.

The author of Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience and several other works on mental illness, Greenfeld focused on the impact of nationalism on schizophrenia, manic depression and other mental illnesses.

Greenfeld claimed that the rates of mental illness have reached "epidemic" proportions. According to Greenfeld, as many as 20 percent of adult Americans are at a lifetime risk of "succumbing to schizophrenia" or other depressive illnesses.

Greenfeld noted the visibility of such mental illnesses at shopping malls, movie theaters and even colleges and universities. She also noted that high rates of schizophrenia and other depressive illnesses are high among young, educated and affluent students. "Madness is always beneath the surface around us. We have the hopeless feeling that we are losing the war against us," she said.

Greenfeld attributed the development of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia to "social construction." She explained that schizophrenia is "comparable to infectious diseases in that those infectious diseases affect the organism from the outside" and that "only a fraction of vulnerable individuals" will actually develop these diseases. Although she admitted that developing mental illnesses is currently 70 to 80 percent attributed to genetic predisposition, Greenfeld said that the causes of mental illnesses are still in question, and claimed that the answer would not be found "in the organism, but in the environment."

Greenfeld noted that affluent western democracies tend to have higher rates of schizophrenia than poorer, more authoritarian and Asian nations. She said that schizophrenia is "most prevalent in the freest and most populous modern democracy: the United States."

Greenfeld proceeded to describe the history of schizophrenia. She explained that it had been "remarkably rare," but in 16th-century England, it became a "very salient and noticeable social problem." These chronic conditions began to attract attention, and observers described anyone who suffered from these conditions as having "great discomfort within one's social environment that is very debilitating" and "discomfort with one's self ... that would lead to paralyzed motivation. In the worst cases, the self was completely lost," Greenfeld said.

According to Greenfeld, the emergence of nationalism, or the forming of nations, led everyone to play an equal part of a sovereign state. Greenfeld claimed that this phenomenon forced God to lose sovereignty, leading to a more secular environment. She said that citizens now "experience discomfort as injustice" and "attribute responsibility to other people" as opposed to God, leading to political activism.

Nationalism also allowed individuals the opportunity to rise from the bottom and get to the top, according to Greenfeld. Prior to the development of nations, Greenfeld said that society was divided in "separate orders" as if they were a part of "different species." A lower order could not be elevated to a higher order; social mobility was viewed as impossible. Following the development of nations, members of the lower class could become aristocrats. According to Greenfeld, many of these members of lower classes who became aristocrats "realized the English were elite." A new mentality had developed, and citizens thought of themselves as the English people once England became a nation.

With the combination of all of these developments, according to Greenfeld, citizens saw that the "best life possible" was deserved. However, Greenfeld explained that this phenomenon has placed a "heavily psychological burden on us."

Greenfeld said that this burden is placed on citizens because of "the inability of the culture to provide sufficient guidance to people within it." Now, according to Greenfeld, no one else defines who we are as individuals; we have the opportunity to define ourselves. "We are left to ourselves in our self-making. ... We construct our own identity," she said.

Greenfeld said that the culture of nations such as the United States "is unwilling to, it doesn't want to define us. This is against our values of liberty, of freedom of choice."

For 200 years, "madness" had only been known in England and its colonies. Greenfeld said that "madness" had been "completely unknown" on the European continent; Europeans called it the "English malady." Greenfeld made the connection that nationalism had only been characteristic of England at the time. She explained that in France, nationalism was not prevalent until the French Revolution, but that when it did become prevalent, "madness traveled like a storm."

A question-and-answer session followed Greenfeld's lecture. During the session, she specified generational issues and the growing rates of schizophrenia and other depressive illnesses. "Every generation has more choices," Greenfeld said. One of her specific examples was gender. She claimed that previous generations could not choose their genders like younger generations can currently.

When asked about a solution to the growing rates of schizophrenia, Greenfeld said that usually patients are medicated, which wreaks "havoc in the system." She said that the best way to handle the problem is to make sure that people understand what their trouble is, so that they can decide which pressures to allow to affect them in the future.

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