The reigning religion of the west is science — fundamentally, the biomedical aspects of science — since this is the side that deals with the human body. This is discomforting for those dealing with death, as biomedicine believes death is the end of the self, since logic does not permit for the idea of a soul that lives on after the end of our physical selves. In our society we are taught to shun death; it is something to be avoided, life should be prolonged as long as possible, hopefully indefinitely. All religions give a description of what happens after death; for those who only have faith in the biomedical savior, death is the end. Biomedicine approaches death with the “modern strategy … to ‘deconstruct’ mortality by battling disease and other threats to life” (Lock, 201). Therefore “Death has been successfully transformed into a condition caused by a specific disease rather than a simply ‘natural’ event” (Lock, 71). Many of us regard science as the key to our immortality, or if not ours, then at least for future generations.

It is because of this reliance on biomedicine that our natural fears about death as the end have only been increased. Freud stated that fear of death “haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of human activity – activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that is it is the final destiny for man” (Lock, 200). I think the way we deny the existence of death in western culture is to separate ourselves from it. Most people die in hospitals and the old are put into hospice care, either at home or in nursing homes, much before that. The effect is that death is not part of our daily lives and is for the most part a taboo subject. Bauman went so far as to say “there is hardly a thought more offensive than that of death; or rather, of the inevitability of dying” (Lock, 200). Since, for the most part, we try not to offend people; we just do not talk about death and dying. I experienced this when I asked my friends to talk about their views on death; it is pretty much a conversation stopper. I got a lot of bank stares and had to explain about the class before the conversation picked up again.

Jacques Choron “claims that instead fear is about dying rather than about what happens after death with which we are most concerned” (Lock 203). I think that for young people fear of aging and fear of death is about the same; especially for those who have little to no contact with the elderly. The true roots of our fears lie in the unknown. What happens after death is the one thing that we are fairly certain science can never explain. Much of what biomedicine does, the layperson does not understand, but we live with the comfort that somewhere there is an explanation. Thus, some see organ donation as biomedical reincarnation. Donor’s families often feel that their relative “lives on” with the organ recipient, giving some meaning to their death, or even perhaps a second chance at life (Sharp, 63). Our current beliefs, that genes equal individuals, allows for this theory of “body melding” (Sharp, 90). However, this idea appears to be emotional rather than scientific.

How biomedicine will effect a society is largely driven by its cultures and traditions or as Lock says “death can never fully be divorced from culture” (Lock, 11). For example, Japan has had many debates about whether brain-dead patients should be harvested for organs or whether they should be allowed to live in hopes that they will regain consciousness, also “dying is widely understood as a process, and cannot therefore be isolated as a moment” (Lock 8). In America there was little to no debate for two reasons because 1) we have complete faith in what our doctors tell us, and 2) we believe that “the ‘person’ is clearly confined to mind and brain [therefore] the destruction of the brain can be equated with the death of an individual” (Lock 8). We as a society tend to think much more in terms of individuals than Japan. It is interesting to note that, on some level, almost all culture has adopted aspects of biomedicine. Perhaps it will help lead to a  world wide culture.

So far, we have been unable to conquer death, or as Lock puts it “ death is not amenable to our efforts at its mastery; it will not be pinned down once and for all” (377). However, we have succeeded in extending life, although for the most part this currently means extending old age. Perhaps in the future we will learn to live for most of our life in our 30-year-old bodies, who knows? For now, however, death remains the universal end of life.

Questions:

Does death bring us together?

Will sharing organs help to expand our circle of kinship?

Do we fear death or aging more?

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Article Citations:

Lock, Margaret. 2002. Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sharp, L. A. (2007). Bodies, commodities, and biotechnologies: Death, mourning, and scientific desire in the realm of human organ transfer. University seminars/Leonard Hastings Schoff memorial lectures. New York: Columbia University Press.

Before Lock’s articles I had never given menopause much thought. My mother experienced menopause when I was fairly young, so I was only vaguely aware of what was going on. This type of experience puts me in the majority of westerners, I believe. Like many of the middle-aged adults in the film on aging in America that we watched in class, said, “I just don’t think about it.” Even Americans aged ninety-nine, when asked for their thoughts on death, gave the same type of answer. What interested me at first in the Lock articles were the differences she presented between the western society, primarily America, and Japanese society. What struck me in the films and searching through images online were the emerging similarities between these two cultures.

Lock introduces us to the Japanese term konenki; although the word has become medicalized to relate to the end of menstruation, it relates to general aging, especially in women. Lock states “what is most striking about the Japanese descriptions is the lack of agreement about the meaning of konenki” (10). Loosely translated konenki means “the change of life” (10). This change is an on going process, unlike western menopause, which is seen more as an abrupt stop, or a point of no return.

America is a culture of youth. The FDA approved Botox in 1989; the process involves injecting the most toxic protein in the world, Botulinum toxin, directly into your face. Why would anyone do this? The answer: to look young of course. Japan too has its array of anti-aging cosmetics, but they are nowhere near as prevalent as in America. Lock, references Sasaki, who states that she is “very cautious about prescribing hormone replacement therapy, disapproves of what she takes as one North America motive for its use: to remain young and beautiful” (297). I think this motive is a little unfairly stated. It would be more appropriate to state that Americans want to stay healthy and fit until the day they die, or as was stated in the film, Americans would like to live forever “in their forty year old body.” Although our biomedical methods often appear vain when compared with other nations, especially one like Japan, I think it is important to note that we have continued to make advances that largely improved the quality of life for people well into their eighties. While people now experience years instead of months close to death, they also experience many decades of healthy life.  

From the film on twenty-four hour bathhouses we saw that Japan is becoming more westernize in their approach to the elderly. In 2008 Japan’s birth rate was 1.37, in other words they have a declining population (Worsley). Traditionally children have cared for their parents, which worked well in a big family. Now however, couples usually only have one to two children at the most; a similar pattern to that of America. Now in both countries children require help to take care of their parents. Nursing homes are commonly used in the US, while the elderly are living out their final years in healing baths in Japan.

In both the western and Asian cultures, there is this underlying belief that menopausal symptoms arise from a life of leisure. Today in America it is accepted that almost all women will experience menopause, but in medieval times it was believed “that the leisured class suffered the most at menopause” (319). Perhaps this idea has lingered since most Americans lead unphysical lives, much like those of the leisured class of the past. The physical work ethic seems to still be going strong. One gynecologist when asked about the difference between Japan and other nations stated “foreigners tend to exaggerate their symptoms, while Japanese always play them down” (265). From that one can infer that if a Japanese woman was only experiencing mild symptoms then she would not even mention them, whereas an American woman would. This might help explain the much larger prevalence of symptoms in the US.

At the end of her first chapter Lock states, “could it be that the menopausal body, and perhaps the Menopausal Woman as well, is not after all universal?” In the past this was very true, but I think globalization needs to be taken into account here. While in the past Asian and Western points of view have been so different they hardly understood one another; today the two are beginning to blend. Lock points out that the idea of holistic medicine is taking hold in America, viewed as “new-age” medicine, essentially repackaged ancient remedies (257). Japan has turned to biomedicine for the most part; menopause remains a subject that is not largely discussed. Some of the symptoms are treated with “herbal medication and health teas” (261). The US treats menopause as a disease for the most part. Treatment for menopause has consisted chiefly of aggressive hormone treatments and surgery. Perhaps before the end of this century there will be a happy medium between these two extremes.

Article Citations:

Lock, Margaret, 1993. Encounters With Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in  in Japan and North America. Berkeley: University of California Press.  Pp. 303-329, 370-387

Worsley, Ken. “Japan’s birthrate up for third straight year in 2008 as population decline continues.”Japan Economy. 6/4/09. 7/17/09. http://www.japaneconomynews.com/2009/06/04/japan-2008-birthrate-population/

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            The first of Laqueur’s articles, New Science, One Flesh, deals with the sixteenth-century idea that men and women have ‘one body,’ the only difference being that women’s bodies simply have inverted male organs. Given this mind set there are a couple of viewpoints that could arise: 1) men and women could be viewed as equal in all respects; 2) women could be viewed as imperfect men. Laqueur’s second article, Discover of the Sexes, looks at the transition from the idea of one body to two distinct sexes. Laqueur stresses that the one body has never completely left our society, though the two sexes proposal is the most common scientific theory now, as well the leading socially accepted idea. I would agree with Laqueur that there are remnants of the one body theory still prevailing today; in my human sexuality class we did a section on embryology and one of the main theories that came across was that males and females have the same cells, just the srY gene in males causes them to differentiate from the female body. Laqueur states, “sometime in the eighteenth century, sex as we know it was invented” (149). This was a very strange thought for me, rooted in my own social context it was difficult for me to image a time where the sexes were not thought of as so separate; we definitely live in a “women are from Venus, men are from Mars” society. I thought Laqueur did a good job of summing up the feeling of the eighteenth century when he discusses the writings of Poullian de la Barre. La Barre was very devoted Cartesian dualism in which “self is the thinking subject, the mind, and that is radically not the body” (155). La Barre goes on to say, “from this it follows that the mind, this decorporealized self, has no sex and indeed can have no sex. Gender, the social division between men and women must therefore have its foundation in biology if  it is to have any foundation at all” (155). This is a very strong statement to make since it does not allow for transgender people, whose gender does not match up with their biological sex. It is also interesting to note that if the “self” has no sex, then why do we almost always mention our sex when describing ourselves?

             These articles were complimented by the video, The Human Sexes, which we watched in class. The film had an intellectual explaining how the social differences between men and women have occurred ‘naturally’, because of our biology. The film talked about the well-excepted theory that our society for thousands of year was hunter-gatherer, in which the women gathered and the men hunted. The film then looked at how we went against nature, by giving the example of female body builders; they also touched on the nineties trend of very androgynous clothing for women, they then used strippers to symbolize ultimate femininity. The film did not give an example of feminine men, but if you look at current fashions for the ‘metrosexual’ man, they too have a sexless look. 

            The first Terry article we looked at examined the history of medicalizing homosexuality. This again goes back to the western need to atomize a ‘problem’. In the case of homosexuals, the Judeo-Christian church has viewed homosexual acts as sinful for centuries; therefore Christian doctors and scientists, who view homosexuality as unnatural, seek to root out the ‘cause of homosexuality,’ so that they can cure it. The second Terry article, Fluid Sexes examined the idea of a single individual containing attributes of both sexes, thereby creating many genders. This article delves more deeply into the idea of how much of gender is determined by our biology, and how much is determined by our environmental factors, our society. Terry gives the example of a study done in the 1930’s that used hormone therapy to attempt to cure homosexuality. The conclusion of this study being that “just two years later, a study of hormones in homosexual personality development found no conclusive findings in this regard” (162). Terry also cites studies of other cultures in which the gender roles as we know them are reversed. I think both of these examples are evidence of gender being influenced by society. In truth I think this is impossible to answer without bias, we are all set in one biological form and one cultural setting.

            As Laqueur states, “Sexual difference no more followed from anatomy after the scientific revolution than it did in the world of one sex” (163). The trend of fluid sexual identity is already going strong in the twenty-first century; it will be interesting to see if we continue in this vein, or whether we revert back to a previous notion of sex. Hopefully we will learn to stop condemning the practice of homosexuality, especially on the grounds of it being unnatural since it does not produce children; this one way to help solve the overpopulation problem. Maybe there are notions yet to come that have not yet been conceived.

Article Citation:

Jennifer Terry, 1999. Medicalizing Homosexuality and Fluid Sexes, IN An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 40-73, 159-177.

Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body And Gender From The Greeks To Freud. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.

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Instead of treating the source of these diseases, we are left trying to treat the symptoms. I thought this statement was fairly telling: “In the eugenic age, mental disorders were pathologies, a drain on a national economy. Today, they are vital opportunities for the creation of private profit” (Rose, 209). Having a treatment that you can sell to people for a lifetime has always been more profitable then having a ‘one-shot’ cure. As the article explains, the 1980’s were the decade when neurotransmitter drugs first came into prominence; there had been drugs to treat mental disorders since the 1950’s, but they all had fairly unpleasant side effects. Prozac was the first ‘clean’ drug, because it affected a single neuropathway. However, it was the 1990’s that really began the TV ads for these drugs. They give several examples of this, the first are Ritalin and Adderall both of which are used to treat ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “This was the most marked in the United States where prescribing rates increased eight fold” (Rose, 210). I am skeptical that rates of this disorder rose by anywhere near that amount; this is the power of marketing.

These ads also focused on the idea of “restoring the child to his or her true self” (Rose, 211). Which brings as back to the discussion of, ‘what is the self;’ clearly the definition of self is not bounded to the body in this case. This also is suggesting the self is not in the mind. In the beginning of the article Rose suggests, “We have become ‘neurochemical selves’” (Rose, 188). I suppose what he is getting at is that we now see the brain as simply another organ, as apposed to giving it special significance.

The second example of a heavily advertised drug that they give is Prozac. This drug had originally been designed to target mild to moderate depression. Soon, however, it was prescribed for a wide variety of disorders. Another drug that treated similar symptoms was Paxil. This was one of the first drugs that used “direct-to-consumer advertising” (Rose, 213). Paxil treated Generalized Anxiety Disorder, ads strive to make you think that all the worries in your life are because of this disorder, and Paxil would take all of them anyway; Prozac ads also had this affect. These ads, like those for Ritalin, implied that once you started taking the drug you would once again be yourself. What were you before? These ads make it seem that there is something wrong with you that is somehow different for other people problems.

The power of persuasion is amazing in these ads. I personally feel that these disorders are over diagnosed. The power of belief comes into play here too. Early I began talking about how the power of belief can make you healthy; well in this case it can make you sick. For example, someone who is simply having a rough week, problems at school/work, or maybe an argument with a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend, then they turn on the TV and discover that they must have General Anxiety Disorder and there is a pill that will solve all their problems. Also, a parent stressed out from work, and who does not have time to deal with an overly active child, might be convinced by this clever marketing that their child has ADHD. I personally believe drugs should be a last resort.

Toward the end of the article Rose discusses the rise of psychotherapy and counseling in the second half of the 1990’s, because they discovered that Prozac alone was not treating severe or even moderate depression. Here’s were the discussion of environmental factors comes into play, because things like “unemployment, poverty…substance abuse or trauma…[have an] impact on this neurochemical brain” (Rose 220). These stressors are constant. I think counseling is very useful. Close friends and family are a good resource for free counseling. Of course their advice might not always be the best, so it is nice to have a third party who is not personally involved with your life. The only problem with psychotherapy is that it can be very expensive; it is hard to put a price on it. And often times people who need it the most cannot afford it.

            We need to seek natural and healthy ways for people to deal with their neurochemical disorders. I am interested to see how the field of mental health changes in the next decade. People have began to understand just how little we know about the brain, the first big discovery in modern mental health was the lobotomy, as far as I know this procedure is very rare if it happens at all today. However, her recent electroconvulsive therapy, what used to be called shock treatment, has apparently helped the actress Carrie Fisher, according to her autobiographical book and stage performance, Wishful Drinking. Then there was the rise of pills, which rather then severing the brain physically, affected it at a chemical level. Today, the use of chemicals is a supplement to counseling, and is intended to be only temporary, if at all possible. Good counseling allows the brain time and reassurance to heal itself.

Article Citation

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

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The Simpsons “lisa on happy pills” :

The concept of healing both the mind and body is important in the holistic tradition. It is interesting that this tradition can be found in the ancient Greek ideal of a sound mind in a sound body, and yet the current impression of holistic healing is that it is Eastern in origin. The Greek traditions, as they influenced the Roman Empire, are the core of Western culture. Americans seem to have lost sight of the fact that the mind and the body are not separate but must function together in order to make a whole person. I would suggest that the power of belief is essential in order for a person to heal. Currently Americans have placed their faith with the western tradition of biomedicine. We tend to think of the medical tradition of other as being promoted by “quacks;,” Langford’s article discusses this in detail. She asks the question “whether a simulating doctor who produces true wellness is a doctor or a quack” (Langford 24). I think that becoming a doctor has a certain set of rules but that anyone with “love and patience,” as Mrs. Little Bones said, can become a healer. I do believe it is unfair to claim qualifications that you do not in fact have, as some of the doctors that Langford observed seemed to be doing. On the other hand, if the practitioner is thought of as not having such qualifications, those who have faith only in formally qualified persons may discount the good healing provided by the informally trained practitioners and not receive the benefit of it because of their bias against that healer. I think that even if some of the remedies that the doctors gave out did not actually have medicinal properties, the people who believed that they were going to get well, actually did. As Dr. Mistry states “the moment they are given faith ‘things start working’ … 80 percent of illness is psychological” (Langford 40). Although we believe our doctors are much more qualified because of the years of training we know are required for a medical degree, it is also true that many patients experience the same sense of relief simply by going to the doctor.

This same belief in healing can be seen in the O’Dell article on spas:  people go in believing that their stress will be relieved, and it is. Of course the opposite is true as well:  if you believe that spas are a silly and expensive waste of time then the experience will not be pleasant for you. My personal take on spas is that they give you an environment in which to focus your mind on your body. For example, as a masseuse touches parts of your body, your mind is reminded to unclench those muscles, and when the body is perfectly relaxed, it is hard for the mind not to follow suit. And, if the mind isn’t relaxed, the body will often respond with physical symptoms like tooth grinding and forehead wrinkling, which lead to sympathetic pain such as migraine and lower back pain.

Both the video we watched in class and the Alter article address the use of yoga and mediation to heal. Meditation allows one to have total awareness of one’s body and mind. For the most part our society ignores our bodies unless something is wrong with them, and even then children are taught to deal with pain by ignoring it, instead of trying to understand what it means. If instead of thinking I am in pain I must make it stop, you dive into the pain and view it as a sensation neither good nor bad, only when you have achieved this view point can you truly understand the nature of the pain.

Closely related to meditation and healing visualization is the healing power of prayer. For a Believer, the knowledge that prayers are being said for their recovery gives them strength and emotional support. Individual prayer, communication with a higher power and releasing the healing process to them, is a huge relief to many sufferers, and this personal relief from the constant stress of their illness is clearly helpful in the recovery process. Many religions have rituals of healing, from the Mormon Blessing bestowed by Elders on ailing or troubled members, to Extreme unction provided by a Catholic priest for those feared to be near death. For the members of their church, these practices bring much relief to the sick and measurably speed recovery.

Americans on the whole do not believe in the mind/body connection. We reject it as something foreign. As one woman in the video on mediation put it, “it’s un-American but it’s wonderful.” Since America is supposed to be the melting pot nation, it seems strange that we would reject these possibly helpful techniques. I think that in many ways we are starting to incorporate these different practices and we are seeing the value of having more than one way to treat people. A blend of things will, I think, prove to be the most effective. This way Americans can discover different forms of healing that might suite them better than western medicine alone. Like the patients from the video who had pain that the doctors could not cure, they turn to meditation. It was brought up in class that there is no reason why meditation should be a last resort; instead, why not incorporate it? This would help to stop problems like patients becoming addicted to morphine. I was using some of these techniques to deal with the irritation of insect bites, which cuts down on the amount of chemicals I need to put on my skin. In summary, we should be open to new schools of thought.

Article Citations

Alter, Joseph S., 2005.  “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, 

and Sex,” Asian Medicine 1(1): 119-146.

Langford, Jean M., 1999. “Medical Mimesis:Healing Signs of a Cosmopolitan ‘Quack’.”   

 American Ethnologist 26(1): 24-46. 

O’Dell, Tom. “Meditation, Magic and Spiritual Regeneration: Spas and the Mass  

 Production of Serenity” Orvar Lofgren and Robert Willim, eds. Magic, Culture and the 

 New Economy. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2005. Pp. 19-36.

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America is a culture of food; every holiday and event has a food associated with it. We, more than any other nation, are heavily influenced by food trends; we want the latest health movement to appear on our plates. And yet the “potato – usually in the form of French Fries” remains the most consumed vegetable in America (Retzinger 149). Americans want the most abundance, or pleasure, for as little work as possible; in other words we are highly interested in efficiency. This has led our society to become increasing distanced from the production of our food. We are unaware of the labor and resources it takes to make a hamburger. In a larger sense we have become disconnected from nature itself. We seldom see our food in its natural form. Not many of us kill our own chickens or pick our own tomatoes.

Perhaps there would be less beef, ham, chicken and turkeys consumed if we had to slaughter and dress our own meat.

Many Americans no longer cook. Eating has become a solitary activity, something done ‘on the go,’ as opposed to eating dinner with the family or friends. ‘Closet eating,’ even when done in the car, leads to overindulgence in the wrong types of foods. When we share conversation and activities during meals, we tend to eat slower, which allows us to be more aware of the point at which we are satiated, rather than eating so quickly that the crucial point is passed before we realize we are not just unpleasantly full, but are now stuffed.  We also tend to consciously eat healthier when there are others looking on, and are more inhibited about our eating habits in public. I think we all benefit from eating and preparing at least one meal a day with the people that we love.

Excessive weight, especially the extremely unhealthy abdominal body fat developed in middle age and more and more often affecting even younger Americans, has been something my parents have been struggling with for several years. They are both intelligent, well-educated individuals, well read and well aware of the health risks associated with overweight conditions. Between the two of them, they have read and tried everything from South Beach, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, meditation, exercise, and many other diet and nutrition books. Recently, they have developed a set-piece daily eating plan, which removes ‘dangerous’ food cues that led to overeating in the past. Using what they have absorbed from all the reading, they focus on a standard, high-protein, low carb and cholesterol breakfast of Eggbeater scrambled eggs with mushrooms or onions, one vegetarian sausage patty, and several small tomatoes, cut in half, seasoned with a no-salt mixture of spices, and broiled in the oven. Midmorning snack is non-fat cottage cheese, afternoon snack is a bowel of grape tomatoes, and dinner is non-fat milk with spoon size Shredded Wheat and Bran with fresh blueberries. The only meal that allows for variety is lunch, which currently focuses on a Asian-style stir-fry with protein such as chicken, shrimp, fish or scallops, combined with mixed fresh and frozen vegetables, and sauces, served without rice. They may have one glass of wine after dinner, and coffee, tea or water throughout the day.  I’m so glad I went to college before they started this regimen. It seems to be helping so far, but I think it is too early to tell for sure. The sustainability of this approach is also in question. But this is a good example of the importance of developing our own eating plans that fit our own lifestyle and needs, regardless of the current diet trends or fads.

America is a pill-popping nation; we take pills for almost everything. So it is not surprising that the idea of nutraceuticals is catching on in America. These are food supplements such as ginger and garlic in pill form. This is a logical step in our progression away from natural foods. Is this a bad thing? The American way of life has much going for it, abundance of food, and nutritional supplements. But I think by removing ourselves so far from the production of our food it teaches us not to question what we eat. Which is why I think genetically modified, GMO, foods have become so prevalent without most Americans really understanding what they are. I think if people became aware that we do not know most of the long-term effect of GMO foods they would be less likely to blindly consume them; maybe they would demand more information from companies like Monsanto.

 As Retzinger points out “We learn through advertising to “derive pleasure from the spectacle” (Retzinger 156). I think very few people bother to learn more about a product than the ads tell them. In a society where we are saturated with ads, we need to learn to become more critical about them.

In general our culture needs to become more aware of what we are consuming, and learn to question whether or not the current health trend is right for us. Americans need to develop a mindset of moderation, instead of blindly following trends. Also, following these trends is expensive and therefore they help to create income disparities. The rich are able to buy organic foods or follow the latest diet of carefully prepackaged meals, while the poor must focus on getting the biggest calorie ‘bang’ for their buck, which usually means supersized McDonalds and it’s relatives.

Article Citations:

Retzinger, Jean P. “The Embodied Rhetoric of ‘Health’ from Farm Fields to Salad 

Bowls.”  Kathleen LeBesco and Peter Naccarato, eds.Edible Ideologies: 

Representing Food and Meaning. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

2008.  Pp. 149-178.

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