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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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The only thing that will save you is if both partners are of solid mental, physical, hormonal and psychological health.

Fair, but western culture significantly reduces the probability someone is of "solid mental, physical, hormonal and psychological health."

We're often so bombarded with claims of faux xenophobia that when the real thing pops up upon reading you're like ' wait, what? '

As if Chinese, African, and South American subcultures are just ripe with mentally & physically healthy people.

Maybe your small part of the world is doing groovy, or has yet to succumb to the soda, pop & burger bombardment, but that's from a lack of access or (as it reads) you being in the tippy top of your people's (whichever that may be) class hierarchy.

Source?

See how rates of mental health issues are significantly higher in the west than elsewhere. And before you say this is due to underreporting elsewhere notice the dose effect relationship between mental illness and how close you are to the "centre" of it all, e.g. see how liberals are more mentally ill than conservatives, women are more mentally ill than men, see here: https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/over-50-percent-white-liberal-women-under-30-mental-health-condition , urban dwellers are more mentally ill than rurals, people now are more mentally ill than people 10 years ago, people in the Anglosphere are more mentally ill than people outside the anglosphere, people outside the anoglosphere who speak English are more mentally ill than people outside the anglosphere who don't etc. (see https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-with-mental-or-substance-disorders-by-sex for a graph of mental illness rates for a chart that uses multiple sources/regressions to correct for underdiagnosis). We wouldn't expect to see so many disparate links if it was all due to reporting bias.

"centre" of it all

Centre of what? The West? Why is that progressive people in Anglophone cities?

Also, the liberal/conservative and male/female differences in neuroticism are cross-cultural, as far as I know.

We wouldn't expect to see so many disparate links if it was all due to reporting bias.

Why not? These reference classes are also correlated with the medicalisation of mental illness... But then again, medicalisation could be due to a dose-response relationship between progressivism and mental illness! Causality of mental illness is VERY complicated and opaque.

Centre of what? The West? Why is that progressive people in Anglophone cities?

Because Anglos absolutely dominate the culture of other western countries. When was the last time you were forced to conform with some bizzare non-Anglo idea?

These reference classes are also correlated with the medicalisation of mental illness

Non-anglos speaking English correlate with medicalization of mental illness more than non-anglos not speaking English?

Because Anglos absolutely dominate the culture of other western countries. When was the last time you were forced to conform with some bizzare non-Anglo idea?

Critical theory and postmodernism are products of France and Germany, and I work in academia, so probably some time today.

However, it's true that Anglos have cultural dominance of progressive media (not so much e.g. what happens in churches) and I think that the fundamental point you are making is conceivable, but nonetheless speculative.

Non-anglos speaking English correlate with medicalization of mental illness more than non-anglos not speaking English?

But your hypothesis is not "speaking English causes mental illness", but rather "being exposed to certain Anglophone ideas causes mental illness." One of these Anglophone ideas is progressivism; another is the contemporary conceptions of depression and anxiety, which may have increased reporting rates.

Interestingly, in the case of schizophrenia (which standards apart from depression and anxiety in many ways, e.g. there's no non-pharma way to effectively treat schizophrenia) rates seem to be similar all over the world, and there is no clear Western/non-Western pattern:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_schizophrenia#By_country

Critical theory and postmodernism are products of France and Germany

As marinuso said, not really

But your hypothesis is not "speaking English causes mental illness", but rather "being exposed to certain Anglophone ideas causes mental illness."

Yes, and speaking English increases your likelihood of being exposed to Anglo ideas. The hypothesis that the English language itself is causing mental illness is conveniently dealt with by all the other correlations Boundersome Count cited.

Critical theory and postmodernism are products of France and Germany,

Kind of, but not really.

They got their start in France and Germany, but were further developed in the US, gained traction in the US, are now being exported from the US, and by the time it gets back to France and Germany they don't recognize it. When you see any critical theory or postmodernism pushed in Europe, it's the US version. Often even using the English words for the concepts, either directly or as literal, mechanical translations.