Live Life to the Fullest...Right??

I have heard my grandparents quote “live life to the fullest” many times.  My interpretation of death came from this expression because they told me that life is too short and that I should enjoy what life has to offer.  The context of this expression has changed my overall understanding now because science and technology continues to enhance and be able to prolong life and put death on hold.  I can literally live life to the extent compared to decades ago as new interventions of death as science and technology continues to advance and defer death.  Although it may not be available to everyone, but the mere fact that life can prolong more than what you “normally” could live for, sparks many controversies of how we see our bodies as such.  But what happens when the elderly are in need when their dying?  If your grandparent needed an organ, would you be willing to give up your own organ to help save your grandparent’s life?  I want to focus more on present matters and illustrate ethics towards the elderly and how organ transplantation among the elderly has increased in the past two decades.

In “Aged Bodies and Kinship Matters: The Ethical Field of Kidney Transplant” Sharon Kaufman et al describe how the range of kidney donations has increased especially among the old which opens up new dimensions of intergenerational relationship and medical responsibility.  In framing the ethics of care, she mentions three features: (1) false appearance of medicine that now provides for patients and families regarding whether and when to employ life-extending procedures and whether and when to stop them are not really choices at all, (2) the availability of interventions (3) the nature of caregiving which are tied to acts to either extend life in advanced age or allow “letting go” (82-83).   This article poses many questions about kinship and family relationships.  For example, would a grandchild give up their own kidney to save and extend the life of their grandparent?  Is this a form of altruism?  Kaufman illustrates how in some families, “a recipient feels like their obligated to live for their families, and donors feel duty bound to allow their parents (or older relative or friend) to continue living—and facilitate that continued life” (85).  This reality positions an individual “to simply ‘give back’ to a parent or other relative for all that he or she has done for them” (85).  Is this a sacrifice that one must make because they feel obligated to give back to their elders?  Overall, this article exposes this challenging issue of whether or not a family member is willing to sacrifice their body for the elderly.  This article illustrates the struggle of making rationale decisions about who should live.

Even if this form of act of giving back to your family is the standard moral in families, how do you get around this rational choice of language? 

In “The Last Commodity: Post-Human Ethics and the Global Traffic in “Fresh” Organs” by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, she describes how “rational choice of language conflicts between nonmalfeasance (do no harm) and beneficence (the moral duty to perform good acts) is increasingly resolves in favor of the libertarian and consumer-oriented principle that those able to broker or buy a human organ should not be prevented from that can benefit both parties” (157).  Meaning, we live in a capitalistic society where there shouldn’t be an issue of selling your organ to someone in need of one because it benefits both sides.  The person will be profited off of what they sell and the other will gain a new organ.  It’s a win-win situation right?  Realistically, there is an issue of selling your organs because it conflicts with personal morals and values.  Our bodies are a commodity and if we continue to portray this act then it will re-shape our definition of death as becoming a voluntary act. 

Both articles mention how the body is a gift.  “The body and its parts remain inalienable from the self because…the body provides the grounds of certainty for saying that one has a self and an existence at all” (Kaufman 163-164).  In other words, we all have a choice of how we use our bodies as a means to self-gratification.  However, our ideologies can conflict when we finally make definite decisions.  I think there is no other way of getting around this rational choice of language with organ donation because in society we have established so many definite rules about our bodies that there is a hierarchy in the practice of medicine of what can be offered to specific patients.  There are also insurance companies that have the power and control over specific patients.  Overall, there is a struggle to decision-making because there are many ideologies that challenge provincialism.  Especially in America, where our society is very diverse, we cannot establish a narrower way of life.  Therefore, the job of a medical anthropologist needs to increase the awareness of inequity within the medicine world.

Article: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/views-and-analysis/07/29/08/burden-kidney-disease-philippines

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After reading these articles, I think it was really interesting relating this issue of organ transplanting with my culture.  I am Filipino and kidney disease is not a stranger in our culture and in my family.  According Romina Angangco Dañguilan article, “The burden of Kidney Disease in the Philippines” describes how kidney failure has affected many lives especially families who are burdened to helping and treating the individual.  This article relates to major themes mentioned in the Kaufman and Scheper-Hughes articles such as family kinship and ethics of care.  I think providing organ transplantation for the elderly gives them a second chance in life.  But, its very difficult to ask someone of younger age to be willing to give up an organ to their elders.  As also mentioned briefly in class, the Philippines is one of the cheapest countries to buy a kidney.  Thus, this poses many controvserial issues about the Black market.  Lastly, all three articles pose the framework about individual responsibility to ourselves and society.  Should we sacrifice our own body to save another?



References:

Dañguilan, Romina Angangco. "The Burden of Kidney Disease in the Philippines." ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. <http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/views-and-analysis/07/29/08/burden-kidney-disease-philippines>.

Kaufman,  Sharon R., Ann J. Russ, and Janet K. Shim. 2006. “Aged Bodies and Kinship Matters: The Ethical Field of Kidney Transplant.” American Ethnologist 33(1): 81-99.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy.  2005. “The Last Commodity: Post-Human Ethics and the Global Traffic in ‘Fresh’ Organs.” Pp. 145-167.  In Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

What does death really mean?

How do you constitute someone is dead?  How does culture apply to “brain-dead” patients? 

In reference to my anthropology class of comparative study of death, Dr. McCoy defines death as something that begins with a process and ends with a state.  Whereas, being dead is a state or condition that the person or body is in and an end of the process of dying.  The concept of death is a condition that most people want to avoid or is a taboo in some cultures to talk about.  In American society, death is increasingly medicalized and powerful.  “Deferring death becomes more important than attending to the soul or preparation for the afterlife or the next life…it becomes more important even than a patient’s inability to do any of these tasks” (Krakauer 390). 

Margaret Lock’s article explores the concept of living cadavers and how “being dead” is translated in hospital settings in America and Japan.  In “Living Cadavers and the Calculation of Death,” Lock focuses her article in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).  This is one of the major areas of a hospital where decisions are very controversial about “pulling the plug” especially with patients who are categorized as “brain-dead”.  Patients in ICU are provided with secondary care materials such as breath ventilators and tube feeds. 

In a majority of cases, cultural factors such as religious beliefs, the media, and the law are deeply implicated in clinical situations.  Defining what “dead” really is very controversial cross-culturally.  In the U.S, Japan and in other countries, there continues to be no “consensus about the recognition of brain death as the end of human life” (Lock 138).  One influential journalist in Japan, Tachibana Takeshi, argues that brain-dead is not living because “it goes against basic human feelings’ to assume that a warm body is dead, and asserts, in common with many other commentators, that the average Japanese family could not in good conscience abandon a dying relative to a transplant team” (Lock 149).  Lock concludes that a brain-dead body differs in Japan and North America.  “In North America, a brain dead body is biologically alive…but not a person, whereas in Japan, [it] is both living and remains a person, at least for several days after the brain death has been diagnosed” (Lock 150). 

Is there a universal definition of death?  Does having a loss of consciousness mean you’re dead?  Or not breathing on your own constitute a person is dead?  Cartesian dualism continues to factor into the subject of death as a physical versus mental state.   

According to Eric L. Krakauer’s article “To Be Freed from the Infirmity of (the) Age,” he discuses the privileged position of medical technology in Descartes’ work and explain the danger of the Cartesian quest to technologically master death.  As previously stated in articles we’ve read, the body is like a machine.  When our body wears out or breaks down, medicine is there to repair or replace any damages which can free us from “the infirmity of age.”  For many years, medicine has existed to defer death.  The danger of medicine is how it has depended on technology so much that is has shaped the way we think.  When we view illnesses and diseases, we rely more on objective thinking rather than subjective.  His term “mastering objectification” emphasizes how technology has helped to address the infirmity, suffering, and death; thus, individuals attempt to master death.  In hospitals, equipment such as ventilators and tube feeding help those who are by definition “brain-dead” or in between life and dead.  As a result, we have medicalized death by making it into a medical-technological problem that requires primarily medical intervention (Krakauer 388).  Krakauer’s article reflects how the means of health and happiness involves being technologically sustained.  He further mentions how palliative medicine is a form of medical discipline that helps reduces the severity of a disease.  “[Palliative medicine] recognizes the important of trying to clarify a diagnosis and to master a symptom or disease.  But it also recognizes that all such clarification risks obscuring the singular suffering of the other and that all such mastery risks forgetting the ultimate unmasterability of death” (Krakauer 392).  Moreover, biomedical ethics play a crucial role for individual patients and hospital.  Their code for constituting what death is based on these the machines, displays an example of how technology determines our way of thinking.

Karen Ann Quinlan (March 29, 1954 – June 11, 1985)

One well-known case that involved questioning the practice of medicine and an individual’s morals was the controversial debate of Karen Ann Quinlan.  At age twenty-one, she suffered from a cardiopulmonary arrest due to an over-consumption of drugs and alcohol.  For several months, she lapsed into a persistent vegetative state (PVS) where her condition was believed to be irreversible.  She was kept alive on a ventilator for several months.  

Her parents, both devout Catholics, requested that the hospital discontinue active care and allow “nature” to take its course.  The parents request was refused by the hospital because her condition did not meet the criteria for brain death.  Eventually, subsequent battles made headline news and the court ruled in the parents’ favor by removing the ventilator.  For almost a decade, she surprised many by continuing to breathe unaided until her death from pneumonia in 1985.  Was this homicide?  In the end, the court concluded that her death was due to natural causes.  Her case continues to raise significant questions about religious beliefs, medical ethics, legal guardianship, and civil rights.

A majority of situations like the Quinlan case involves this dilemma of medicine versus morals.  Both of these articles reflect how code of ethics, culture, religious beliefs, the law, and other social factors may interfere with patients who are dying.  They closely examine how people are pooled to different sides that involve the criteria for death.  Does death mean that a person loses permanent and irreversible function in the heart and lungs?  Or is it when the brain loses cognitive functions?  Both of these criteria are involved with what constitutes someone dead.

Works cited

Krakauer, Eric L. 2007. “To Be Freed from the Infirmity of (the) Age”: Subjectivity, Life-Sustaining Treatment, and Palliative Medicine.” In Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations. Joao Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp 381-397.

Lock, Margaret. 2004. “Living Cadavers and the Calculation of Death.” Body and Society 10(2-3): 135-152.

Dr. Rene McCoy Lecture notes January 5, 2011

Website: http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/582/Court-End-Life-RIGHT-PRIVACY-KAREN-ANN-QUINLAN.html

Images:

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Enhancing Your Image

This week’s article made me question about people’s decisions towards pills to “enhance” their mental and physical ability to fulfill their “desires”.  Should we accept and provide neuroenhancers to everyone that lacks ability to control themselves and work hard?  Do drugs help restore an individual’s personal concern in life?  How should we treat individuals with different desires?  According to “Neurochemical Selves” by Nikolas Rose, the author suggests that we have become “neurochemical selves” because we have inhabited a deep interior of psychological space.  Our thoughts, emotions, and behavior, are all mapped onto our brains.  Thus, our neurons determine our actions and state of being.  If our neurons function at a weak state then possibly the influence of drugs would help support its functionality.  “Becoming neurochemical selves, these drugs promise to help the individual him or herself, in alliance with the doctor and the molecule, to discover the intervention that will address precisely a specific molecular anomaly at the root of something that personally troubles the individual concerned and disrupts his or her life, in order to restore the self to its life, and itself, again” (Rose 211).  Nowadays, a simple “quick fix” to a problem with our bodies is something that everyone wants because it’s so simple and has a faster response to enhancing our bodies.

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One common type of neuroenhancers that is becoming more prevalent on school campuses is Adderall, a stimulant composed of missed amphetamine salts, commonly prescribed for children and adults who have been given a diagnosis of ADHD.   In “Brain Gain,” by Margaret Talbot, the author makes a good point that our society is becoming “even more worked and driven by technology than we already are, and where we have to take drugs to keep up; a society where we give children academic steroids along with their daily vitamins” (Talbot 9).  The idea that some people need to take neuroenhancers to keep up with their busy lives expands a greater range of inequality, making it even more challenging to those who are socially and economically strained compared to the rich.  According to Greg Crapanzano he argued that neuroenhancers “create an unfair advantage for the users who are willing to break the law in order to gain an edge.  These students create work that is dependent on the use of a pill rather than their own work ethic” (Talbot 8).  It’s like individuals as such are not aware or could care less about the consequences of taking drugs such as Adderall.  People may resort to drugs for the wrong reasons, but who is to blame these pharmaceutical companies selling and profiting off of these drugs?  These companies earn a lot of money because people do believe that these drugs can help proclaim their self-image, in which some cases it does.

On the other hand, these articles illustrate how the body is perceived and represented.  In the Lock and Scheper-Hughes article, we’ve discussed how conceptions of a “healthy body” are “emphasized on how individuals balance themselves in the natural world” (12).  We are challenged to balance between this Cartesian dualism of the mind versus the body, mental versus physical, subjectivity versus objectivity, culture versus nature, or individual versus society.  But to keep in mind, “In the field of health, the active and responsible citizen must engage in a constant monitoring of health, a constant work of modulation, adjustment, improvement in response to the changing requirements of the practices of his or her mode of everyday life” (last page of Neurochemical selves).  Therefore, from what we have read in most of our readings, it is the individual’s choice and their own responsibility to decide their own lives. 

By taking ourselves out of the equation and understanding how institutions regulate our behaviors can provide a better understanding of why students may choose to take neuroenhancing drugs like Adderall.  There are social pressures of succeeding in school.  No matter what class you’re in, the grade you receive determines how the school may categorize you as either “outstanding” or “needs improvement” category.  Thus, how are we suppose to treat or accommodate individual’s with different needs?

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According to Martha Minow, a Law Professor at Harvard Law School and author of “The Dilemma of Difference,” she describes how children scarred by nonrecognition or implicit rejection can fail to acknowledge their difference.  Students with disabilities or language barrier are labeled “different” and must be separated to accommodate to their needs to succeed in school.  In addition to, this essay discusses about how society assigns individuals into categories.  It reflects how individuals are different by gender, age, race, disabilities, religion, etc.  This essay explains the dilemma of difference as a main aspect of individuals being categorized, stigmatized, stereotyped, or discriminated because they are different from the norm and therefore have to be accommodated.  Minow explains the dilemma of difference in question format: "…when does treating people differently emphasize their differences and stigmatize or hinder them on that basis? And when does treating people the same become insensitive to their difference and likely to stigmatize or hinder them on that basis?" (Minow 20).  I want to relate this essay in association to the readings this week because it highlights how people can be labeled or categorized either on one end of a spectrum or the other.  It never is a blend of in between because by enforcing distinct categories about an individual’s personality can ultimately hinder an individual's confidence to succeed in society.  Therefore, society has to provide specific accommodations to different people’s needs or desires.     

In conclusion, we shouldn’t judge someone because they act/behavior differently.  I think it is an individual’s responsibility to understand another person by being in their shoes or experience what they are going through because it can broaden their knowledge and understanding to this dilemma of difference. 

References:

Minow, Martha. “The Dilemma of Difference.” Academic Discourse: Readings for Argument and Analysis, Second Edition. Ed. Gail Stygall. Orlando: Harcourt, 2000. 519-555.

Rose, Nikolas. 2007.  Neurochemical Selves, IN The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century.  Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp 187-223.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Margaret M. Lock, 1987, “The mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1(1) March: 6-41.

Talbot, Margaret.  “Brain Gain: The Underground World of ‘Neuroenhancing’ Drugs.” The New Yorker, April 27, 2009.

Food Revolution

Food has a big influence on individuals, cultures, societies, and politics.  According to Gyorgy Scrinis’s article “On the Ideology of Nutritionism,” the author discusses the ideology or paradigm of nutritionism and how the focus on nutrients dominates expert’s knowledge in understanding food and diets.  Like science, our knowledge on nutrients changes constantly day after day.  This knowledge and understanding can affect consumer’s knowledge because it can create a self-conscious awareness to what food we should buy.  For example, we over emphasize the idea that eating too much chocolate is bad for you, but drinking red wine and eating dark chocolate is good for the heart.  “Despite the uncertainties, limitations, and contradictions within nutrient-level knowledge, nutritionism is nevertheless characterized by a sustained and confident discourse of precision and control.  This discourse implies both a precise understanding of foods, diets, and the body and an ability to precisely control and manipulate them.  Scrinis call this the myth of nutritional precision, as it involves a greatly exaggerated representation of scientists’ understanding of the relationship among nutrients, food, and the body” (Scrinis’s 42).  This portrays how nutritionism affects our knowledge of our bodies by choosing specific food with “better nutrients” that can prolong life according to nutrition experts. 

Nutritional Menus

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Not only has food affected us in an individualistic stance, but also at a political level.  Just a couple years ago, food experts (dieticians) influenced the Seattle government to require some restaurants to have a nutritional menu that shows how much calories are on what plate.  It’s like our government is telling us “Enjoy your food,” but keep in mind what you’re about to eat may affect your health/body.  The relationship of food among government, dieticians and consumers has become so central in our society that it affects everyone at a mental and physical state.  We start to categorize what is considered “good” food versus “bad” food.  Also, we try to avoid processed foods because they lack “good” nutrients to our bodies.  “This obsession with ‘healthy food’ and with the pursuit of ‘health’ in general—i.e, health reductionism—may come at the expense of other ways of encountering food through its embedded sensual, cultural, or ecological qualities” (Scrinis’s 40).   As a result, the ideology of nutritionism influences policies and practices that shape our everyday life.

In “Globalizing the Chronicities of Modernity,” Dennis Wiedman illustrates how the global pandemic of metabolic syndrome (MetS) is the result of the dramatic shift from a hunters and gatherers lifestyle to the “chronicities of modernity” (Wiedman 38).  Interestingly, this article emphasizes how nowadays people’s behaviors have been shaped to make the simple things even simpler.  For example, there are many types of transportations in our modern world that can bring us from one place to another unlike in the hunters and gatherers era where walking was the main form of transportation.  Another example would be fast food restaurants that cook food for people who are on-the-go and at a cheap price.  Sometimes these modern day advantages can affect the mind and body because “as individuals interact with or become part of these social structures and economies their behaviors become less diverse and more uniform” (Wiedman 45).  We tend to loose sight of the original techniques that hunters and gatherers survived accordingly to and become more focused on modernity.  Therefore, a low physical fitness and nutritional balance are prioritized in understanding chronic metabolic disorders.

At the end of his article he addresses a good point that there is a need “by promoting the positives of health communities and by addressing the necessary structural changes rather than the negatives of disease prevention and individual regimens, community empowerment could reduce the pandemic of chronic diseases associated with the industrial lifestyle” (Wiedman 53).  I think it is important that communities become more involved with these health issues because it can promote a better lifestyle.  Wiedman presented three appropriate ways for communities to approach their understanding with MetS which include: 1) influencing accessibility to affordable and health choices of foods in local communities, 2) enhance activity levels with designs of transportation systems, work, exercise, and recreational facilities; and 3) promote the redevelopment of local food production lifestyles in communities that want to farm, garden, ranch, hunt or fish (Wiedman 53).  These are all great solutions to help out communities especially at a micro level.

As we continue to enhance our modernized world, we become less aware of the consequences of our actions.  Both of these articles reflect a majority of American’s lifestyle and their relationship with food.  One issue that struck me while reading these articles is the public health concerns towards school lunch programs.  According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity rates showed an increasingly high rate of obesity among nine states including West Virginia in their 2009 data.  Based on these statistics, there have been many health advocates that wanted to be involved by decreasing the amount of obesity in America.  These advocates wanted to do their best to educate children about where food comes from, how to conserve resources, and support local food systems.  Take for example, Jamie Oliver.  He has been working on a “food revolution” in West Virginia public schools by improving school lunch programs.  Although he is from England, he is faced with many challenges to express the awareness that children—specifically born after 2000—will live a shorter lifespan than their parents because they are exposed to a toxicity of processed food, also known as the toxic food environment. 

In this video, he demonstrates how disgusting ingredients made in processed foods continue to be eaten by children if they are in the shape or form of something they love like chicken nuggets.  Interestingly, these children know how chicken nuggets are made and yet they continue to eat it because "they are hungry".  Children in this generation are being "brain washed" by the existence and accessibility to processed foods.  Therefore, can our knowledge about food be an effective tool to inform our youth?  Can nutritionism change our daily habit of eating "unhealthy" food?

Overall, there are many ways to educate the youth about food.  Solutions to this issue may include promoting positive health communities and addressing structural changes as Wiedman already mentioned in his article.  Schools can approach this by including classes or field trips that involve a “hands-on” experience at P-Patches or gardens.  Meanwhile, both of these articles highlight the imbalance relationship between food and American society. 

Works Cited

Oliver, Jamie. Jamie Oliver | Official Site for Recipes, Books, Tv, Restaurants and Food Revolution. Web. 17 February 2011. http://www.jamieoliver.com/.

Scrinis, Gyorgy.  2008. “The Ideology of Nutritionism.” Gastronomica 8(1): 39-48.

Wiedmann, Dennis. 2010. “Globalizing the Chronicities of Modernity: Diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome.” In Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness. Lenore Manderson and Carolyn Smith-Morris, eds. New Bruswish, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 38-53.

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

Sex, Gender, & Homosexuality

The articles this week highlight how historical science and cultural ideologies shape distinct definitions of what is male or female.  Since the Renaissance era, scientific research produced greater knowledge about the anatomy of the body especially with the idea of the one-sex model.  Science defined sex based on biological features such as the penis or vagina.  The knowledge produced by science not only progressed into understanding about sex, but also competed among social and cultural existence.  Eventually, the idea of the two-sex model added a third model based on characteristics of homosexuality.  In addition to, the term gender was produced due to culturally constructed ideals of the individuality.  The knowledge of the body was developed among science and cultural interpretations.  Precisely how science became the dominant knowledge of sex is highly emphasized by our history of leading medical doctors (mostly male) that advocated medical training.

According to Thomas Laqueur in “Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud” he argues that throughout medical history the body shifted from being seen as a one-sex model to a two-sex model.  There was a struggle of power and position to justify distinctions between the male body and the female body.  Indeed, different interpretations of the body clash into one another.  In this chapter, illustrations of male and female anatomy are provided to demonstrate contemporary interpretations. Below is an example of one of the images used to compare anatomical differences between man and woman organs. 

Laqueur mentions that “these pictures are ideological in that they overtly distort observation in the interest of one political position or another.  I simply want to point out what is already well established in the criticism of high art: pictures are the product of the social activity of picture making and bear the complex marks of their origins” (165-166).  The representation of these images continues to shape people’s point of view.  As a result, some interpretations of the body continued to be leading purveyors of science.

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In “Fluid Sexes” by Jennifer Terry, she argues that “the subject of homosexuality had a spectral presence and functioned as a means for positing what constituted proper manhood and womanhood in advanced societies” (Terry 159).  The idea that the two-sex model appeared to be the framework for sex differences effectively conflicted with homosexual desires because they conformed to normal characteristics for male and female traits.  Thus, these complicated issues involving same-sex desires caused authorities to conceptualize homosexuality.  She discusses how endocrinology, cultural anthropology, and psychology present evidence of categorizing specific sex traits.  These present views of sex and how they shape gender roles and sexing as it is today.  In conclusion, she referenced Magnus Hirschfeld research that described “masculinity and femininity were abstract and changing categories rather than the expressed essences of an underlying biological difference between men and women” (175).  This chapter depicted several views of homosexuality and sex differences that continue to challenge gender ideologies in various cultures.

In some of our readings, they explain that there are no “true” explanations for the unknown.  Thus, our interpretations are highly emphasized in our understanding from various ideologies like religion or science evidence.  For example, medical authority assert scientific evidence to make it seem legitimate.  According to Janice Irvine, “The power of medical ideology in the construction of sexual desires derives from its expansion, its authoritative voice” (Irvine 327).  Meaning, society has expanded further research on science which positions it into a hierarchical figure above all ideologies.  In society, we need to recognize that we too have a responsibility to take.  We can’t blame science or other people for our poor judgement.  Science is a phenomenal foundation to our understanding that is reflected upon other individual’s knowledge.  Thus, subjectivity can create a paradigm of positive and negative reinforcements of nature. 

Today we notice in our generation that the subject of homosexuality has become a theme for humor in television series and films.  Does humor about homosexuality reinforce stereotypes?  Or is it breaking down male and female labels.  In some shows like Glee, homosexuality demonstrates what negative reinforcements are like in schools.  Kurt, who is openly gay, is bullied by another student Dave Karofsky because of his sexuality.  In this episode, Kurt tries to stand up to Karofsky, but only finding out that Karofsky is gay too.  Discrimination is an act of hatred from one person on another.  It is a behavior in society that is produced by these definite meanings of sex and gender.  Therefore, our behaviors act upon the existence of indifference.  How we respond to these differences is reflected on our own individual knowledge.  If Karofsky accepted his sexuality then he wouldn’t bully Kurt because he understands that Kurt and him are alike. 

These readings reflect a significant understanding of the body.  Our interpretations of the body have symbolic meaning.  Human sexuality is defined in many dimensions such as biological, sociological, psychological, cultural, etc.  Therefore, these various ideologies affect one another that create distinct definitions of the body.  Overall, our interpretations are significant because they shape culture and culture is a reflection of representation.

References:

Irvine, Janice M.  1995. “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction.” In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture.” Edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla. Pp. 314-337.  Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Laqueur, Thomas Discovery of the Sexes, IN Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp 149-192.

Laqueur, Thomas New Science, One Flesh, IN Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp 63-113.

Terry, Jennifer. 1999. “Fluid Sexes.” IN An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp159-177.

Hypnomania

In “Rethinking the Role of Diagnosis in Navajo Religious Healing,” Derek Milne and Wilson Howard depicts the role of diagnosis in two Navajo religious healing traditions, Traditional Navajo religion and the Native American Church (NAC).  Their study approaches to understanding the role and efficacy of diagnosis and how narrating effectively aids patients with their illness.  In both healing practices, diagnosis plays an essential role and also includes some type of ceremony or meeting which typically focuses on healing the patient.  However, there are many differences between these two religious healing.  In the traditional Navajo religion, “correct diagnosis is extremely important, because if the wrong ceremony is performed, the patient will not heal” (547).  This can create anxiety for the Navajo person.  In the NAC, morality and personal responsibility is emphasized more when diagnosing.  More importantly, “the idea of confession as cure…is emphasized much more strongly in the NAC than in the Traditional Navajo religion” (557).  The authors conclude that “the act of understanding the nature of and narrating one’s illness impacts health suggest a belief in the effective potential of language itself” (564).  Meaning, narrating their story to a healer acts as a primary role for the individual to cure their own illness.  These “magical power of words” plays an effective role of healing among both cultures. 

In Joseph S. Alter’s article called “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, and Sex,” he discusses two main points: how modern yoga is modernized into the twentieth-century ideas about health and how the power of yoga as medicine relates to tenth and eleventh-century ideas about sex, magic, and alchemy (120).  This article emphasizes how the ideas about yoga have changed between various generations and how it has loss its natural nature.  Furthermore it mentioned how “[yoga] is also used effectively as a kind of preventive, health promoting therapy” (134).  In comparison to modern day science, there is no history of yoga as medicine (such as treating diseases) because the nature of yoga takes us back more than eighty years ago which does not associate to our modern science of treating diseases; however, it is still very effective in understanding the body, mind, and soul with reference to modern science and spirituality.

These articles bring up a very significant point about therapeutic healing.  They highlight how language, breathing, and meditating can be used as an effective tool for healing the mental and physical state of an individual.  For example, in the Milne and Howard article, “narration of illness experience is the process by which thought and speech are used to bring the body back to a state of health” (564-565)  Like therapy, this can help build understanding of the causes of one’s illness through analytical thinking and thought processes in one’s mind.  In addition to, meditating also applies to practicing modern day yoga.  It can effectively manipulate an individual by the popularized practice of asana (postural exercises) and pranayama (breathing exercises) as a way of promoting good health and perfection.  Language is an effective tool to manipulate the mind to the body.

Travis Fox

Video 1:

Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCA4jrhf2eg

In relation to both articles, language is also an effective tool in practicing of hypnosis by inducing the state of mind by words suggested by the hypnotist.  One experience I have encountered with hypnosis was at the Puyallup Fair.  There are not only rides, games, small boutiques, and food, but also entertainment such as concerts, films, and performances.  The one entertainment performance that is very popular at the fair is called Hypnomania, hosted by Dr. Travis Fox, a practitioner of hypnotism.  Hypnomania invites audience members to the stage to be hypnotize, taking hypnotism to another level aside from the traditional practice of dangling a pocket watch side to side.  It is called “Hypnomania” because the audience members can make as much noises as possible without waking up the participants (Video 2 at 1:00).  Besides being a well-known entertainer of hypnosis, he is also a mind management consultant and co-founder of the Million Minds Project that promotes his methodology of treating patients with hypnotherapy.  The Million Minds Project includes “training, guiding and teaching of the next generation of mental coaches, specifically in the field of Hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Life/Spiritual Coaching”.  According to corporations such as Honda, T-Mobile, and Wells Fargo his methodology has helped improve “energizing their sales, marketing and performances utilizing his tools for personality profiling, effective listening, and focused concentration”.  His methodology has also helped professional golf players in the GPA tour by improving their performances and scores.

His performance at the Puyallup Fair was very unique because it combines past and present skills and techniques of hypnosis in a very funny and entertaining way of inducing the mind.  I think this form of entertainment with hypnosis takes it to another level rather than what “traditional hypnosis” is like.  At the end of the show, he mentioned how his methodology can be used for treating addiction, health illnesses, or other individualistic needs.  I think this is such an interesting movement from the traditional hypnosis practice.  What is questionable about his methodology is how effective it may be on some individuals.  Last week’s article about “Medical Mimesis: Healing signs of a Cosmopolitan ‘Quack’” by Jean Langford associates to this because it illustrates whether or not his practices is effective or not.  If there was no efficacy in his practice then he would be considered a Quack among other medical practitioners. 

Although his practice is very entertaining and interesting, I wonder how society can protect traditional healing practices such as traditional healing practices in Native American culture, yoga, or hypnosis from changing from its natural form?  As time continues to flow by, we tend to modernize everything to be kept as something new and refreshing rather than old and boring.  This sort of cultural phenomena may challenge preserving traditions in our present and future lives.  Is there a respectful way to keeping these traditions sacred and protected from being transformed into something new?  My only thought is yes anything is possible, but depending on other people’s perspective and commitment to protecting traditional practices may influence how we keep such traditions as sacred and valuable.



References:

Derek Milne and Wilson Howard. 2000. “Rethinking the role of Diagnosis in Navajo Religious Healing.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14 (4): 543-570.

Jean M. Langford, 1999. "Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan 'Quack'." American Ethnologist 26(1):24-46

Joseph S. Alter, 2005. “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, and Sex.” Asian Medicine 1 (1):119-146.

Websites:
http://millionmindsproject.com/index.html
http://www.hypnothoughts.com/profile/DrTravisFoxPhDDCH
http://www.comediansusa.com/Travis-Fox

Questioning labels: science or religion?

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http://z.about.com/d/taoism/1/0/0/-/-/-/yinYang.gif

In “Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan ‘Quack’,” Jean Langford depicts the medical practices of an Ayurvedic doctor in an Indian metropolis.  Dr. Mistry, a specialist in reading pulse, helps patients with their health problems by only examining their pulses on their first visits and not on any other visits.  I think it is interesting how Dr. Mistry “nearly always makes some promise regarding the cure” just not absolute cure.  This signifies how he is confident of his practice and his relationship between him and his patients.  It’s also interesting how he hands out photocopied articles about himself to his patients.  According to this article, Dr. Mistry publicity is by word of mouth.  One of Dr. Mistry’s partners said, “Advertising wouldn’t be the proper meaning,” because Ayurvedic doctors must have “faith” in Ayurveda (37).  He avoids advertising because “[his] ambivalence about magic and equivocation about advertising are linked to one another in that each derives meaning from his emphasis on faith as crucial to cure” (39).  Meaning, Dr. Mistry is aware of the basic principles which come from meditation.  He tries to not be distracted by others because it would be like impressing them and making his work become like a gimmick.  This signifies that he tries to avoid quack-like practices because his practices would be exploited as “magical”.

“The Sacred in the Scientific: Ambiguous Practices of Science in Tibetan Medicine,” by Vincanne Adams explores particular meanings that associate with the idea of and the term science in relation to traditional Tibetan medicine in the contemporary Tibetan autonomous Region of China (543).  I think it is interesting how Tibetan medical practices are labeled as “secretive” because of the sacredness and value of their knowledge.  In Western society we may label this as something superstitious because there is no scientific evidence to prove the positive outcome of their treatment.  The challenge of finding similarities between biomedicine and tradition Tibetan medicine is labeling certain things as religious or scientific.  I think there is a structural barrier that inflicts being rationale with the terms we use to signify certain meaning. 

What’s interesting about these articles is how each author explores labeling practices as science or religion.  For example, is there valid proof to label Dr. Mistry's practices as "magical"? Or are Tibetan practices not scientific enough?  It is difficult to label certain things as science or religion because there is an overlap of dominant practices.  Thus, there is a clash of power and representation about definitive truth and knowledge.  There are many factors that challenge determining the authenticity of medical practices because of cultural differences. 

In addition to, these articles emphasize hidden understandings of how these practices play in treating patients.  For example, Tibetan medical practices uphold very sacred value which only certain people can obtain that knowledge.  As for Dr. Mistry, he was very hesitant in his interview with Langford because he doesn’t want to put too much faith into labeling his practice as “magic”.  Otherwise, it would be considered as dangerous to impressing others as a means of achieving efficacy because it would seem like a gimmick.  According to Langford's article, she quotes Lévi-Strauss who wrote about a Brazilian sorcerer which equally applies to Dr. Mistry: "Quesalid did not become a great shaman because he cured his patients; he cured his patients because he had become a great shaman" (Langford 40).  This means that "if for one instant he (Dr. Mistry) loses his meditative focus, then his ability to read pulse might dissolve into gimmickry" (Langford 40).  There is a cautionary tale of revealing the truth of how these treatments have become very effective in these cultures.  For one thing, sacred knowledge has value which demonstrates why all the secrecy to spreading that knowledge elsewhere.

The cartoon above relates to the dilemma of answering the effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).  Does the scientific method have more evidence to prove the truth about health issues?  Or is it religion?  On the left side of the cartoon, it demonstrates how the scientific method has actual facts, but no conclusions to interpret these meanings.  On the right side, the creationist method can only draw from conclusions written in the bible, but have no actual facts to prove these meanings.  Interestingly, both methods have something that the other needs.  This brings up a Cartesian dualism relationship because both cultures represent evidence that contribute to our knowledge and understanding about health issues.  This Cartesian dualism is better represented with the ancient Chinese yin/yang cosmology about maintaining harmony or holism.  For instance, “the health of individuals depends on a balance in the natural world...Nothing can change without changing the world” (Lock and Scheper-Hughes 12).

Overall, the challenge in health issues is labeling what is science or religion because they have very different meanings in other culture other than the western medicine approach.  Because there are a range of disciplines ideology plays a major role in shaping culture.  Therefore, it is hard to label a definitive term in another culture.

References:

Adams, Vincanne. 2001. “The Sacred in the Scientific: Ambiguous Practices of Science in Tibetan Medicine.” Cultural Anthropology. 16 (4): 542-575.

Jean M. Langford, 1999. "Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan 'Quack'." American Ethnologist 26(1):24-46

Nancy-Scheper-Hughes and Margaret M. Lock, 1987, "The Mindful Body: A Prolegonmenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1(1) March: 6-41.

 

Examining doctors and "health"

 http://planetthrive.com/2009/10/what-doctors-are-really-thinking/

http://www.mchumor.com/00images/6026_doctor_cartoon.gif

In the article “Against Global Health?” by Vincanne Adams, the author explores the processes by which the notion of “health” in Global Health Sciences holds a tyrannical relationship to problems within the actual practices of global health (40).  This article included details about international health in colonial and post colonial era.  In the colonial era, international “health” was against traditional beliefs or non science.  Adams points out that “political causes of disease are as important as microbial ones, but social science is still not ‘science’ in the same way as that word is used in the term “health sciences” (45).  Meaning that anything that is related to “science” is only related to health and excludes anything associated with social sciences.  Historically, “health” has been directly attached to the meaning of science which makes it inevitable to separate the two words.  Therefore, we might anticipate in the long run of categorizing and discriminating people because of this fixed definition of science as only being associated to health rather than including social ties to the definition of "health sciences".

Adams mentions how “defining where exactly health is located and how it should be measured is tied deeply to the ways in which notions of scientific research have been developed within global health sciences” (49).  In the article, one example that measured health practice as a success was about a Tibetan doctor who treated a patient with cancer.  Although the patient died, it was considered successful because the tumor was reduced.  This example was labeled as “successful” because evidence of improvement supported the doctor’s competence rather than a failure in result of the patient’s death.  There are many sides of looking at this situation.  Like whether or not the doctor’s actions are really competent or caring.

One research that measured competence and caring levels was mentioned in “Learning Medicine” by Byron Good and Mary-Jo Good.  They focused on “how medical knowledge and the world of medicine is constituted from the perspective of those learning medicine” (83).  Their research explored how medical knowledge is shaped and changed throughout medical school.  They interviewed twenty-four students at Harvard Medical School and examined several common themes that emerge.  For example, the students were asked to reflect on the meaning of what a good physician is.  The two common themes in the interviews that characterize a good physician are: competence and caring.

Both the Adams and Good articles explore the common struggle in the medical field of understanding health in different paradigms because it changes a lot.  Good examines how medical students may find themselves struggling to fit into this ideal “professional”.  It takes a lot of experience and time to becoming a doctor because there is a range of people who are very diverse and have different needs. There isn’t a standard type of doctor because everyone is different.  In the case of the Tibetan doctor, their experience of finding a solution may be beneficial and competent because the patient showed results.  However, it may be viewed as careless because the patient died. 

In general, doctors need to find a balance of competence and caring characteristics because the role of a doctor has very high expectations and pressure by patients to solve their health dilemma.  It would be helpful to self-reflect about the opportunities and recognize that these experiences build more knowledge and skills in improving what to do the next time in a similar situation.  For example, the Tibetan doctor, measured health as being located in a specific organ rather than the entire body.  Therefore, if a patient showed similar results as the patient who had this type of cancer then doctors will be more familiar and prepared.

The first cartoon above relates to these articles because it illustrates a comical view of a rare event in a hospital where a doctor really has "no freaking idea".  This cartoon is very humorous because even if a doctor doesn’t know the root cause then they can just make something up easily by backing their explanation using scientific language.  The fact that there is no “truth” to the real cause of a disease or illness can create stereotypes because people expect doctors to know everything; therefore, they should have the answer.  However, in reality that is not the case because there is no “truth” to the cause, only scientific evidence.  As a result, this cartoon depicts a less caring doctor rather than a caring type.

The second image relates to the articles because it illustrates another stereotype about doctors as being less competent.  The quote at the bottom “So, you’d like a second opinion…” is very interesting because it depicts another stereotype about doctors as being less dependable for answers.  In the photo, the doctor considers using a dart board to represents other possible solutions to a patient’s problem due to “chance” and not by any other solutions or explanations.  For instance, the dart board only provides explanations related to scientific diagnosis (Cancer, TB, AIDS) rather than open up to cultural or historical explanations (colonialism, slavery, education).  

In conclusion, the understanding of “health” brings many new challenges in the medical field.  This contributes to the difficult process that all medical students go through to becoming doctors.  There are many things to consider which may explain why “student express fears that they will not be able to balance these two goals (competence and caring), that they may be a “zero sum,” that in their struggle to achieve competence they may lose caring qualities that led them to study medicine” (Good 93).  Both articles and images associate to understanding the process that doctors go through in medical school and understanding how they use that knowledge into practical use.  In addition to, it also highlights how we continue to view health as being a separate discipline without social ties.

Medical Gaze

  http://jakarta.travel/wiki/images/5/5f/Polio_vaccine_in_Jakarta.jpg

    http://www.operationsmile.org/haiti/haiti-week-1.html



Science has contributed a major factor into our knowledge and understanding of our bodies.  In western society, biomedicine has become the main product to promote healthy bodies.  Biomedicine is a culturally developed medical approach focused on isolating pathologies and malfunctions in the organs and tissues of the body.  In Deborah Gordon’s article called Tenacious Assumptions in Western Medicine, she describes a common theme of how biomedicine is a commodity of health practices.  In addition to, it has evolved increasingly where it has been used as a tool in other countries, much as though their bodies are seen as objects of medical attention.  This ‘medical gaze’ Foucault calls, “[is] made comprehensible and visible through language and technology, we may increasingly speak of a social scientific/historical gaze turned on medicine, describing hidden cultural scaffolding and social processes that shape practice and knowledge” (Gordon 20).  Furthermore, the photos above associate with the article because it represents how biomedicine was constructed by social choices and not “natural inevitability”.  Sometimes vulnerable cultures get destroyed and by bringing in our western practices with medicine we might be unaware of the changes we impose to one’s culture.  Biomedicine has evolved into a hegemonic phenomenon that shapes human culture; thus, we rely on biomedicine so much that we limit our cultural (or spiritual) understanding of the true causes of illnesses and diseases.

In Gordon’s article, she splits the meaning of biomedicine into two major western traditions "naturalism" and "individualism".  “Naturalism” is most refer to in a literal sense as “science”; whereas, “individualism” asserts a complex of values and primacy of the individual (21).  These two traditions are significant to the images because it demonstrates power over the less powerful.  Scientific evidence is the backbone to biomedicine; whereas different cultural understanding shows less evidence of understanding the body.  You can notice that power and representation is displayed on the photo where the doctor is the one playing a dominant role carrying medical equipment and the patient with a lesser role because they are being taken care of as the patient.  Thus, this image reflects a “cultural lag”—when one part of culture (ie technology) moves faster than another (ie behavior)—on how we find solutions to eliminate diseases and not how we can culturally understand different behaviors or attitudes of diseases (Rapp 65).  Because we have relied so heavily on scientific evidence biomedicine evolved into something we depend moreover other options.  The result of this dependency can eventually turn into something we are comfortable or secured with.  Does biomedicine give us security?

For many years we have just been comfortable relying on medicine to just do its job in treating our sickness.  On the other hand, in some cases such as viral diseases medicine or other treatment is not a solution because of unknown reasons.  Thus, society falls into a false security by following the dominant practices of medicine. 

            Another viewpoint about the images is how the body is used as an object of medical attention—or medical gaze—for practitioners to visually see what the problem is and fix it.  This “URGENT NEED” that is bolded on this image implies that “help is on the way” by bringing a doctor in who is dressed in their surgical uniform wearing gloves and holding their surgical tools.  In a third world country, this medical professional would be very intimidating because they symbolize a body politic.  Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock describe the body politic as the regulated body subjected to the rules of a society.  Therefore, the portrayal of medical professions helping out third world countries may not be aware that they are attributing a body of power and control over a population.  Of course their mission is to help the needs of people, but the power they posses with biomedicine is narrowed only to the embodiment of western medicine’s definition of a healthy body.

            In Gordon’s article she describes how the assumption between nature and body are both distinct and are less incorporated into understanding the truth to illnesses.  One of the assumptions Gordon mentions is how “medicine is usually described as ‘lacking a metaphysics’ and failing to provide religious spiritual meaning” (Gordon 24).  This correlates with the images because it implies that medicine is autonomous from religion.  It accounts for a separation between mind and body and not a holistic understanding of the two.  In some third world countries, religion plays a major factor to developing their ideals of a healthy body.  Thus, biomedicine can neglect one’s own practices.

            Western medicine has evolved drastically over the past century.  The necessary action for biomedicine is to be consciously aware of cultural differences.  Biomedicine can challenge doctors to welcome other cultural practices with health such as acupuncture, chiropractor, herbals, or other therapeutic modalities.  This can affect how we can accommodate individuals with different needs because there are still unknown reasons to the truth about the body.  In the United States of America, health insurance is limited to certain medical practices and cannot support all individual’s needs.  These all contribute to our questioning about biomedicine and how it has evolved into this phenomenal practice of treating people.

References:

Margaret Lock and Deborah R. Gordon, eds., 1988. Biomedicine Examined. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, "Tenacious Assumptions in Western Medicine", Pp. 19-56.

Nancy-Scheper-Hughes and Margaret M. Lock, 1987, "The Mindful Body: A Prolegonmenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1(1) March: 6-41.

Rayna Rapp. 1993. "Accounting for Amniocentesis." Pp. 55-76. IN Knowledge, Power, and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life. Edited by Shirley Lindenbaurn and Margaret Lock. Berkeley: University of California Press.