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good-to-drive · 2 months

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John Lennon, Richard Nixon, and Presentism in Our Discussion of Mental Illness

So I'm reading a new book about Richard Nixon and it's got me thinking about presentism in how we discuss Richard Nixon's mental illness(es), and, because I have Beatles brainrot, it's also got me thinking about whether this same mentality could affect how we talk about John.

Both Nixon and John's lives were heavily influenced by their lifelong battles with severe, persistent mental illness, but understanding the historical context of that battle and how it was fundamentally different from what a person might experience today seems to be largely ignored.

We tend to talk about Nixon in particular as if a) he or someone around him had identified that he was exhibiting symptoms of depression, paranoid delusions, and (most likely) psychosis, b) that he or someone around him understood these conditions as so-called "no fault" illnesses that could/should be treated, and c) that this treatment would have been effective.

In other words, we still understand Nixon's mental deterioration as if it had happened today.

Now, to be clear, a LOT of people in Nixon's inner circle described behavior that they personally found unsettling, and the Pentagon had stopped taking orders from the White House by the end of Nixon's presidency because they were so disturbed by his degree of disconnection from reality. So I'm not trying to argue that his condition went unnoticed -- rather, we can reasonably say that almost no one in Nixon's inner circle believed he was "normal."

(I mean, he literally screamed at God and had conversations with portraits of former presidents. It wasn't subtle.)

But the entire conceptualization of mental disorders as legitimate illnesses that can/should be treated was nowhere near as prevalent during Watergate as it is today. Even if the people around him recognized that Nixon was "acting crazy", it's not realistic to project our own ideas about mental illness onto them and assume that they conceptualized that behavior as an illness that Nixon could not control and had not chosen, believed that it was possible to treat that illness, or even had any desire to see that illness be treated.

(Incidentally, the only significant medical intervention in response to Nixon's illness was to start dosing him with anticonvulsants, resulting in significant memory loss.)

It's less clear whether Nixon himself was aware that he was losing touch with reality (my guess is "kinda"), but even if he did have insight into his mental condition he almost definitely didn't have deep familiarity with terms like "PTSD" and "psychotic break" that might help him understand what was happening to him. We can also assume that, if he did have some inkling of what was happening to him, he likely felt an even greater sense of self-hatred and revulsion at his own condition than a person might experience today.

I know there's still a huge stigma around "bad" mental illnesses, but I also know I'm incredibly lucky to have experienced a psychotic break in 2014 and not 1974. Mental hospitals were still sometimes referred to as "snake pits" because they were so horrible, and the average person did not consider someone with severe, persistent mental illness to have any future or hope whatsoever. I'm not a doctor, much less a doctor from the 70s, so I truly don't know what the prognosis for someone like Nixon would have been. But Nixon himself most likely would have believed it was very poor.

To put this another way, Nixon’s ability to have insight into his own illness was impaired by the lack of insight in the society in which he lived, and the way he processed his own experiences would have been more heavily rooted in confusion, shame, and hopelessness. Also, the degree to which we can hold Nixon to blame for failing to manage his mental illness and pursue effective treatment definitely isn't zero, but it's certainly not on par with what you could expect of a person today.

Now I'm absolutely NOT saying any of that to give Dick a free pass for the horrible things he did and said (any more than I think we should give John a free pass). Nixon was a monster in many ways. But I'd rather understand a monster within their actual context than within an imagined one.

TL;DR I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves whether we're looking at one of the defining factors in Dick and John's lives through a distorted lens, and, if so, how that distorts our perception of them as human beings.

#before you say no one asked.... someone asked!!#to be clear I'm not a nixon expert #or anything remotely resembling a john lennon expert #this is just my limited perspective based on what I've read #I'd love to hear more opinions on this from people who know more than me #I did see a post once saying john needed to 'work on himself' that kinda cracked me up lol #like I get what they meant but... you can't exactly journal and meditate and talk therapy your way out of spmi #also... he did TRY to work on himself #I'm no doctor so I can't say if the resources truly didn't exist or he just never found them #but I think we can assume it would be harder to access the kind of intensive care he needed back in those days #and he'd be less likely to be aware of it or see it as a legitimate source of hope #john lennon #the beatles #rambles

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