Here. I share with him a certain worry about the knee-jerk “anti-pills” mentality in some circles. It reminds me of something Foucault once said about madness. His work by the time he was speaking had been taken in a number of anti-psychiatric directions, and he finally said, yes, yes, there’s the contingency of the power/knowledge formations—but let’s not mistake the fact that there are people who are in painful situations. I don’t have much to say about medications about which I know too little, but surely Bryant is right that it’s depression that is numbing, not the medication. I think no one doubts that people are, on the whole, probably over-medicated and aspects of our lives that were usually considered just part of our existential condition now are seen to be disorders to be manipulated through the use of pills. There’s a great (or terrible, I guess) literature on pharmacology and capitalism, and it is disturbing in many ways. And no doubt, there is a way in which it is contemporary society that is every bit causing depression, anxiety, etc. But I don’t deny the healing properties of aspirin, or the generally awesome effects of caffeine late at night when working…and I don’t go around arguing that people (to use perhaps an ill-considered analogy) ought to give up painkillers, since it’s just numbing them to life…
