Picnics – not work – are a health outcome, say activists

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
A new campaign aims to force the government to scrap its insistence that finding a job or returning to work is an important health “outcome” for those with mental distress.

The claim that stable employment is “an important outcome for recovery for people with a mental health problem” angered members of the mental health survivor movement after it appeared in January’s NHS Long Term Plan (pdf).

Now the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) has launched a new campaign aimed at persuading the government to drop the claim from the document.

It marked the start of its campaign with a free picnic in Hyde Park yesterday (Wednesday), despite torrential rain, which it called Picnics Are A Health Outcome and which it hopes will also reinvigorate the mental health survivor community.
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https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/picnics-not-work-are-a-health-outcome-say-activists/
 
I was thinking of the various absurdities that might arise with the idea that recovery needs to imply employment.

Fifty years ago less than 50% of the population were employed. Almost everyone worked, but mostly at home or at school. It horrifies me that we have moved to a culture where it is assumed that a person should be employed.

What about the rich bosses? They are not employed. A lot of them do not even work.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
What about the rich bosses? They are not employed. A lot of them do not even work.
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Well, as you state, they are rich so therefore they are superior beings free from the same expectations and judgements that the rest of us mere mortals have to live with and by. The state of being rich is assumed to have been achieved through hard work, and anybody not rich obviously hasn't worked hard enough. Inheritances, the advantages that come from being born into even comfortably moneyed families and even just plain luck are not accepted as influencing factors.

And if you are unable to work? Then you must be convinced otherwise, because our society would rather not support you.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Fifty years ago less than 50% of the population were employed. Almost everyone worked, but mostly at home or at school. It horrifies me that we have moved to a culture where it is assumed that a person should be employed.
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I assume you mean working-age population but it's still too often ignored that taken as whole, only about 45% of the population in OECD countries is in paid employment as main occupation, accounting for the youth, students, retirees, etc. Any culture obsessed with work as the only meaningful existence essentially erases over half of its population from ever having a voice.

And 45% generally includes part-time work, full-time work is closer to 40%. Still a lot but this cult of work is very myopic no matter what. It's very reminiscent of old principles of land-owning abled adult males being the only real human beings who matter. It's often part of the framing when people speak of taxpayers as the only constituency that matters, when it's actually a minority.

Bit ironic that no matter which way such ideas go, with automation looming and about to replace a huge % of the population, especially white collar jobs, the very idea of work as a health metric will simply be absurd since there won't be enough paid employment anyway. It's very poor planning to bet on something that will change top to bottom in a few years.

On a related note: I miss working. Unfortunately the circumstances of my existence do not exist as far as this cult-of-work is concerned. So that's awkward.
 
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