>>91914242The most fascinating hypothesis I've encountered is that depression is on the rise due to the move to a post-fordist economy, basically tied into the idea depression is an evolutionary adaptation to declining circumstances. (i.e. if there's not enough food and partners to go around for example, surplus people would survive better if they are depressed - because reduced activity conserves energy and they won't bother trying to pursue partners already taken, thus ensuring social stability. This is then artificially recreated by declining real wages, housing shortages, etc, setting off the same sort of reduced expectations in people now. I mean, you could darkly extrapolate this even includes suicide as an extreme adaptation for the communal good.)
That's not to counter the medical consensus that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance or whatever physically - it's to raise the question: Why does the imbalance occur? The question is usually ended there in what (iirc) was termed "Privatising Suffering" or something. Basically, instead of looking at social causation they just stop with the individual - You are depressed because your chemicals are broken. Nobody knows why your chemicals are broken.
