Jan 16 2011
∞
“ There are different degrees of coercion. While involuntary commitment is the most extreme and horrendous of coercive practices, it isn’t the only one. Telling someone that they must receive a psych evaluation (or ‘treatment’ or whatever) in order to stay in college, as appears to have happened to Loughner, is also a form of coercion, and one which we should work to avoid, not promote. It doesn’t even seem to be particularly effective. In Loughner’s case, for instance, I think it’s more likely that his expulsion from community college (because of his refusal to submit to a psych evaluation) did more to further alienate him and heighten his resentments than anything else. But that’s not the primary reason why we need to be careful to not coerce people into treatment. The primary reason is the right to privacy and choice—progressive/feminist values which apparently don’t exist for neuro-atypical people. But they need to.
— The Conversations We Should (and Shouldn’t) Be Having, at Cat in a Dog’s World. A thoughtful response to the common call for more surveillance and more institutionalized response in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Well worth reading in its entirety.
