The mega marketing of depression in japan

Institutional environments are dependent upon the experiences people undergo and the corporation's overseeing them, rather than on the human capacity to do good. All people have the capacity to do good, regardless of the negative circumstances they are in. People have good intentions, and will prove to work for the greater good of the world. The female teachers in Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel” prove to continually want the best in intellectual growth for their students and the atmosphere they are in, regardless of the continual harassment and abuse they endure. Faludi introduces December Green, a female teacher who was hired on a basis of being tenure-track potential. Faludi writes of Green’s astonishing accomplishments, saying that “Green’s work at The Citadel was highly praised- she received an award for teaching, research, and service” (86). Green’s efforts at the school were great enough to have earned awards, praise, and recognition. The awards Green received for “teaching and research” speak not only for her dedication and pursuit of education, but also for the initiative she takes towards sharing that pursuit with her students and empowering them to do their best in their academics. Her award for “service” speaks for her selfless nature, and makes her giving spirit evident. These awards exemplify how Green strives to be a good person, doing good things that benefit numerous people, despite the harsh circumstances she’s been placed in. Faludi goes on to write about how Green “challenged [her student’s] essays” (86) and maintained her “left-leaning political” (86) beliefs, regardless of the threats received from her students to change. Green’s “challenge” helps convey her efforts towards helping her students become better writers while strengthening their arguments. Furthermore, as reflected in the strength behind her “left-leaning” political beliefs, Green proves to be a strong, female teacher who would not back down from her own beliefs for anyone besides herself. Such confidence intimidated the cadets into relying only on their abuse towards her to feel strong. Ultimately, Green works as a prime example of people being capable of good, regardless of their negative circumstances, as she steadfastly sticks to her original, strong beliefs and continually worked towards the best for her students until fear for her life stopped her. Another example of innate goodness represented in the human race is Dr. Kirmayer in Ethan Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression.” Watters interviews Dr. Kirmayer regarding his intentions within the mental health industry in relation to the work of major corporate company GlaxoSmithKline. Watters quotes Dr. Kirmayer describing his interest in his field of psychology as saying “People like me got into cultural psychiatry because we were interested in differences between cultures- even treasured those differences” (519). Kirmayer speaks of his “interest in differences between cultures”, which so innately defines him as a doctor. Kirmayer maintains that interest because it holds a great deal of importance to him. Kirmayer goes on to explain the pressures to change his passions as a psychiatrist by saying “So it’s certainly ironic that cultural psychiatrists sometimes end up being handmaidens to these global marketing machines…intent on manipulating cultural differences…in order to capitalize on those changes” ( Watters 519). The focus on what Kirmayer finds interesting is placed on the “differences between cultures.” Rather than trying to “manipulate [each] cultural difference in order to capitalize on those changes,” Kirmayer values, or “treasures,” each difference as it is. Kirmayer’s strength in his beliefs, as well as his value of differences, speaks for his strength

as a human, much like Green’s passion for teaching and strength behind her political beliefs, both proving their human capacity for good.

An example of people having the capacity for good is found in each author because of their efforts to bring light to the unjust situations they analyze in their essays. Each author, Faludi, Watters, and Ho, identified an indecency performed by an institution in a position of power and felt strongly enough about such an indecency to raise awareness to the fact. Miller and Spellman define Watters’ intentions as, “acknowledging the reality of mental illness, he wants his readers to understand that the terminology we apply to them reflects our own history and culture” (Miller and Spellman 512). Watters’ “want” for his “readers to understand” the effect of their offensive words shows his passion and care for the victims of mental illness. He wants to bring attention to the actions and terms that result from “our own history and culture” to bring attention to mindless insensitivity while extending consideration for the feelings of other people. As Watters writes, his care, compassion, and goodness as a human being is shown in “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” and his other stories. Author Karen Ho wanted to identify and object to the intentions that create the ideal Wall Street elite employee in her “Biographies of Hegemony.” Miller and Spellman quote Karen Ho, regarding her views of prestige by saying “Wall Street shapes not just the stock market but also the very nature of employment and what kinds of workers are valued… The kind of worker they imagine is a worker like themselves… This becomes the prototype, but in many ways that’s quite removed from the daily lives of most American workers” (165). Ho points out the effects that Wall Street’s standards unequivocally have on Americans. Although the average American cannot meet the standards of the Wall Street prestige, Ho’s essay highlights the inevitable feeling of inadequacy resulting from this exclusivity. Ho’s choice towards being a good person is reflected in her history as a member of the Wall Street elite (Miller and Spellman 165), who understood the implications of her position on feelings of other people. Ho cares about other people, despite being surrounded by a community of people who don’t, proving her capacity for good, regardless of circumstance. Faludi’s passion for writing was ignited early in life, when she discovered the effect of her words as a writer. Miller and Spellman quote Faludi, describing her passion by saying “I discovered that through writing I could make my views heard, and I could actually create change” (72). Faludi’s desire to “make change” “through [her] writing” speak for her interest in helping other people besides herself. Faludi naturally is guided towards goodness, as reflected in her writing, despite the atmosphere she is researching in, such as The Citadel. The actions of calling out such major institutions of GlaxoSmithKline, companies on Wall Street, and The Citadel Academy taken by these authors proves the importance of doing good in the world and raising awareness, despite the negative environments they themselves are in, inherently proving the fact that humans have a genuine capacity for good. While all humans have capacity for goodness, the experiences they undergo, both negative and positive, prove to have a great effect on their capacity for good. More often than not, when a person performs a horrific act, it is often the result of a previous negative experience. A prime example of how terrible experiences can alter the intentions and beliefs of good people is the abuse

undergone and consequently doled out by the upperclassmen at The Citadel Academy in Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel.” In October of 1993, one student was attacked in his dorm in the middle of the night by two upperclassmen, supposedly for not saluting properly. Faludi describes how the offender in the attack defended his actions, saying that “what he did was common procedure- and no different from the ‘motivational’ treatment he had received as a knob at the hands of a senior who came into his room” (81). Faludi understands the attacker had received the same abuse from an upperclassman during his period of being a knob. As a result of enduring previous, recurring abuse, the attacker began to internalize the abuse as acceptable, so much so that he passed it on to another knob. This serves as a direct example of how the negative experiences, or abuse, the attacker endured previously explicitly caused his future acts of aggression and abuse, towards the victim, leaving them with more negative experiences in turn. In Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” Watters speaks of major pharmaceutical powerhouse GlaxoSmithKline’s intentions behind marketing the ineffective SSRI drug to the naïve Japanese people. As company GlaxoSmithKline grew into a corporation, they became money-hungry, proving to put the safety of their consumers at risk for a temporary rise in sales. Watters writes “The class of antidepressant drugs known as… SSRI’s had become the wonder-drug of the 1990’s, at least in terms of the profits they’d garnered for the drug companies” (515). Watters describes the incredible profits the pharmaceutical companies at the time had earned from the ineffective drugs, identifying GlaxoSmithKline’s greed and hunger for profit, being so great that they would willingly lie to their consumers. Watters continues to describe the competition within the pharmaceutical companies as having a “wide agreement that lucrative international markets had yet to be tapped” (515). By describing this “wide agreement,” Watters emphasizes the boundless interest companies from all over the world had expressed in dominating the new drug market in Japan, as well as in other numerous underdeveloped countries. Watters describes such markets as “lucrative,” speaking of their high potential for extreme profit, proving to be enticing for more pharmaceutical corporations. Had GlaxoSmithKline not experienced the fierce competition of the pharmaceutical market, they would not have grown into the money-hungry, morally inept company they became. This is a prime example of how experiences, such as fierce, harsh, boundless competition, undergone by the company shaped them into making the bad decisions they did. Another example of negative experiences molding an individual’s perspective can be found in the Ivy League student’s obsession with status, as a result of their culture. As Ho describes her experience at a recruitment session for elite Wall Street companies, she explains “I was struck by how proclamations of elitism seemed foundational to the very core of how investment bankers see themselves, the world, and their place in it” (175). Ho explains how essential status, titles, and reputations are to all investment bankers applying for Wall Street positions. As a result of growing up as a student in the Ivy League world, recruits have learned to define themselves solely according to their accomplishments, titles, and “proclamations of elitism.” Their definitions of self-worth according to their reputation clearly serve as an example of how the experiences of an individual, such as attendance at an Ivy League school, have a great effect on their views and beliefs, such as the importance placed on status, throughout

the rest of their life. In the case of the typical Ivy League student basing their self-worth off of their accomplishments, it is not necessarily harmful to the individual, but applying such a belief to other people who were not granted the same luxuries, such as attendance at an Ivy League school, can prove to be harmful, as they may view themselves as more worthy than other individuals. Overall, previous experiences play a defining role in an individual’s views regarding themselves and the surrounding world, consequently playing equally powerful role in the ways people’s experiences affect the world around them. Since an individual’s experiences have a great effect on their views and beliefs, the environment depends on the experiences of the individuals within the world. In Ho’s “Biographies of Hegemony,” she tells of how society has molded Ivy League and Wall Street into representing the pinnacle of elitism, explaining that “The ‘culture of smartness’ is central to understanding Wall Street’s financial agency, how investment bankers are personally and institutionally empowered to enact their worldviews, export their practices, and serve as models for far-reaching socioeconomic change” (167). Ho speaks of how the “culture of smartness”, a representation for the generic understanding of intelligence within their culture, purely defines the entire Wall Street world. The Wall Street world, as well as that of economies all over the world, have learned to recognize Ivy League recruits as “models of far-reaching socioeconomic change.” The world proves dependent on the experiences and beliefs of the individuals inhabiting it. If everyone within the corporate world did not heavily value an Ivy League degree, the degree would mean nothing. It is not the degree and individual that give value to an Ivy League degree, it is the individuals within a society that choose to buy into believing in the value behind the degree, proving the environment’s dependency on the individual. In Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel,” she tells of how the secluded, all-male school morphs the students’ views of women into being biased and objectifying. Faludi describes sexism within the Citadel by quoting another student, Michael Lake, with saying, “According to the Citadel creed of the cadet, women are objects, they’re things that you can do with whatever you want to” (85). This quote speaks of the blatant disrespect and abusive nature towards women The Citadel Academy assumes and instills within its students. Lake describes it as the “Citadel creed,” specifying that since this belief is so commonly exposed to all the students, enough so as to be referred to as a creed, it must have been adopted by quite a majority of The Citadel population. If an overwhelming majority of the students entered the institution strongly believing in complete equality for women, the sexism within The Citadel would die out. The impact the sexist views towards women within The Citadel as “objects,” or “things that you can do whatever you want to,” proves the dependency the environment has on the individuals inhabiting it. If an individual’s views did not heavily impact the environment, more women would be employed, socially accepted, and enrolled at The Citadel. Another example proving the environment’s dependency upon the experiences and beliefs of the individuals within it is found in Ethan Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan.” In the essay, Watters addresses how the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline bribed doctors and psychologists into sharing their extensive, personal knowledge and research on the differences between culture and mental illness. GlaxoSmithKline paid for luxurious conferences, with

extravagant amenities to coerce the doctors into helping GlaxoSmithKline gain an advantage on the psychological drug market in Japan. Dr. Kirmayer himself describes GalxoSmithKline’s intent with the conferences, saying “The focus was not on the medications… they were not trying to sell their drugs to us. They were interested in what we knew about how cultures shape the illness experience” (515). By defining the intent of GlaxoSmithKline as a demand for information, rather than the marketing of their newest drug, Kirmayer defines GlaxoSmithKline’s thirst for monetary success. If the company was genuinely interested in the research as a means of bettering the company and its products, they wouldn’t have felt the pressing need to buy the doctors through such special treatment. GlaxoSmithKline’s desperate attempt to buying the doctors and their knowledge serves as a prime example of how the environment is dependent upon the individuals and the experiences that have molded them as people. If GlaxoSmithKline knew that bribery was not at all a viable option towards obtaining the information they needed to be successful in the Japanese market, they would not have wasted their time. The environment inherently depends on the individuals within the collective society.

The environment surrounding an institution inevitably is dependent upon the experiences the individuals within that institution undergo. People are capable of exuding an ultimately positive, good nature, as seen through Faludi’s example of December Green, Watters’ example of Dr. Kirmayer, and the authors themselves. However, sometimes people allow themselves, as well their intentions and views, to become consumed by the experiences they undergo, as seen through the victim in Faludi’s essay, the competition GlaxoSmithKline experiences, and the attitudes adopted by the Wall Street elite and its potential recruits. These experiences consequently shape the institutional environments around these individuals resulting in The Citadel, Wall Street, and a betrayed Japanese culture.