SOC344 2020 Tut5 – Friday 12.30pm

According to Beyond Blue, it is estimated that in 1 year, 1 million Australian adults will experience depression and 2 million will experience anxiety; that 45% of Australians will experience mental health problem in their lifetime; that; and that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience depression. Anthony Jorm, at the University of Melbourne, estimates that around 15% of Australians suffer from an anxiety disorder, but many Australians don’t understand these issues, can’t recognise the symptoms, and tend to dismiss them as ‘everyday worries’. This serves both to downplay the severity and impact of anxiety issues on the national psyche, but also – importantly – obscure the social basis to such emotions.

Why is there so much mental illness in times of economic prosperity? Sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Zigmund Bauman point out the atomising affect of late modernity, where human relations become more individualised, and we become less invested in keeping our groups and connections together. And we are not helped by the way we structure our modern lives. Work is increasingly temporary and fractious, sending us off to all sorts of places, to work all sorts of hours, with increasing precarity. Our cities continue to sprawl into suburban ‘exopolises’, lacking natural social centres within which people can connect and socialise. And our media changes, becoming supposedly more ‘social’, but with uncertain consequences in terms of the exact impact it has on our face-to-face interaction. As a consequence, some now claim that loneliness is endemic in Australia.

A follow up question is what we can do about these issues, or more precisely, their difficult emotional repercussions? Do we need more expenditure on mental health services? There has been intense investment in mental health resources and treatments over the last few decades in Australia. This includes the establishment of initiatives such as the Black Dog Institute, the headspace National Youth Mental Health Initiative, and recently a multi-sector initiative aimed at ‘Creating Mentally health Workplaces’. Despite these efforts, however, the expenditure on and costs of mental health issues continue to rise, and the prevalence of anxiety issues in our society remains high.

In tandem with this public increase in resources has come a massive increase in the private use of medication to treat mental illness. Gillian Bendelow notes a great rise in pharmacological treatments over previous decades worldwide, and that the use of anti-depressants is seen as the more socially conventional and acceptable approach to the ‘treatment’ of mental illness. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that Australia now ranks second in the world in anti-depressant prescriptions.

Are more anti-depressants the solution? Davey and Chan (2012) challenge their effectiveness, and suggest that they should be increasingly used only in combination with psychotherapeutic approaches. However, this approach still individualises the problem, and does little to look at the underlying social conditions that create and contribute to the experience of mental illness.

Perhaps it is time instead to examine, recognise, and cost options for making deeper, structural changes to our social, urban and media environments that impact our sense of sociability and security, and our feelings of anxiety, isolation and loneliness?

#S344UOW20 #Tut5 #Fri1230

SOC344 2020 Tut5 – Monday 12.30pm

According to Beyond Blue, it is estimated that in 1 year, 1 million Australian adults will experience depression and 2 million will experience anxiety; that 45% of Australians will experience mental health problem in their lifetime; that; and that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience depression. Anthony Jorm, at the University of Melbourne, estimates that around 15% of Australians suffer from an anxiety disorder, but many Australians don’t understand these issues, can’t recognise the symptoms, and tend to dismiss them as ‘everyday worries’. This serves both to downplay the severity and impact of anxiety issues on the national psyche, but also – importantly – obscure the social basis to such emotions.

Why is there so much mental illness in times of economic prosperity? Sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Zigmund Bauman point out the atomising affect of late modernity, where human relations become more individualised, and we become less invested in keeping our groups and connections together. And we are not helped by the way we structure our modern lives. Work is increasingly temporary and fractious, sending us off to all sorts of places, to work all sorts of hours, with increasing precarity. Our cities continue to sprawl into suburban ‘exopolises’, lacking natural social centres within which people can connect and socialise. And our media changes, becoming supposedly more ‘social’, but with uncertain consequences in terms of the exact impact it has on our face-to-face interaction. As a consequence, some now claim that loneliness is endemic in Australia.

A follow up question is what we can do about these issues, or more precisely, their difficult emotional repercussions? Do we need more expenditure on mental health services? There has been intense investment in mental health resources and treatments over the last few decades in Australia. This includes the establishment of initiatives such as the Black Dog Institute, the headspace National Youth Mental Health Initiative, and recently a multi-sector initiative aimed at ‘Creating Mentally health Workplaces’. Despite these efforts, however, the expenditure on and costs of mental health issues continue to rise, and the prevalence of anxiety issues in our society remains high.

In tandem with this public increase in resources has come a massive increase in the private use of medication to treat mental illness. Gillian Bendelow notes a great rise in pharmacological treatments over previous decades worldwide, and that the use of anti-depressants is seen as the more socially conventional and acceptable approach to the ‘treatment’ of mental illness. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that Australia now ranks second in the world in anti-depressant prescriptions.

Are more anti-depressants the solution? Davey and Chan (2012) challenge their effectiveness, and suggest that they should be increasingly used only in combination with psychotherapeutic approaches. However, this approach still individualises the problem, and does little to look at the underlying social conditions that create and contribute to the experience of mental illness.

Perhaps it is time instead to examine, recognise, and cost options for making deeper, structural changes to our social, urban and media environments that impact our sense of sociability and security, and our feelings of anxiety, isolation and loneliness?

#S344UOW20 #Tut5 #Mon1230

SOC344 2020 Tut4 – Friday 12.30pm

Isn’t it nice to be in love? Isn’t the feeling of love wonderful? But wait – are we talking about the enticing, heart-pounding, sexualised passionate form of love, or the steady-as-she goes companionate form of love we feel for friends, families and partners we’ve known a long time? Or are we talking about something else? Should love be overwhelming or considered? Perhaps it depends on our social context.

The experience and structures of love and intimacy in society have changed over time. Love in the Victorian Era involved published etiquette-based rules of courtship, and considerations of many things besides how one simply felt – there was one’s gender, class, finances, and the social respectability that came with marriage and family to keep in mind. Moving into contemporary times, Anthony Giddens describes the ‘transformation of intimacy’ in the later 20th century ‘late modern’ period, which continues today. We have so much more independence now from the constraints of traditional family and gender roles, that we can (and do) seek love and the ‘pure relationship’ in any number of forms. And Eva Illouz argues that this has created a society of commitment shy people – men in particular – and new inequalities in gender and intimacy.

What do you think? Has love changed? Is ‘all fair’ in love and sex these days?

#S344UOW20 #Tut4 #Fri1230

SOC344 2020 Tut4 – Monday 12.30pm

Isn’t it nice to be in love? Isn’t the feeling of love wonderful? But wait – are we talking about the enticing, heart-pounding, sexualised passionate form of love, or the steady-as-she goes companionate form of love we feel for friends, families and partners we’ve known a long time? Or are we talking about something else? Should love be overwhelming or considered? Perhaps it depends on our social context.

The experience and structures of love and intimacy in society have changed over time. Love in the Victorian Era involved published etiquette-based rules of courtship, and considerations of many things besides how one simply felt – there was one’s gender, class, finances, and the social respectability that came with marriage and family to keep in mind. Moving into contemporary times, Anthony Giddens describes the ‘transformation of intimacy’ in the later 20th century ‘late modern’ period, which continues today. We have so much more independence now from the constraints of traditional family and gender roles, that we can (and do) seek love and the ‘pure relationship’ in any number of forms. And Eva Illouz argues that this has created a society of commitment shy people – men in particular – and new inequalities in gender and intimacy.

What do you think? Has love changed? Is ‘all fair’ in love and sex these days?

#S344UOW20 #Tut4 #Mon1230

SOC344 2020 Tut3 – Fri 12.30pm

When was the last time you felt something ambiguous? A feeling that you couldn’t name? Was it perhaps a mixture of two, three, or many other more familiar emotions? Are there basic emotions that everyone feels and understands? The evidence seems to suggest that there are at least four to six universal basic emotions, based on Paul Ekman’s analysis of facial expressions across cultures. These have a genetic basis, and are experienced by all humans. The great majority of emotions seem to be more complex amalgams of these basic emotions. Indeed, in 1980, the psychologist Robert Plutchik developed a fascinating ‘colour wheel’ of emotions to depict the various possible combinations and intensities of basic emotions and their resulting ‘complex emotions’.

However, many of the psychological studies into basic and complex emotions do not account for the inherently social way in which emotions are combined and experienced. Norbet Elias’ Civilizing Process, and Michel Foucault’s studies of discipline and punishment (compounded in the construction of Jermeny Bentham’s famous Panopticon as a vehicle for moral reform) are historical examples of how society engenders complex, socially constituted emotions such as shame and guilt to maintain social order and police the boundaries of class and status. Think about how the modern institutions of society – work, family, church, government, market, media, social networks – shape and assemble your emotions in ever more complex forms.

Reflect on your feelings right now. Are they basic or complex? Individual or social?

#S344UOW20 #Tut3 #Fri1230

SOC344 2020 Tut3 – Mon 12.30pm

When was the last time you felt something ambiguous? A feeling that you couldn’t name? Was it perhaps a mixture of two, three, or many other more familiar emotions? Are there basic emotions that everyone feels and understands? The evidence seems to suggest that there are at least four to six universal basic emotions, based on Paul Ekman’s analysis of facial expressions across cultures. These have a genetic basis, and are experienced by all humans. The great majority of emotions seem to be more complex amalgams of these basic emotions. Indeed, in 1980, the psychologist Robert Plutchik developed a fascinating ‘colour wheel’ of emotions to depict the various possible combinations and intensities of basic emotions and their resulting ‘complex emotions’.

However, many of the psychological studies into basic and complex emotions do not account for the inherently social way in which emotions are combined and experienced. Norbet Elias’ Civilizing Process, and Michel Foucault’s studies of discipline and punishment (compounded in the construction of Jermeny Bentham’s famous Panopticon as a vehicle for moral reform) are historical examples of how society engenders complex, socially constituted emotions such as shame and guilt to maintain social order and police the boundaries of class and status. Think about how the modern institutions of society – work, family, church, government, market, media, social networks – shape and assemble your emotions in ever more complex forms.

Reflect on your feelings right now. Are they basic or complex? Individual or social?

#S344UOW20 #Tut3 #Mon1230

SOC344 2020 Tut 2 – Fri 12.30pm

We have long conceived of a separation between mind and body in western society, with supremacy of mind over body. This basic idea that reason should dominate is captured in the classic statement by Descartes ‘cogito ergo sum’, ‘I think, therefore I am’. However, if your thoughts are affected by your bodily feelings, or even your perceptions of how the society around you sees you, then what are you? What are your thoughts? Are they really separate from your body and your feelings? And do we have a better understanding of the relationship between reason and emotion as a society today? Compare Disney’s take on the role of emotions in human action in 1943 and in 2015 (and note that the producers of the 2015 ‘Inside Out’ film considered including ‘logic’ as an emotion, but later decided to drop it). Which of these depictions makes more sense to you?

#S344UOW20  #Tut2  #Fri1230

SOC344 2020 Tut 2 – Mon 12.30pm

We have long conceived of a separation between mind and body in western society, with supremacy of mind over body. This basic idea that reason should dominate is captured in the classic statement by Descartes ‘cogito ergo sum’, ‘I think, therefore I am’. However, if your thoughts are affected by your bodily feelings, or even your perceptions of how the society around you sees you, then what are you? What are your thoughts? Are they really separate from your body and your feelings? And do we have a better understanding of the relationship between reason and emotion as a society today? Compare Disney’s take on the role of emotions in human action in 1943 and in 2015 (and note that the producers of the 2015 ‘Inside Out’ film considered including ‘logic’ as an emotion, but later decided to drop it). Which of these depictions makes more sense to you?

#S344UOW20  #Tut2  #Mon1230

Utopia? Can we plan future cities for tomorrow’s families?

Author Note – In addition to my academic work, I also write and publish creative fiction, on themes around families, cities, emotions,  relationships and disconnection. I would be grateful if you would take a moment to have a look at my latest published work here. Thanks!

Over the past twelve weeks, I’ve written about many aspects of the sometimes tense fusion between families, cities and communities in late modern times. I’ve discussed some of the history of cities and suburban families. I’ve pointed out how families are changing in intimacy and structure and how the balance of work and family remains precarious and inequitable. I’ve discussed the need to better plan cities, to stop the unplanned, poorly connected, urban sprawl, and the unsustainable spread of aesthetically poor McMansions. And I’ve discussed the consequences of gentrified cosmopolitanism (and the fight to create and retain the Creative Class), and the struggle to enact any kind of control over the flow of resources within globalised capitalism.

I’d like to finish off this series of blogs with a list of my tips for planning the houses and cities of the future:

  1. Orient cities to changing families – build the housing and transport that changing families need.
  2. Integrate work, care, and family needs – into the design of houses (smaller, more easily adjusted/changed), cities (social, green spaces), and transport (to end the family-hostile commuting nightmare that our cities have become).
  3. Infill – revitalise old areas around existing transport options, particularly along existing transport corridors (light and heavy rail).
  4. Social centres – If building new areas, build a social centre with shops, facilities, and green spaces within walking distance for people to come and gather and socialise.
  5. Effective public transport – connect each social centre by non-road public transport – trains and light rail (not buses), and embrace the idea of high speed rail to connect regional centres and satellite cities, funded with public/private ‘value capture’ strategies.
  6. Mixed use and flexible use – design streets and areas with many functions that balance ‘place’ and ‘movement’ requirements, use spaces for different purposes at different times (parking lots) instead of having dead space, adapt houses to actual needs (apartments and townhouses to suit smaller families, not McMansions)
  7. Housing affordabilitya range of options, part of which should include ending the race to build, buy, and then only partially occupy the biggest and ugliest McMansion (filled with rooms we never use)!
  8. Attract and retain the Creative Class – encourage diversity, mixing, AND affordability, so as not to drive out poorer workers
  9. Globalised Capitalism – Space of Flows, needs to be better steered, managed, and regulated democratically, rather than through under-regulated market mechanisms. This is of even greater concern in the post-GFC era of political populism. Slogans and transparently flimsy promises are not only impractical and insufficient, they risk eroding trust in intelligent interventions that might actually work …

Whilst not intended as a prescription for Utopia – and borrowing heavily from the excellent ideas of Jean-Frances Kelly at the Grattan Institute, and Professor Peter Newman  in general – I hope these ideas together can present a sense of what we need, what might help, how we might get there, and the biggest challenges we face: globalized rather than democratic control over the resources needed to create future, sociable cities for tomorrows families.