Globalization of the American Psyche Maggie Nelsen

Globalization of the American Psyche

                Reading about the marketing of depression and thereby anti-depressant drugs in Japan demonstrated quite disturbingly the extent of the global capitalistic drive. Mega pharmaceutical corporations go as far as orchestrating and lavishly financing international conferences just to glean the best insight on their target consumer, in this case depressed Japanese (more like, how to convince the Japanese they are depressed enough to take their drug). I am no businesswoman, but while reading this I couldn’t understand why companies would waste serious money and energy to try and create a market that does not exist…Why not just go to a different region of the world where the population is respondent to anti-depressants? Trying to sell a product (which is already geared toward a minority population) to a nationality which has a strikingly different cultural conception of the products use and purpose seems like an illogical business plan. GlaxoSmithKline would practically be better off selling their product in Denmark (allegedly the world’s ‘happiest’ place). Nevertheless, pharmaceutical executives steamed ahead with the campaign. 

                Just as when we looked at domestic violence, women’s NGOs in Pakistan, and other feminist issues in India versus the US, while the same problems occur in both countries, solutions cannot be universally applied. Those readings from a couple weeks ago demonstrated the importance of cultural context and cultural relevancy to national issues; one cannot transport an issue, strip away the context and examine or equate it to a similar problem in another foreign country. That context is crucial to understanding the issue and alleviating the problem. These corporations are not just introducing a drug, but trying to impose a western perception of mental illness and psychology that is not familiar or resonating with the Japanese people.  This whole phenomenon makes the situation uneasy because it is a demonstration of western supremacy and imperialism, which at this point the Japanese especially are sick of.  Japan is known as a cultural importer—it has been for centuries; however, Japanese also has a historically subordinate relationship to the United States. Most Japanese are probably left with a bitter taste in their mouth so to speak, having mega corporations swoop in to impose new drugs and cultural perceptions on them.

                This article has definitely gained new relevancy in light of the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear power plant disaster just one year ago. After the earthquake, there was minor tension between the US and Japan over disputed mileage in which people should stay away from the power plant. (US government said 50 miles, Japanese said less). Americans also perceived the Japanese as ‘getting back up on their feet’ in no time because of the Japanese stereotypes of Japanese people being “emotionless”, “robotic”, capable, prideful, etc. Both these examples illustrate the cultural misconceptions the west still holds of Japan. Many Western reporters wrote of all the cases of PTSD which would flood the Japanese prefecture effected—yet the catastrophe, just over a year ago, demonstrated that the Japanese are still not familiar with or cultural respondent to the idea of “Post-Traumatic Stress” or the like. While this article seems to give the impression that the corporations were semi-successful in importing the idea of depression as a common aliment, the earthquake last year demonstrates otherwise.

                The findings of Dr. Lee in The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong, was startling and intriguing. His patients with eating disorders are clearly distinct from the western type. He found that these women, from the very young teen years to early middle age, understood the extent of their gauntly, unhealthy, bodies in danger—even more, they desired to gain weight/look healthier but just had no desire to eat. This is a far cry to say the least from anorexia in the West. In addition, the severity of weight loss among Lee’s Chinese patients is shockingly even worse. In the US, a 5’ 3’’ woman would be considered anorexic at 85, 90 pounds; one of Lee’s patients of the same height weighed an astonishing 48 pounds…Yet, Chinese and Hong Konger clinicians and doctors continue to diagnose these girls as suffering from Western media infiltration which demand skinny, beautiful, thin women. But this is clearly not the case, especially for many of the patients who hail from rural Chinese villages, which are less exposed to western media. Just as with depression in Japan, Lee testifies: “Mental illness, specifically anorexia, do not exist independent of the social and historical context…”(35). Lee urges that if doctors continue to talk about symptoms of anorexia and other similar illnesses (like depression) as universal, they will completely miss the real, more localized/cultural origins that actually cause these diseases in many people: “clinicians were adhering to a foreign diagnostic manual at the expense of understanding both the patient’s subjective experience and the cultural meaning specific to Hong Kong at that time. If they became blind to the local realities of their patients, he feared they would have no hope in treating them”(36). This is the key misunderstanding which is relevant to both depression in Japan and anorexia in Hong Kong and China. While I certainly agree with this recognition/analysis, I think Lee also has to tread carefully when examining cultural and historical factors which could foster and cause depression or starvation. It can be dangerous to look towards culture to rationalize why people are starving themselves or become depressed, at the risk of perpetuating cultural stereotypes of that country or people. That is the only thing which is not mentioned really in these two chapters which I think is important to keep in mind.