We can respond to injustice in two ways.
First, we can respond in our role as citizens, as the comment implies. As a citizen I believe in using the 298 methods of non-violent action described by Gene Sharpe.
Second, we can also respond to injustice in our workplaces, including mental health clinics. I outlined a way to do this in the article.
I should have made more clear the reasons for telling a story about Japan and the USA. I wanted a vivid illustration of the beneficial effect of income equality on mental health. I could have picked other countries to compare.
Your story poignantly illustrates a point made by Roger Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in the Spirit Level (p. 213). “For a species which thrives on friendship and enjoys cooperation and trust, which has a strong sense of fairness… it is clear that social structures which create relationships based on inequality, inferiority, and social exclusion must inflict a great deal of social pain.” Since very unequal societies are so socially dysfunctional, we perhaps can ‘feel more confident that a more humane society may be a great deal more practical that the highly unequal ones in which so many of us live now.”
On the website of the Equality Trust, Roger Wilkinson and Kate Pickett describe how they arrived at an estimate of the rate of all mental disorders-not only the suicide rate- in different countries.
Karsten Struhl who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York (and is speaking at the Left Forum on May 30) would have a response to your comments. He argues that very unequal capitalist societies depend in part on a concept of the isolated self competing with all others. To create a more equalitarian society then requires us to consider, as Buddhists do, that the “self” is an illusion.
For people who are think that the government should be small, a mutual aid health care system has advantages. Donald Light described such systems in Germany in the nineteenth century. These days such a system would be democratically controlled by its members, while keeping an arms length from the state, the professions and corporations.
We can respond to injustice in two ways.
First, we can respond in our role as citizens, as the comment implies. As a citizen I believe in using the 298 methods of non-violent action described by Gene Sharpe.
Second, we can also respond to injustice in our workplaces, including mental health clinics. I outlined a way to do this in the article.
Report comment
I should have made more clear the reasons for telling a story about Japan and the USA. I wanted a vivid illustration of the beneficial effect of income equality on mental health. I could have picked other countries to compare.
Report comment
Thank you for the summary of these important points.
Report comment
Your story poignantly illustrates a point made by Roger Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in the Spirit Level (p. 213). “For a species which thrives on friendship and enjoys cooperation and trust, which has a strong sense of fairness… it is clear that social structures which create relationships based on inequality, inferiority, and social exclusion must inflict a great deal of social pain.” Since very unequal societies are so socially dysfunctional, we perhaps can ‘feel more confident that a more humane society may be a great deal more practical that the highly unequal ones in which so many of us live now.”
Report comment
On the website of the Equality Trust, Roger Wilkinson and Kate Pickett describe how they arrived at an estimate of the rate of all mental disorders-not only the suicide rate- in different countries.
Report comment
I agree . For me, the more I blame, the less energy I have for organizing.
Report comment
Karsten Struhl who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York (and is speaking at the Left Forum on May 30) would have a response to your comments. He argues that very unequal capitalist societies depend in part on a concept of the isolated self competing with all others. To create a more equalitarian society then requires us to consider, as Buddhists do, that the “self” is an illusion.
Report comment
For people who are think that the government should be small, a mutual aid health care system has advantages. Donald Light described such systems in Germany in the nineteenth century. These days such a system would be democratically controlled by its members, while keeping an arms length from the state, the professions and corporations.
Report comment