Exhaustion from exploitation: a serious threat to humankind's survival

People curious about the current state of Australia will observe the following worrisome trends:

Currently, many psychiatrists in NSW are considering quitting their jobs because of severe burnout as a result of long work hours, high patient loads, and the emotional strain of working in an already overstretched mental health system.

An increasing number of tertiary students ignore their responsibility to become highly trained professionals, settling for the bare minimum of learning and relying on plagiarism and AI programs to write their assessments.

An increasing number of professionals are leaving Australia because of the high taxes and high cost of living, including unaffordable housing, healthcare and education. The emerging tent cities in large and small cities are visible signs of increased homelessness and a lack of social services.

An increasing number of men have given up on the idea of marriage or even dating, joining the so-called MGTOW (men go their own way) lifestyle and responding to the experiences of men affected by divorces predominantly initiated by women.

The number of people affected emotionally and financially by natural catastrophes has increased tenfold since the 1960s, with the devastating fires in Los Angeles being only one relatively recent example.

Studies show a significant increase in illnesses characterised by exhaustion as a main symptom. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called long COVID has joined chronic fatigue syndrome.

These are just six of many more examples that could be listed here.

In this paper, I argue that these seemingly unconnected scenarios share the common trait of exhaustion from the ubiquitous exploitation that most people have endured for many centuries. What may be new is the level of exhaustion that has emerged as a combination of environmental problems, socioeconomic exploitation, psychological exhaustion from social isolation, lack of access to nature, worries about the state of the world, and compulsive social media and internet use (see, for example, Lanier, 2019).

Other visible signs relating to various aspects of exhaustion and exploitation include:

Depression and the increase in people taking their own lives

• Reduced empathy
• Social withdrawal, avoidance, loneliness, and divorce
• A movement to the political right and de-democratisation
• Psychological manipulation of the masses
• Growing polarisation between the rich and the poor
• Time wasting through social media and internet-related addictions
• Stultification to the point of not understanding one's self-interest
• A perceived sense of a loss of meaning
• Alexithymia (lack of emotional intelligence)

Many current discourses and practices are used to camouflage the expression of, and the ecological and psychosocial causes of, exhaustion. Psychopharmaceutic drugs such as antidepressants, pain relievers, sedatives and prescription stimulants are used by many of us to manage acute exhaustion. At the same time, conventional medicine ensures that the causes of exhaustion remain widely hidden from the public gaze by creating illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (See Shorter, 1992). If conventional medicine were to include contemporary genetics and psychoneuroimmunology research into considerations of the causes of illness, it would also have to include conditions such as Influenza, AIDS and Tuberculosis in the list of exhaustion-related conditions (see Pollmann, 1977; Ader, Cohen & Felten, 1991; Pert, 2005; Lindley, 2010; Marshall, 2011).

The causes of exploitation also remain invisible through our current sanitised education and manipulation through the mainstream media. Books used to teach business studies still portray a world in which competent leaders share their experiences at the water cooler. This is in stark contrast to the thousands of counselling and psychotherapy clients who, day in – day out, share stories about their managers' incompetence and bullying, overwork, and lack of resources.

Interestingly, while many politicians, on behalf of the wealthy elites, still seek to increase exploitation to increase the wealth of a few, an increasing number of people have consciously or unconsciously started to limit the impact of exploitation and exhaustion by, for example, refusing to start families, working from home, engaging in 'quiet quitting', reducing their working hours, and negotiating reduced responsibilities. They also postpone or abandon the purchase of new big-ticket items, such as cars, imposing dramatic changes across many industries that will further slow production and consumption.

Viewed from an in-depth psychological perspective, it is safe to assume that the future of humankind rests on our ability to identify and act on the psychosocial and emotional factors underpinning exploitation and exhaustion and to plan our transition to a small-scale consumption society. This will not be easy, but it may be our only chance to avoid serious societal destruction. It is suggested here that this means that we may have to:

• get trustworthy and unbiased information to understand the complexities of how the world works
• reflect on how our feelings inform our beliefs and actions
• overcome the bystander effect, which is our tendency to wait for others to act
• reflect on our confirmation bias, which is our tendency to seek evidence to support our current beliefs
• overcome the default effect, our tendency to avoid change, and
• correct our optimism bias and denial of the seriousness of our predicament

(see Wallace-Wells, 2019).

As this paper is nearing completion, the USA White House has abducted the Venezuelan President and announced that it will 'run' Venezuela with the plan to get easy access to its resources. With the USA now a rogue state, it might well be that parts of the world will experience even stronger levels of exploitation and exhaustion before a more humane and sustainable mindset can take hold.

Bibliography

• Ader, R., Cohen, N.,& Felton, D.L. (Eds.) (1991). Psychoneuroimmunology. Academic Press.
• Lanier, J. (2018). Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now. Vintage – Penguin Random House
• Lindley, R. (2010). The soma. Createspace.
• Pert, C. (2005). Your body is your subconscious mind. Sounds True.
• Pollmann, W. (1977). Viren – Botschafter lebender Systeme. Piper.
• Shorter, E. (1992). From paralysis to fatigue: A history of psychosomatic illness in the modern era. The Free Press.
• Wallace-Wells, D. (2019). The uninhabitable earth: A story of the future. Penguin Random House.