Every time I see one of those homeless people holding a sign at a busy street corner, I think about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Or is it 1984? Either way, both novels have to do with individual freedom. Both also have to do with what it takes for a person to fit in society.
Cuckoo’s Nest, both the book and the movie, resonated with Baby Boomers who felt a connection to personal freedom and sanity. The story is set in a mental institution in the early ’60s when along comes a criminal patient with the sardonic charm of an untamed animal. Jack Nicholson plays the role and won the Oscar, probably for his portrayal of receiving electric shock therapy—a minute or so of tortured convulsions, every second believable and painful to watch.
The satirical novel by Ken Kesey asks us: Who is really crazy? What is crazy? Aren’t we all a bit crazy? The story propelled a movement to change the courts and psychiatric care by not locking up everyone who simply doesn’t fit in with society. Individualized and more humanistic therapies evolved in hospitals nationwide which allowed for triaging levels of psychiatric need and care. Also, instead of leaving psych patients to vegetate, residents were encouraged to leave the premises for activities like swimming, biking, shopping and visiting movies, restaurants, amusement parks and museums. If treatment works, which may include medication along with psychotherapy, individuals with diagnosed mental illness can hold jobs and careers and live in group homes or on their own. The changes made for better healthcare so people who struggle with mental illness are able to live in society.
Loony Tune
From a sociological viewpoint, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest leaves a lingering impression because of the theme: a conflict between the rulers and the unruly—the rulers being doctors, nurses, teachers, police, judges, parents, all authority figures; the unruly being the weak and the misfits. Nice, polite, orderly, really meaning no harm, the rulers expect everybody to follow, obey, and believe in society’s rules. Then someone like Nicholson’s anti-social R.P. McMurphy is sent inside a white sterile mental hospital where he sees pathetic patients never getting better. Even the sedate quasi classical music sounds warped played from old albums. The entire situation was crazy to McMurphy’s way of thinking. He couldn’t help but shake it up, to the quiet discontent of calm and stern Nurse Ratched.
In the late ’60s, societal conflict was similar as the young counterculture bravely said no to the Man. Youth longed to feel total freedom, allowed to make their own mistakes and choices and live life on their own terms. Rules be damned. It happens every few generations: the younger finally unwilling to follow the older way of life. It’s a natural societal progression. But it always begins with painful arguments: the mature empowered yet disrespected; youth suppressed and rebellious.
Finally McMurphy has had it with all the rules and no fun micro managed by the dreaded Nurse Ratched. But she has the ultimate power to force his obedience. He’ll never trouble her again. Still all the men in the ward are influenced by McMurphy’s lust for life, rebellious spirit, fighting rules and institutions—which for most patients should be a temporary stay. The most important lesson he imparts to the mental patients is: You’re no crazier than anybody else out there. One of McMurphy’s disciples escapes the institution, busting out by sheer force and will, running across the manicured lawn, following his heart into the woods. Because his character is Native American, his escape to freedom is musically enhanced by the sounds of a simple drum beat representing the heart, rattles for moving bones, and a strange flute melody personifying his unique spiritual path.
CrAzY
So back to the street people. How do we explain our nation’s growing homeless population and the problem of chronic homelessness? It’s got to be caused by more than unemployment or jobs replaced by robotics, low skills or intelligence, drug addiction or veterans returning from war. The problem has got to be mostly about spiraling mental illness … and families who cannot deal with a relative amidst any or all of the above. Families used to feel they didn’t have to. Mental illness was society’s problem because although the majority of the mentally ill are not dangerous, there are people with homicidal and/or suicidal tendencies. It’s tragic—a huge cosmic joke.
In the early 1980s as federal budget cuts included mental facilities, funding was shifted from large institutions to community hospitals and psych wards. The feds expected states and cities to continue paying for such care and mental health maintenance locally. Those in charge also were persuaded by pharmaceutical advancements that helped many patients with everything from depression to paranoid schizophrenia. Somehow when neo mental health philosophy met the tax buck and many institutions were closed, mental patients literally were given a one-way ticket to various American cities, perhaps where they had family, and forced to figure out how to cope.
Legislators assumed the issue of mental illness was and should remain a private matter and family affair. They did not realize the stress of modern American life: folks too busy earning a living; too tired working two or more jobs; raising kids and teens; dealing with their own issues of finances, divorce, health, depression and anxiety. The last thing the average adult can handle is a ‘crazy’ relative, even blood kin. Caring for a mentally ill loved one may very well require a degree in psychology. It’s that difficult of a problem, complicated, and extremely serious, sometimes a matter of life or death.
The homeless population is increasing throughout the U.S. Street people in Dallas increased more than 20 percent in the past year. And wasn’t Dallas a city that enacted a law to fine citizens who give to beggars, especially those standing at busy highway intersections? Take a good look at the homeless, who stand everywhere to be seen and ask for help. They are severely ill body, mind and spirit. They are not crazy-as-a-fox just because they pick the busiest intersections to hold signs promoting their plight and financial need. A couple of bucks from strangers will not solve their problems, often exacerbated by addiction.
It appears homelessness, for whatever the reasons, can’t be fixed and has become acceptable. Maybe homelessness remains by the powers that be as a fearful reminder to the rest of us who look away in disgust or thoughtfully refrain, “There but by the grace of God go I.” Freedom requires people be healthy inside and out while maintaining a positive, optimistic outlook. But not everyone is born to handle total freedom that comes with making a life in America. Ironically, in the technologically efficient state-controlled society of 1984, the homeless, though shunned and neglected, are the ones who live freely.