this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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In the 20th century, one of the big boost in general health was a better understanding of hygiene and its importance.
I do form the hope that in the 21st century we will make a similar progress towards mental hygiene and make sure to not create too toxic environments, give kids the kind of nurturing they need, and treat infections before they become deadly.
Some groups have managed to "teach empathy" to juvenile delinquents who are diagnosed with psychopathy. Finding a treatment is the first step. Then we need to grow as a society and realize that giving healthcare including mental one to everyone is not giving away "free lunch" but actually improving the overall society.
While I support every word you said, I am still not convinced, that the issue can be solved completely through prevention. Even though, during the last 200 years we've made huge progress in hygiene standards and medicine, there are still people dying, even from easily preventable or treatable illnesses. In the same manner, I believe it's impossible to prevent all kind of psychopatic violence or malicious behaviour. Hence, the question that comes up would rather be: how to deal with the violence that's still occuring? Are prisons or some other kind of correction facilities a part of a solarpunk utopia?
Imho Scandinavian prisons are a good example. I saw a documentary about an island where the prisoners can roam more or less freely, work and are reintroduced into society.
Alone for the reason that families are different, and sometimes even move in other countries or continents.
Regardless how great the overall system is, there will always be differences between families and locations.
Some parents just don't care, don't understand, did not treat their own issues. Some children cannot escape that.
Utopia? No. An utopia would have solved that issue. But solarpunk proposes to solve a lot of other issues, while we deal with these remaining one as bad, or slightly better, than we do today. IMO prisons should slowly morph into mental health facilities. May not solve all the problem but would solve a lot.
My country has psychiatric treatment facilities as part of the judicial systems (ours is mostly based on rehabilitation, not punitive). The problem with them is that being send to one of them is indefinite, until one is deemed cured. Is that ethical?
Ironically, this means that bona fide gangsters will often try to prove they do not have a mental health problem, because ordinary prison at least has a well-defined end date.
Really depends on the rest: if the justice is fair, if the treatments are really treatments, if only people dangerous for the others are kept, then I think that's probably the best solution we have today.
I see the irony, but I think it should be the norm. Mental health problems should not be used as a joker to get out of jail. If the system both helps people with a problem and prevents people from using it as an excuse, that sounds perfect.
There is the big risk in having, and assuming, a society where some particular evil doesn't exist. Namely, that when evil does actually appear, the society will be completely defenceless. Whether it's disease or crime or some other problem.
I think that in general there needs to be both preventative hygiene/education/culture and some form of cure/resistance/response available to counter problems. And even then, there will be no absolute protection.
First requirement for either would be research and understanding of the threat and development of methods and mitigations. Then taking them into widespread use. With mental health, these are all somewhat under way, but probably lagging behind the more "low level" biology.
As much as I understand this discussion while discussing e.g. anarchism, I don't see how psychopathy being cured or not in a solarpunk society changes much. Yeah, at worse there may be prisons and cops in a solarpunk society. Hopefully more humane than today. And in the meantime we try to understand psychology as much as possible to have the preventive care we need.