What happens when performative commitment and surface-level “meaning” take over professions tied to work and mental health?
It produces people who present themselves as guardians of the “common good,”
while filtering everything through their own comfort.
Journalists who won’t take risks.
Who don’t investigate.
Who must remain acceptable.
The status quo stays untouched.
Especially if no one else has validated the critique beforehand.
“Experts” who protect their jobs before they protect real people.
Helpers who explain that, in the face of distress, the best thing to do is often… just listen.
And you applaud.
Because it’s “for your mental health.”
Do you realize what you’re applauding, while at the same time struggling yourself?
You’re applauding immobility.
You’re applauding inaction.
In a 1962 speech, John F. Kennedy said something crucial about technology, including nuclear technology:
it has no conscience of its own.
Everything depends on what we choose to do with it.
So the real question is this:
what are we doing with “mental health” when it becomes nothing more than a communication strategy?
I asked myself a disturbing question:
since 1945, has occupational health caused more deaths than nuclear weapons used in war?
Today, the International Labour Organization estimates around 2.93 million deaths per year worldwide
due to work-related accidents and diseases.
Per year.
Per year.
Per year.
By comparison, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands.
So who is actually doing something concrete with this reality?
Most of the time, we remain stuck in a conformism of continuity:
nothing changes, but everything gets talked about.
No matter the setting:
after-school pickup, teachers’ lounges, break rooms, support groups, talk shows
(and sometimes even government cabinets).
“Oh yeah, things are really bad.”
“Yes, the numbers are getting worse. Something has to change.”
We’ll talk about it. Everywhere.
We’ll propose endless band-aid solutions.
And if next year is even worse,
we’ll organize another scandal, another awareness day, another summit.
And then we’ll start all over again.
Meanwhile, performative commitment runs at full speed.
It reassures the right roles and the right statuses.
It leaves systems untouched.
And it leaves the damage to those who live with it.
Coluche once said something like:
“If people stop buying it, they’ll stop selling it.”
So let me put it this way:
Stop applauding inaction, soft consensus, and reheated solutions.
They might finally stop serving them to you.
