Mental Illness is caused by - Capitalism!

Didn't you know? Will Self brought us this revelatory fact in his bbc r4 r prog Point of View this morning. Thankfully I missed the first 4 minutes but it was still a surreal experience into the weird and wacky world of the lefty eccentric with his tortuous counter logic, the bottom line of which is: mental illness is terrible, pills don't work -and it's all capitalism's fault!

If the poor afflicted woman, his friend - a sensitive soul by all accounts - 'empathetic' ( well at least  the last three syllables of that word is true), decent, did not have to worry about such sordid considerations as feeding clothing and housing herself she would not be in such profound mental torment. Why won't people provide her with all these things so she can get on to the more higher, artistic things in life that the ordinary insensitive brutes with their pursuit of material gain would neither appreciate or understand? Theirs is just to provide her with a carefree life free from the base concerns of the little people whose taxes -appropriated wealth - should be redistributed to her and her kind so she can float off into artistic la la land -a perpetual state subsidised Peter (or Petronella) Pan and that would be the compassionate just society as imagined by Mr Self.

That's state funded public intellectuals for you -so caring! Throw in a few arcane words and how deep this man is, full of profound observations and insights -not. This alas is standard BBC fare and Self is one of their favourites. A state tax funded broadcaster giving a platform to a socialist 'intellectual'. What's not to like?!

So the evil 'capitalist' world has created mental illness for all those who don't want to take responsibility for their mental health or their own support has it Wil? Let's have a look at the mental health of all those living in non capitalist (or anything approaching it) communist or socialist countries shall we? Maybe Mr Self would like to examine the state of mind of all those people fleeing to the border today to escape the socialist paradise of Venezuela? I am sure their mental health is just fine. Or maybe we could look at the mental health of those people 'living' under Communist China during the 'Great leap forward' - the 'cultural revolution'?  They would surely have been a picture of good mental health as they were worked to death for the cause of the socialist revolution. Or communist Russia -what was Solzenistyn complaining about anyway? He should have been a poster boy for mental health and stability!

One sometimes feel envious of Mr Self's ilk hailing as they do from Planet Zog with their ability to be somehow insulated entirely from reality and regarded as radical,interesting thinkers. Intellectual Cultural suicide  you say? Nonsense, nothing to see, move along now!