Shooting the Messenger

Finding Solutions in Your Enemies Words

We need lemons to make lemonade. We need mosquitos for a healthy ecosystem. We need tensions to have change. Just after the election, I was telling some of my friends about a new book I had just started: What if We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Johnson. I said something along the lines of, “I’ll let you guys know what it says…” when one of my friends (left-leaning) remarked, “oh, it says that we’re fucked!” …as though I wasn’t just describing a book published this year on believing in the possibility of a better climate future. Now, my previous substack Is the World Ending? Who Cares? is most appropriate to recall in this exchange. But this brief remark got me thinking about messages and messengers. I had a good rapport, previous political agreement, and proximity on my side with this person, and I didn’t even get a chance to lay out the evidence. What about the good evidence, opportunities, and messages lost because of the messenger? 

There’s a saying that “there’s a lot of talent trapped in poverty,” and I believe there are a lot of good ideas trapped in ugly circumstances. I have known for a while now that I had a place of privilege to speak about certain social issues because of my credentials, whether those be in identity, experience, status, or formal education and training. However, my sphere of influence was always limited to who would listen. I used to pride myself in being able to plant seeds in even unlikely collaborator’s minds. Now, I find myself desperately grasping for the ears of people who should have been easiest to reach because they are similar to me. I don’t believe that people don’t want to listen anymore because I’ve seen the incredible cohesion across subgroups based on a singular TikTok video - a quarter of a million people can all be on the same page in less than three minutes. 

Unfortunately for me, shortly after that smack-in-the-face of a conversation about climate change - I saw a TikTok video about a new political headline: “RFK SAYS HE’LL SEND PEOPLE TAKING ADDERALL TO LABOR CAMPS: HE’S CALLING IT A “WELLNESS FARM.” It grabbed my attention for a different reason than most viewers - this is in my professional area of mental health. Also, more similar to other readers, when I hear labor camps, I pay attention. So, what do we, as a general public, pay attention to?
 

Like the formal United States court system, the court of public opinion does not encourage truth but a different concept of justice based on the most sellable narrative and vehicle for that story. With any controversial debate 30 seconds and a few clicks away, every citizen is a member of the brigade of “convince me,” with their opinion a seemingly high-value commodity that every influencer, company, Kickstarter, or friend is vying for at any given moment. This makes us feel special. Our votes, thoughts, and purchases matter; we have to be selective about them. Unlike in decades prior, it has become a competition of who can create the most sellable narrative and who can do it quickly enough to keep the audience’s attention. 

Psychologically, garnering support is a lot like retail marketing - an exercise in empathy and mirroring. It is the reason the Twilight books were so wildly, disgustingly successful; they use the young adult romance formula very effectively. It gave every potential reader a completely blank slate for a main character so they could project themselves into the narrative. Bella is a vaguely described yet highly attractive and celebrated main character in the books. This is so you can live out your fantasies in true, sparkling vampire fashion - no matter what your social standing or physical attractiveness. One-size-fits-all increases your sellability from a specific size to everyone willing to take the chance. 

Yet, we have would-be-besmirched “expert” names like Van Der Kolk with his best-selling novel (141 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list), a reimagining of his original, debunked, theory of repressed memory The Body Keeps Score. Now, I’m not asking you to inherently believe me that the repressed memory research was a crock - I just want us to agree that the story of the body keeping score is sellable - 141 weeks of sellable material, apparently. You could pick one of many options: Dr. Oz, Malcolm Gladwell, Lance Armstrong, Ellen DeGeneres, or even Barack Obama. These giant names carry a positive ring in our public despite some shadowy weights against their name in their fields.

There are endless many examples of the political utility of discrediting a message or messenger. Stockholm syndrome, still widely referenced today despite not being a formal diagnosis, was cemented in our language when it was used to discredit a woman with hostage experience who was critical of police. The Sheriff of New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina used language like “crackheads” and “cowards” to discredit testimony from inmates that spoke out about their experiences being left to die in the floodwaters. Psychosis diagnoses have been used to discredit Black Protestors during the civil rights movement and beyond. A sweet-tooth and coined “Twinkie defense” used by a defense attorney and in paid “expert” testimony to discredit intentionality and downplay the assassination of the first openly gay public official in California. If you can’t tip the scales in your favor, you can dirty up the other side or dress yours up. Some people get lucky, some scandals get missed, and some PR teams work night and day to land their clients on the right side of that toss-up. History is written by the victors.

Sometimes, we get it wrong as individuals, and sometimes, we don’t let go of the stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes, you’re an almost-80-year-woman who spills some coffee in your lap in a drive-thru and gets her muscle tissue burnt off. When you try to pay your medical bills and stop others from the same fate, you get a settlement offer of $800 slandered by the entire world because McDonald’s was serving molten lava to everyone because they could.

What does this have to do with the clickbait I stumbled upon one lazy afternoon? I was slammed immediately into a wall of comments outcrying that people with ADHD could never do labor, and I dug under that wall to find an article with…mixed statements. Now, if you’ve read a couple of my articles, you may already know how I feel about the idea that people with mental health or behavioral issues are completely stuck in their misery (with or without medication.) I’m not even here to critique the state of journalism - I could not be writing this article without some shred of faith in the craft.

Let’s talk messengers. In our current time, unless you have dedicated sources, anything published is fair game. This article begins with calls of “labor camps?!” So, what was actually discussed? The direct quotes, further down, are that he offers that: 

“I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities…"

it continues,

"I’m going to dedicate that revenue to creating wellness farms — drug rehabilitation farms, in rural areas all over this country," he said during the podcast. "I’m going to make it so people can go, if you’re convicted of a drug offense, or if you have a drug problem, you can go to one of these places for free.”

Now, I’m not sure about you, but free drug diversion and recovery options for those who want it don’t sound quite like any of the atrocities under the umbrella of labor camps that I know of.

Around these quotes, though, the article goes on to talk about Robert F. Kennedy’s batshit views and how he is a “longtime peddler of disproven health beliefs,” which I find personally ironic from an article that, shortly after that, states that antidepressants are clinically proven. Now, let’s give them some credit; they were sneaky, they said ALONG WITH THERAPY and FOR SOME DEPRESSED FOLKS. This is fair given that rigorous research suggests that combined treatment may be most appropriate despite a “significant proportion of [people] with depression receive psychotropic medication without psychotherapy.” That’s some level of truth.

Now, I do not disagree that RFK has pushed inaccurate claims like that vaccines cause autism, which is patently untrue. I’m honestly upset that I am writing anything that could ever be possibly construed as support for someone who has pushed that claim. However, through my many personal and professional lives, I have noticed that “lifestyle management” is a much less sellable story than medication.

I would agree that, for many people, RFK is just about the worst possible messenger for this idea. However, these authors want us to ignore their shortsightedness with evidence because we’re so mad at RFK’s social rap sheet that we forgive them for citing one research study from 2002 and the NHS briefing page on antidepressant usage for their evidence. It’s not like there’s any more recent evidence contrary to their point– oh wait. Well…it’s not like the NHS page itself acknowledges any limits! What’s this..? "Antidepressants are not always recommended for treating mild depression because research has found limited effectiveness.” Suddenly, it seems that we have two people in the spotlight of sharing skewed or incorrect information. 

Caveats like these on antidepressants likely come after the most popularly cited study of antidepressants (STAR*D) has come under fire as a “scientific scandal” and the journalism that supports its perpetuation. Meanwhile, less sellable narratives go unheard. There is a good bundle of research demonstrating that exercise can be an effective treatment for depression comparable to therapy or medication. It may not be a singular solution, especially considering ability level and personal factors, but it isn’t worth writing off so immediately.

Well, RFK specifically mentioned gardening, which would be ridiculous. We’re trying to improve mental health and wellbeing here. Except it isn’t ridiculous; multiple meta-analyses suggest that gardening might work a little. What is ridiculous, in many minds - but still researched and published, is the data on St. John’s wort compared to SSRIs that suggests SJW may be comparable in reducing depression symptomology with less negative effects than SSRIs. Additionally, non-medication-based treatments of ADHD are not as farfetched as you may think, even if there are positive outcomes of ADHD medications. It turns out there are a lot of questions and possible answers out there, depending on who you ask.

Now, I am not here to discuss the potential harms of the medical model and how that has affected our culture’s relationship with beliefs about getting better. That you can read here instead. I’m not here to defend RFK or slander the author of that article. I’m here to tell you about messengers. I was immediately struck, reading this article, that if any left-leaning political influencer, activist, or public figure were arguing for free drug diversion, community, and skill building, they would be revered. Especially given that prosecutor-led diversion programming is considered a promising option in the progressive decarceration effort in the United States.

So, the messenger matters. It was easy to discredit this narrative despite any potential for goodness. I am not here to tell you what to believe or that any research is definitive. I’m here to tell you that your voice and your opinion are valuable, so it’s important to be discerning with them. I watched thousands of people loudly and confidently slam the door on an idea that believed in a better world for the people they care about. Will it even happen? Probably not. If it did, would it solve everything? No, there is no singular solution - whether you believe that solution is medication, sustainable farming, or a universal basic outcome. These things could help, and that’s why we dream about them, push for them, and believe in them.

That book that I mentioned, What if We Get it Right? does say that things are pretty fucked in the climate change department - my friend wasn’t wrong about that. However, I didn’t get a chance to tell her that it also talks about how important it is to allow ourselves to imagine a future - a future where we are safe and still pursuing dreams - or else that future won’t ever happen. The author talks about the fact that there is no immediate climate death apocalypse - we have to live in the future, and there are people who will still be falling in love, having family feuds, and being people there. She says that our work, individually, falls in the intersection of 1) what you’re good at, 2) what brings you joy, and 3) what work needs to be done. Everyone’s lane is going to look a bit different, but will we ever leave the starting point if nothing is perfect enough to try?

We are creative, resilient people. There’s a lot of talent trapped in poverty - we have to dream it out. We have to believe in creative solutions, and sometimes, we have to collaborate with people we hate to get things done. Opportunities for the goals you want may not always come in the perfect shape - but we need hope in it all. We need hope that questions every closed door or opens its own window. This isn’t about a single article, this isn’t about any person, this is about where we put our faith. We can put it into something new, scary, or imagined, or we can be certain that we’ve failed. You can have ridiculous ideas, too; we’ll never know what works until we’re there.

Normally, I leave you with practice. It is controversial to discuss whether or not we’re willing to work with people we disagree with, but I find that I am disagreeable, and I would have no one left to work with. Perhaps this article is an exercise in itself. I leave you simply with some questions to ask yourself.

QUESTIONS:

1. Try to remember a time that you had the power to shut down an idea someone else brought to you. Now that the stakes of that idea are gone, in a different time, what did that idea have to offer? Was there anything you could have missed in it? Could it have been salvaged? 

2. How do you evaluate ideas separately from your feelings about the messenger?

3. Think of a time when you pushed through conflict or disagreement and managed a positive change or creative solution? Perhaps with a coworker you dislike. What did you do that helped turn the tension into an opportunity? 

4. If you had to collaborate with someone whose values differ greatly from yours, what shared goals or common ground could you focus on to make the partnership productive?

5. Are there any ideas, projects, or changes you've hesitated to pursue because they didn’t seem “perfect enough”? What small steps could you take toward starting anyway?

6. How do you decide where to put your energy and hope? Has a fear of failure or imperfection ever held you back from trying something new?

7. How much do you need to get started on something that matters to you? 

These questions offer only another opportunity - to think, to create, to find what growth means to you. Not radical, just refreshed.