A.D.D. etcetera
Do drugs which are used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (and similar conditions) bring an individual's capacity to focus to a level which the individual would have obtained if born without the "defect" in receptors, etc., or do the drugs enhance an individual's capacity to focus to an extent that we may consider said characteristic unnatural to the individual?If these drugs enhance an individual's capacity to focus to an extent that we may consider unnatural to the individual, should we be altering chemical compositions to bring individuals "up to par" with society? The "par" society creates is alterable; the US has determined that "par" is completion of schooling and the retention of a career.
To assert that individual's must be brought "up to par" is to offer support for the superficialities of our society, as "success" has come to mean that an individual performed well in academia, went on to higher education, found a career with a large income. If you disagree with my assertion that wealth = success in the US in general (there are exceptions), consider how society looks upon the high school dropout, or worse, the college graduate with a low income job.
In part, this is why I disagree with the comment from my original post, no matter how ideological I am being:
The arbitrary limit has been set; it is the ability to function in society's arenas for success: school, work, etc.
I do think the real problem is one of where does one draw the line at normal/abnormal activity. I really don't have an answer as to how to do that, though; one simply can't just set an arbitrary limit as to what constitutes abnormal. I think that what has to be done is to evaluate whether an individual can function effectively in school, work, etc., then if its deemed necessary, administer medication.
The origins of attention deficit diseases are also critical to this argument:
- Are individuals born and live until diagnosis with this condition?
- Do individuals create the condition via their lifestyle?
I feel that I have expressed my ideological stance on the first scenario in the paragraphs above. The less ideological part of me feels, that if an individual is born with one of the attention deficit conditions and wishes to receive medication, he or she should be able to receive this medication once they are well informed on medical science's evaluation of the disease at present time.
The challenge is providing minors with the responsibilities of an adult. Admittedly, this seems implausible as we are forcing children to make extreme moral decisions which an adult often times has difficulty making, and the courts (a piece of society) have displayed overwhelming faith in a parent/guardian's ability to make the right decision for their child. Nonetheless, I still question whether another individual (parent/guardian)--a member so much a part of society's of arbitrary successes and failures--is more qualified to pass moral judgments onto an uneducated minor. These drugs are critical to many children at a young age, and its not as though they will be able to make an unbiased decision once they reach adulthood on whether they should abandon something that has, in a sense, protected them for so long. The question becomes, when can you ask the individual how much they want to be a part of the game?
The second question: "Do individuals create the condition via their lifestyle?"
If television or a lack of reading at a young age attribute to attention deficit conditions, I would eagerly await the response of a proponent for medicating diagnosed individuals. To blame a young adult's inability to focus in school on a parent/guardian's inability to force that young adult to watch less television or read more often, is to take a position contrary to the society which asserts that the young adult needs medication to function in. One is saying that an individual can not function in society because the parent, who the courts (THE REPRESENTATIVE OF SOCIETY) have asserted is qualified for making decisions for the minor, was unable to make the correct choices for the minor. In essence, the individual cannot succeed in society, because society has not allowed him to succeed in the society!
What the discussion needs now is more answers from medical science. Until we can make decisions on how attention deficit conditions are to be diagnosed and treated, we must know how these conditions come about. Until we find some answers, I would suggest we proceed with caution.
posted by Michael D. @ 19:52
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