It’s an old truism in rhetoric that we see what we can name. If so, our national monsoon of concerns about the spreading darkness of depression is partly a function of its lexicon. We notice it because we can name it.
Mental health researchers tell us that rates of clinical depression in the United States have been steadily increasing. One estimate from the Centers for Disease Control is that about 9 in 100 Americans carry that diagnosis, with 3 percent suffering from chronic depression.
What’s going on?
Anyone asking the question must be humble when proposing causes. Among other factors, our reporting is probably better than it has ever been. But it is obvious that the effects are especially stark among the young: a cause for some national soul-searching. To be sure, suicide is a rare consequence of depression. But it is the third most common cause of death in people aged 15 to 25. At some point in our lives most of us have been touched by concerns about the distress and safety of a young relative or family friend.
Every case is different. But it is probably fair to assume that teens lack the ballast of experience to ride out rough patches, which may include broken relationships, family tensions, and low self-esteem brought on by—among other things—the sometimes corrosive comparisons of self with others encouraged by social media.
It also seems as if there has been a sea change in the amount of mental health talk that is now part of the lives of younger Americans still in the pursuit of an education. For most Americans, the use of institutional mental health services has come out from under a cloud of secrecy that was common in mid-twentieth century America. Over the last two decades counseling services have proliferated in schools and universities. And there can be no doubt they are helpful. But with increased emphasis on coping with stress, there is also more discussion of anxiety and clinical depression. First year students in college are now asked to be aware of these issues in the midst of a whirlwind “Welcome Week.” And staff are asked to be more proactive if a student speaks about stress or anxiety. Meanwhile, our media culture is more bold in dwelling on depression episodes, abetted by direct-to-consumer ads for psychoactive drugs that go not just to patients, but sometimes to their friends. Consider as well that just a few years ago no mainstream provider of television content would have touched a series like 13 Reasons Why (2017), Netflix’s fictional account a of a teen’s descent into suicide. The effect is a culture that has normalized teen angst into something more ubiquitous.
It also seems evident that students living on a campus are rarely ‘on their own’ and out of contact in the ways their parents once were. For some, frequent text or phone contact with home keeps family problems in play at a time when, for prior generations, being away at school offered a kind of refuge.
Add in some linguistic determinism, and you have a perfect storm. It’s an old truism in linguistic and rhetorical theory that we see what we can name. This idea means that the name comes prior to perception. Building on this view, the monsoon described here may be abetted by the widespread use of a lexicon of depression terms. With its emergence out from under its former stigma, perhaps we have inadvertently over-represented its existence.* This kind of ‘clinicalization’ of our mental lives has now gone on for years, with frequent talk about others in terms of what were once understood as formal diagnostic categories. We now talk casually about someone’s “anxiety,” “attention deficits” or “paranoia,” mixing subjective judgments with classification categories found in the bible of mental illness diagnoses, the DSM.
Merging of these labels into our everyday rhetoric has done its part to put what were once considered passing states of mind front and center. Sometimes that can be good. But it also follows that such language gets formalized through diagnosis and treatment. Once a person self-identifies as a “victim” of a labeled condition, that awareness can lay the groundwork for recovery, or become a self-protective justification that delays it.
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*I take a less extreme view than psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, who has written extensively about what he sees as the “Myth of Mental Illness.” (Harper Perennial, 2010). But I give Szasz credit for understanding the power of clinical labels to shape expectations.
Most people accustomed to the public arena have learned to not take audience opposition personally. In return, members opposed to a persuader can show unexpected forbearance.
Kennedy and Falwell at Liberty University
Several decades ago I wrote a book describing a number of public figures who willingly appeared in front of “hostile audiences.” An audience is “hostile” if its known to oppose who you are or what you intend to say. Even so, these were individuals who were mostly fearless in facing their critics. I think only my mother actually read Persuasive Encounters when it was published in 1990. Yet, a least for me, the idea remains intriguing.
The book included transcripts and analyses of specific public comments made by a range of people, including Phil Donahue, Edward R. Murrow, John Lennon, Ed Koch, Ted Kennedy and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Szasz was an interesting case. In a number of books and addresses he went out of his way to warn his medical colleagues that they were crippling their patients by renaming their bad choices as mental health “conditions.” So much for his chances to be a future President of the American Psychiatric Association.
Senator Ted Kennedy was also a useful example. By mistake he was sent an invitation to join the “Moral Majority,” Reverend Jerry Falwell’s crusade to purge secular liberalism and governmental activism from the American political landscape. At what was then Falwell’s somewhat constricted version of higher education known as Liberty Baptist College–they still had curfews, as well as prohibitions against women going on dates–Kennedy was Exhibit “A” for why the nation had strayed from its ostensible Christian roots.
But never a person to miss the humor in our foibles, Kennedy wrote back, telling Falwell he welcomed the invitation. After long distance pleasantries to smooth over the awkward snafu, Falwell made an offer to have Kennedy address his students at Liberty. And so the Massachusetts senator went to Lynchburg in 1983, offering a general plea arguing that we should oppose “religious tests” for public office-holders. That idea remains a cornerstone of evangelicals interested in politics.
The clean-cut audience couldn’t have been more courteous. And Kennedy gave as much as he got. The speech included a generous acknowledgement of Falwell, acceptance of the value of religious belief, and a straightforward argument for tolerance of all or no faith traditions.
In my study, only New York Mayor Ed Koch responded as a rhetorical athlete, matching his audiences shout for shout. He returned a disgruntled resident’s sneer at twice its original speed and with far more topspin. At a particular public meeting held in one of the city’s districts sustained volleys between vocal citizens and the Mayor wore down even hardened veterans of municipal feuds.
Persuaders in front of hostile audiences are interesting not because they may produce charges and countercharges, but mostly because of the reverse: there is usually surprising and sudden elasticity of viewpoint in many who are involved. People accustomed to the public arena have mostly learned to not take audience opposition personally. In return, members opposed to a persuader can show unexpected forbearance.
And so a whole series of questions seem interesting. In terms of communication skills, how resourceful can a respondent be to complaints that they are “out of touch,” or are “dishonoring” the public office they hold? How focused can they remain in the face of criticism and overt disbelief? And what ideas or values can a persuader dramatize which—to quote a common phrase—affirms the idea that ‘our areas of agreement are much greater than our differences?’
Versions of this line have been delivered many times by Barack Obama and less frequently by Donald Trump. In rhetorical terms, it has been a common trope (a recurring pattern in discourse) for public figures to explicitly celebrate a common culture and shared history of beliefs. And so it reenacts what is perhaps the most universal of all communication impulses: the reaffirmation of the other’s legitimacy in the culture. Our opponents may annoy us. They might seek ways to limit our reach or effectiveness. But the basic courtesies we expect even from those with seemingly alien views are an anchor against currents that can sweep away a tenuous civility.
