According to a documentary I recently watched this is what the head-nurse said after he had slapped a patient of a mental hospital across the back of the head. I’m assuming he is referring to himself becoming the shit whilst in abode with the patients who are the shit. I’m curious if it is due to the patient’s mental incapacities that would lead to such a person to view them as shit, that they lack something that enables people to recognise one another as ‘equal’ beings and provokes contempt from some. What is it that they apparently lack that enables such people as this head nurse to treat them as such? I think too of racial hatred, how via propaganda and characterisation the Nazis probably created the possibility for ‘normal’ people to suddenly fail to recognise the Jewish as fellow beings, or just genocide in general. That it must first dehumanise the targeted people in order for their murder to be somehow more acceptable…and not just murder but torture, maybe even some form of sadistic pleasure…
Maybe the patients treat the staff like shit so the staff treat the patients like shit so the patients treat the staff like shit so the staff treat the patients like shit so patients…
I consider that true outside of my asylum example. Although I’m not sure which is the more insane: inside or out?
I think whoever is more dehumanized is more insane. All other aspects (i.e. if you can hold a job, etc.) are secondary. The more we demonstrate and embody a real sense of having a shared humanity, the more sane we are.
This documentary I watched was really quite interesting, it was basically about the old Victorian asylums that we had in the UK that housand some 100,000-150,000 people throughout the country, they closed around the 80s, maybe 90s. What replaced them was the idea that the “community” would be a better environment for them rather than being locked away, it was called “community care.” But as one psychiatrist (sp?) put it, " the community doesn’t care."
I then watched a documentary featuring Pavlov’s experiments on dogs and children, “in the name of science and progress etc. etc.,” and went to bed feeling quite sick about things.
well, it sounds fucked up to say, but it isnt too hard, or too far of a stretch, to consider the mentally inable inhuman. maybe he’s speaking of how it’s effected his personal life. his social skills. spending that much time interacting with them is getting to him. i think you took what he said the right way
I also saw the documentary. Do you really think the head nurse was referring to himself though? I’m not sure about that.
But what I want to know is what ‘quality’ do the mentally handicapped lack that enable us to view them as somehow less human. I thought it might have something to do with dignity, or independance…I’m not sure though.
That was my impression from the way it was told by the other nurse because the head-nurse apparently said that after striking the patient thus as a kind of justification. An admittance of what he did was wrong because he more than likely doesn’t do that outside of the hospital, and that it was due to the environment of the asylum - the patients.
Admittedly it was a programme on in the background, but I remember catching the quote and interpreting it as ‘if you live in a load of mess, you will be acknowledged and treated as shit’, and slapped him round the ol’ noggin as a reprimand.
I think I taped it actually, might watch it properly.
Maybe, I can’t recall what was said about the living conditions in this particular instance…it’d be on the bbc iplayer too probably; there was another interesting doc on afterwards about the brain worth a watch also 
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And, ironically, the more hypocritical, as ‘humanity’ is a man made concept defined by the alpha group.
From a scientific perspective a ‘shared humanity’ is always a social construct, as what is at any point in time considered ‘human’ is always subject to change (evolution), and so what constitutes ‘humanity’ is never an absolute objective fact. The fossil record clearly shows that at any time there are numerous phenotypes in existence - an inevitability when you think about it.
Your statment is really about conforming to social norms and how this makes us appear sane and give us (you) a sense of comfort.
I agree with this. But, how would you say it explains the problem I’m trying to get at here? Why is it easier to shun the mentally handicapped? Why is it easier to view them as inferior-beings? What is the qualitative difference between the ‘sane’ and the ‘insane?’
If it is because they make us uncomfortable, or because they are indeed inferior, then why is there conflict here? What is the contradiction, what is the hypocrisy?
Your response has nothing to do with what I said, or tried to say anyway.
Hey, Bluff! I registered (on this new found site!) just to further your idea about this quote… After watching “Mental: A History of the Madhouse” something stuck about the nurses words (following his pretty horrific actions) that provoked me to speak to everyone I came into contact with in the following hour about exactly how profound his statement was… Also, I live with an uncle whom 15 years or so ago was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and spent years going back and forth between an asylum…
To give you my understanding of what the nurse said; he was absolutely referring to himself.
[assault a patient as opposed to restraining (if was necessary)]
Somebody questions his actions,
"Don’t you realise? If you live among shit (referring to his patients), you become shit (nurses erratic behaviour mimics that of his patients "
You ask what makes some views others as inferior or “shit”, now admittedly this idea isn’t exactly scientific…
I get on fantastically with my uncle - whom is still prescribed medication to ‘control’ his Schizophrenia condition… But I also know one of his major ‘problems’ is an immense lack of self love which has been intensified over years of negative responses from others due to his own lack of self belief - inevitably, affecting his behaviour.
I enquired into which school he went to (bearing in mind he’s 55 and education did have a slightly different approach to today’s) and I was told that at the age of 5, having only had trouble with his stuttering speech (lack of confidence) and a mild form of dyslexia, he was made to attend a “special needs” school to deal with the bullying and tough time he received at his first school.
Again it made me think about the nurses quote “live among shit, you become shit”.
I think you could substitute the word “shit” with anything else and it will conclude the same meaning.
Young child with slight learning and confidence difficulties is made to go to a school at such a young age where he spends the remainder of his life believing that he is “special”. Or in a large part of society’s opinion, “inferior”.
Anyway, enough about my story - in short response to your wondering (which I’m so glad you mentioned!), my belief of many people, determined as “mentally ill”, “special needs” and all of the thousands of other diagnoses handed out, I truly believe that very much of it comes down to a serious lack of self love - which, for the most part, was often a consequence of childhood beliefs carried up into adulthood - of which take a SERIOUS deal of work to overcome!!!
You know how the saying goes, “If you can’t love yourself, how can you expect anybody else to love you?”
I think there are some disabilities which are physical i.e. they have a physically problem thus they are mentally disabled and no amount of love will change this fact. Plenty of patients nowadays are cared for all their life with love and affection but they’re still mentally handicapped nonetheless. But I think you do have a point, maybe some mental disabilities are sociological, that they have arisen predominantly from their environment. We have a culture which highly values independence, one needs to be independent to succeed here, and this requires that self-love/self-belief you spoke of, if, for whatever reason, one lacks this, then one will struggle here and will probably be more inclined to view themselves as a failure of some sort, I can quite easily see how this cycle could slip one into some form of mental illness.
There are some sayings, though not fully covering the subject, they’r still very telling. “One howls like the wolfs one is amongst”. You become what you abhore.
Also the factor that behaving bad has no consequenses, the ill behaviour side can grow and overcome ones good, either partially or totally.