I was listening to an ADHD podcast and the expert said “unfairness” is a common “trigger” for angry emotions and disregulation. Also people with ADHD are more prone to “Oppositional Defiance Disorder” (ODD) which to me seems like such a made-up condition for people who resist authority. ADHD is commonly treated with medication.
I worry that we will gradually drug the revolutionary impulse (agitation for change) out of our population.
Here’s what worries me: All knowledge arises in the context of a system of power. In our age power is diffused throughout the system and operates in schools, hospitals, work, etc. (See Foucalt.)
When we give children medication at least one purpose is to regulate their behavior. This is pretty explicit. ADHD and ODD are defined and diagnosed by reference to certain aberrant behaviors. We talk about helping children “self-regulate” which is (again at least in part) the child internalizing her own subjugation making her her own jailer (with is how power is exercised in the modern era). “Regulation” in the form of thousands of small corrections and incentives is the norm in the modern era (as opposed to past forms of power which relied on much more brutal but less systematic punishment). For this reason Foucault says schools look like prisons and prisons look like schools. Power is less brutal but far more pervasive and omnipresent (E.g. the panopticon).
When we give children medication to modulate their behavior and emotions (even if we aren’t turning them into compliant zombies) we should be honest about what we are doing. We are contributing to the efficient regulation of the child in the system. This is not necessarily a bad motive. We want our children to be successful. Medication may very well make them happier both in the short and long term. (My unmedicated ADHD child apparently regularly cries at school so it’s not like I’m winning parenting). But again I worry we may be sacrificing revolutionary potential for better regulation—many revolutionaries did not fit very well in the system and sublimated their pain into great deeds and creations. (Leonardo likely had ADHD and was very much outside his system: gay, bastard, little traditional education, failed to follow in the family tradition of distinguished notaries. Hamilton had a similar outsider paradigm that pushed him to greatness.)
Are we denying unique (outsider) children the pain that could make them truly great?
Here’s what worries me: All knowledge arises in the context of a system of power. In our age power is diffused throughout the system and operates in schools, hospitals, work, etc. (See Foucalt.)
When we give children medication at least one purpose is to regulate their behavior. This is pretty explicit. ADHD and ODD are defined and diagnosed by reference to certain aberrant behaviors. We talk about helping children “self-regulate” which is (again at least in part) the child internalizing her own subjugation making her her own jailer (with is how power is exercised in the modern era). “Regulation” in the form of thousands of small corrections and incentives is the norm in the modern era (as opposed to past forms of power which relied on much more brutal but less systematic punishment). For this reason Foucault says schools look like prisons and prisons look like schools. Power is less brutal but far more pervasive and omnipresent (E.g. the panopticon).
When we give children medication to modulate their behavior and emotions (even if we aren’t turning them into compliant zombies) we should be honest about what we are doing. We are contributing to the efficient regulation of the child in the system. This is not necessarily a bad motive. We want our children to be successful. Medication may very well make them happier both in the short and long term. (My unmedicated ADHD child apparently regularly cries at school so it’s not like I’m winning parenting). But again I worry we may be sacrificing revolutionary potential for better regulation—many revolutionaries did not fit very well in the system and sublimated their pain into great deeds and creations. (Leonardo likely had ADHD and was very much outside his system: gay, bastard, little traditional education, failed to follow in the family tradition of distinguished notaries. Hamilton had a similar outsider paradigm that pushed him to greatness.)
Are we denying unique (outsider) children the pain that could make them truly great?
