So the Foreign Office is exporting our mental health model to Venezuela. Panic attacks and fractures in Caracas now meet CBT and mindfulness. How terribly, terribly modern.
One can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from Whitehall: another problem solved by a leaflet and a breathing exercise. Never mind that the country is tearing itself apart with hyperinflation, political violence, and mass emigration. Never mind that the very concept of 'mental health' as a discrete, treatable condition is a luxury of stable societies.
We are, after all, the nation that gave the world the Industrial Revolution and the NHS. Now we gift our therapeutic wisdom to a collapsing petro-state. The irony is almost too rich.
It is the Fall of Rome all over again: the empire at its twilight, peddling philosophy to barbarians while the walls crumble. But let us not be too harsh. Perhaps this is merely the logical endpoint of a century of therapeutic culture.
We have medicalised sadness, pathologised poverty, and now we export the cure before the disease has even been diagnosed. The Venezuelans will learn to reframe their catastrophic thinking. They will learn to live in the moment.
The moment, of course, being the moment their savings evaporate and their loved ones flee. I am reminded of the Victorian era, when we exported temperance to the colonies while gin soaked the streets of London. It is a grand tradition: solve your own problems by telling others to sort out theirs.
But then, what else can we do? The Venezuelan crisis is a monster of our own making, a creature of oil addiction and failed intervention. Better to offer a bandage than admit we helped sharpen the knife.
So let us send our therapists and our leaflets. Let us teach them to breathe. And when the next coup comes, when the next food riot erupts, we can pat ourselves on the back and say: at least they are breathing properly.
Meanwhile, back in Blighty, our own mental health epidemic rages on, fuelled by austerity and loneliness. But that is a different matter. That is a problem for another leaflet.
For now, let us bask in the righteous glow of export. Caracas may be in flames, but its citizens are learning to manage their panic. What a triumph.
What a civilisation.
