GPT

GPT

Violence against nature and violence against the mentally ill share deep structural and philosophical roots, often stemming from a culture of domination, exploitation, and dehumanization. Here are a few key correlations:

1. Instrumentalization & Devaluation
   Just as nature is often seen as a resource to be extracted rather than a living system with intrinsic value, the mentally ill are frequently treated as problems to be managed rather than people with dignity and agency. Both are stripped of their subjectivity—nature becomes "raw material," and the mentally ill become "burdens."

2.  Disposability & Erasure

   Clear-cut forests and displaced wildlife mirror the neglected, institutionalized, or homeless mentally ill. Out of sight, out of mind. Whether it's the destruction of ecosystems or the warehousing of people with mental health issues, the goal is often to keep discomfort at a distance rather than address root causes. Animals in factory farms and lab cages exist unseen by the public. Society seeks to make both disappear, whether through extermination (slaughterhouses, mass culls) or through neglect, asylums, homelessness, prisons and so on.

3. Fear of the Uncontrollable
   Both nature and the mentally ill represent forces that defy rigid control. A wildfire and a psychotic episode evoke similar societal anxieties: chaos, unpredictability, and the fragility of human order. The response is often punitive—deforestation to prevent fires, incarceration to prevent "disruption." Both are denied full subjecthood—animals become "livestock," "vermin," or "pests," while the mentally ill become "lunatics," "burdens," or "threats."

4. Exploitation & Profit Motive
   Civilization thrives on extracting value from what it sees as passive objects. Factory farming, deforestation, and animal testing all prioritize economic gain over suffering. Nature is plundered for profit; similarly, the mental health industry often exploits patients, whether through overpriced medications, lucrative mental health facilities, or exploitative labor in "rehabilitative" programs.

5. Historical & Systemic Violence
   Colonization, industrialization, and war have historically brutalized both the land and those deemed "unfit" by society. From asylums to reservations to deforested landscapes, power structures have long sought to "tame" what they see as wild, dangerous, or unproductive.

6. Normalization and Moral Justifications for Harm
   Just as ecological destruction is justified in the name of "progress" or "economic necessity," violence against the mentally ill is often couched in paternalism. Just as society turns a blind eye to the suffering of factory-farmed animals or the destruction of rainforests, it also accepts the suffering of the mentally ill as inevitable or even deserved. Harm becomes background noise—something systemic, unchallenged, and woven into the fabric of everyday life.

In the end, both forms of violence stem from an unwillingness to coexist with difference. A society that sees harmony as subjugation rather than symbiosis will always attack what it fails to assimilate.