Bicentennial Man

During the last week of class, we have discussed about the concern revolving around the development of the anti-aging world of technology and perspectives, that have shifted the common view of natural death into an abnormality, or a disease, or something that’s completely unnatural. After reading Celine Lafontaine’s “The Postmortal Condition: From the Biomedical Deconstruction of Death to the Extension of Longevity” and Melinda Cooper’s “Resuscitations: Stem Cells and the Crisis of Old Age,” I am left with nothing but fear for humanity’s future and what we will redefine to be considered “natural” in our world. What I’ve begun to notice from the ongoing research in life extension and the topic of global health, is that there seems to be a clear sign of delineation of what it means to live and die between the third world and the more developed and prosperous societies and populations across the globe, especially in the United States. There will perhaps be even bigger gaps and disparities between these two cultures as far as prolonging life and confronting death goes.  For example, “the logic of the commodification of health care, individuals must make a financial investment in order to ensure their longevity,” so how would someone in the rural villages of East Africa make such an investment to ensure their longevity? (Lafontaine 298). What is the most common take on death today? After years and years later with advancement in technology and producing “solutions” for life extension, what would be the common take on death then? I think it’s important to realize anti-aging fronts in medicine are usually led by teams of researchers and doctors who are at least middle-aged. Not often do you see a fresh graduate in their mid-twenties go on to research about stagnant remedies for aging people. We are labeling death and old age as a pathological disease because drugs and techniques are being produced and invented to counteract against them. But why prolong life to avoid death? I believe this has to do with the human obsession with power; to have power over nature, and to have control over one’s own fate. To have control of your own fate means to have control over your own mortality, and in turn become a God-like being. If having control over your body’s limits means defeating nature’s tendencies, could this unnatural balance/imbalance remind us of what we are meant to be, and possibly help us revert back to the way life was originally designed for?

Lafontaine helps us realize that in this era of highly sophisticated technology, where possibilities are endless and life (in the developed regions of the world) has nothing to fear. She says that “according to philosopher Christine Overall, from an individualistic point of view, there is no valid reason to die to make room for a new generation” (Lafontaine 309).  What are we to do if we can live as long as we choose?  What happens to the meaning of life if there is no limit? Lafontaine answers this by stating “the linear vision of a theoretical unlimited life leads not only to the devaluation of old age, but to meaninglessness” (Lafontaine 309).  Yet, the perceived notion in today’s society believes that signs of aging at an old age represents meaninglessness, as Melinda Cooper puts it: “The aged and aging itself – as a limit to growth that could and should be overcome at all costs” (Cooper 5). There is such a high demand in our society for efficiency and productivity to meet the demands of the people and markets and consumers, that we feel like those who can’t contribute as much need to revitalize themselves or just step their foot out the door (as in, just die). Cooper suggests the society believes that “more precisely, perhaps, the idea is that waste can be continuously re-enlivened, invested with a speculative surplus of life" (Cooper 8).

So let’s envision this social fantasy. In 50 or 60 years, we can live as long as we choose to. Technology and science defeats nature’s routines, and we begin to live somewhat of an artificial extension of our lives, as if we are robots. We could say we are like the servant robot, Andrew, from the film Bicentennial Man. In this movie, the servant robot is bought by a family and caters to their every whim. Andrew, never showed signs of aging, but he had emotion. As the robot continued to live on, he would see generations of the family (that had bought him) to pass on. Gradually, the robot was taking steps to become more “human” by receiving organs, nervous systems, skin, and ways to show human expression. Andrew was finally showing signs of aging, and he was happy because he was able to be human. Eventually, Andrew dies alongside a granddaughter of the parents who originally bought him (IMDb). What we see here is a reversed ideology about aging and death, in which a long-living thing desires to become a more natural being which can age and die. Now if humans one day have the capacity to live and live and barely age just like a robot, and still retain human emotion, would there be a natural tendency to live a more natural and shorter life? If we imagine Andrew as the next generation human being, who has received countless drugs and treatments that slow down the aging process, could that human choose to not want to live that way anymore? In the last half-century, foods and goods corporations made huge made a lot of consumers happy with efficiency and convenience, but with a lot of chemicals on the side. Nowadays, a lot of people are turning back to organic foods and more natural things with fewer preservatives. Could this history foreshadow the same thing when humans choose to prolong their lives?

Works Cited:

Celine Lafontaine, 2009.  The Postmortal Condition: From the Biomedical Deconstruction of Death to the Extension of Longevity.  Science as Culture 18(3): 297-312.

"Bicentennial Man (1999) - Plot Summary." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182789/plotsummary>.

Melinda Cooper.  2006.  “Resuscitations: Stem Cells and the Crisis of Old Age.” Body and Society 12 (1): 1-23.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

<{[Cheating Death: Back from the dead]}>

This week we have come to question the abstract idea of death and all that surrounds it. What does it mean to die? What does it mean to be dead? How long can death take? What is a meaningful life? How can you assure that ‘death’ has actually occurred to an individual, whatever the word may really mean? And what is the American hospital or doctor’s perception of this topic which is most likely influenced by the professional biomedical background that has trained them in these fields. Can we rely on a medical staff, from the EMT’s to the physician, to allow a miracle to take place on any given case, on any given patient? I’m aware that I’ve tossed several questions out there, but in addition, are there levels of death that correlate to human degradation that could possibly lead to one’s final announced death? We see different levels of the human body depicted in American biomedical systems as Lock mentions “in North America a brain-dead body is biologically alive in the minds of those who work closely with it, but it is no longer a person, whereas in Japan, for the majority, including a good number of physicians, such an entity is both living and remains a person, at least for several days after brain death has been diagnosed” (Lock 150). In Margaret Lock’s article “Living Cadavers and the Calculation of Death,” we see contrasting beliefs on how the body is to be treated after enduring trauma or nearly fatal conditions. In Japan, it seems as though the body is given every ounce of energy and hope to bringing it back to life; whereas, in America (I apologize for the extreme analogy) the body is seen as a market in a deserted town, waiting to be looted of its goods. This is similar to what Lock suggested as she says “such an entity takes on cadaver-like status and retains only the respect given to the dead so that it can, with suitable restraint and prior permission, be commodified” (Lock 150).

In Eric L. Krakauer’s article “To Be Freed from the Infirmity of (the) Age,” a lot of focus is put on life-sustaining technologies that medicine has slowly relied heavily on. Having the help of these life-sustaining technologies has given more time for doctors to solve the problem at hand, but at the same time, it has become an expected use. If the palliation is not registered with a patient, it is assumed the doctor is not trying enough to help save the patient, but if it is being used then there is a chance the death is just being prolonged and nothing might even come out of it. Talking about palliation techniques, “once they became generally available, not using them became difficult. In each case, withholding treatment, and particularly withdrawing treatment once started, was deemed unethical. Courts in the United States found legal grounds for disallowing the foregoing of life-sustaining treatments  for patients unable to speak for themselves, and occasionally legislators drafted new laws with similar provisions. Second, experience showed that life-sustaining technologies not only had obvious potential benefits for patients but could also be very burdensome. The great gift of this technology brought with it unforeseen danger of exacerbating suffering” (Krakauer 382).  In addition to the listed problems and dependency on palliation for life-threatening circumstances, there is a lot of money that has to go in to keeping the patient alive and breathing. With that being said, does this mean that a patient is valued based on how long they are on the life-sustaining treatment? Is there enough being done to prevent the patient from needing the life-sustaining treatment since the luxury of having it will always be there?

The news story that I would like to analyze is just one of many events that have occurred.  This particular headliner happened back in 2009, when a young man was pronounced dead after a night of bowling. Chris Brooks went an entire 20 minutes without a single contraction of the heart, and then miraculously came back to life without any brain damage (CNN). What caught my attention was the quote:

“Many hospitals and doctors don't know or want to use the latest techniques -- and so survival rates for cardiac arrest vary tenfold among major cities” (CNN)

Why would all these hospitals and doctors not want to use the latest techniques? This is an interesting question because it attempts to look at the way our (American) culture understands and copes with death. We see that in Japan it is much more difficult to detach oneself to a dying patient, yet we are seeing here that death in an American medical system isn’t avoided as much as other cultures. It could be possible that the medical system here sees death as “okay” in certain (and obviously more) lights. 

Maybe Chris Brooks didn’t just cheat  death; maybe he also cheated the medical system in America as well.  He was lucky that he was attended to by the best of resuscitation care, and didn’t have to meet the problematic depths of life-sustaining treatment. Chris Brooks’ story proves Krakauer’s point that “this attending and responding is what matters, not whether or not life-sustaining technologies are employed in the response” (Krakauer 394).

Works Cited:

"Cheating Death: Back from the Dead - CNN." Featured Articles from CNN. 12 Oct. 2009. Web. 04 Mar. 2011. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-12/health/cheating.death.chris.brooks_1_cardiac-arrest-survival-rates-doctors?_s=PM:HEALTH.

 

Eric L.  Krakauer.  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.

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

ADderall in HD

Welcome to the world full of neuroenhancers

Where you just pop a quick pill and turn your problems into answers

See them all around campus spreading like malignant cancers

From the nerds to team dancers, for free or costly transfers

Some get a type of high that's got you feeling tall

From Concerta to Ritalin, and most commonly Adderall

Add 'em all up and your hand will never scrawl

So you score above the curve leaving others so appalled

Sure it might be illegal, but there is no real harm to me

It's a safe drug, it means well, it's from a pharmacy!

My friend with ADD said work will get done, he promised me

He said your brain just keeps on running like Lake Washington's Argosy

Took some pills with coffee, I call it heaven's mix

Stayed up hours on end reading ANTH 4-7-6

With very little appetite, I ate a half a bar of Twix

Enought to get through a workload weighing like a bag of bricks

I still work hard hard and put my time in, but won't let focus decay

They say it's bad if you're not prescribed, what's the side-effect, FDA?

You say there's risk of heart problems, but that is so cliche

There's more good from working harder than just letting it all delay

But why do these drugs summon me?

Does it mean more profit for the company?

More kids faking diagnoses got pharmaceuticals saying "come money!"

Now we all reach in the basket of the corporate Easter bunny

And grab colorful energy packed eggs without the Red Bull aroma

Pulling all nighters for that distant, daunting diploma

Until the internal clock expires and you crash out on the sofa

Wake up from the coma, and pop the next Brave New World soma

(February 21, 2011)









After reading Nikolas Rose’s “Neurochemical Selves” from The Politics of Life: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century and Margaret Talbot’s article “Brain Gain: The Underground World of ‘Neuroenhancing’ Drugs” on The New Yorker, it has become apparent that the perspective on concentration and hard work has shifted to the performance of one’s brain power. People are led to believe that their brain’s capacity can reach higher levels of operation to meet society’s normal standard of functionality, as others choose to exceed the normal standard of functionality whether or not they are actually prescribed to a particular medication. This controversial perspective has been rooted from the progressive research designed around neuroscience and psychopharmacology. With new research and newly discovered brain functions, processes, reactions, and agents, a new army of drugs emerge. It has been emphasized by Rose several times that “when mind seems visible within the brain, the space between person and organs flattens out – mind is what brain does” (Rose 194), and by the 1950’s, there was a connection established between neurochemistry and its resultant, the behavior. “Across this bridge was to flow an accelerating stream of traffic between the clinic, the laboratory, and the factory. Each variety of disorder was soon assigned to an anomaly in a particular neurotransmitter system, and intensive research in the laboratories of universities and pharmaceutical companies sought to isolate the compounds whose specific molecular structure would enable them to target, modify, or rectify that anomaly” (Rose 196). Here we begin to see how neuroscience takes its shape as it is today. One question I had in mind after reading this was how much neuroscience’s research is devoted to solving illnesses as opposed to generating revenue. Has research produced illnesses in the last fifty years as a profitable marketing scheme?

This is the topic I want to address. Is it evident that pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers are in it for the money without looking into its widespread effects (medically and socially)? Depression could be a possible analogical step-up stool for pharmaceutical companies in history because “Prozac did not become an iconic drug because it was more effective than previous antidepressants. Its status was based on its claim to be the first drug whose molecule had been deliberately fabricated to disrupt one, and only one, aspect of a single neurotransmitter system,” (Rose 201) and in turn it has been trialed and marketed to millions of people, a lot of whom refused to take it after some time because they “didn’t want see [themselves] in that light or be stigmatized with that label” (Rose 197). It seems like more and more research is going into the brain for the wrong reasons, because if you can lead a diagnosis to somewhere in the brain where medications prove to be the only source of help, then that is a money-making opportunity for commercial companies. This is how psychopharmaceuticals in America manage to make up to $19 billion as described by Rose.

Fast forwarding to the 21st century, from depression to ADD and ADHD, we see an even more widespread use of prescription medication because their markets have gotten a lot bigger. As I’ve mentioned before, more in-depth research could produce more illnesses, and in turn “disorders often become widely diagnosed after drugs come along that can alter a set of suboptimal behaviors. In this way, Ritalin and Adderall helped make ADHD a household name” (Talbot 5). As we see in the YouTube videos shown above, students with or without a prescription claim that they use the drug Adderall. In Margaret Talbot’s “Brain Gain,” we are given the story about ‘Alex’ who was diagnosed with ADHD by describing his brother’s symptoms, so those without ADHD can also obtain a prescription for the medication. In the second part of the video Adderall U., they ask the boy if he thinks his school is aware of the use of the brain stimulant, and he says yes. In The Truth About Adderall, they ask a girl if she thinks the administration is aware of the use, she says she doesn’t know, but that a lot of people are open about claiming that they do. So, assuming that pharmaceutical companies know that these drugs are being used and distributed illegally, why isn’t there much being done about it? How come there hasn’t been as much research done on people who don’t necessarily need the medication, so that more people are aware of its long term effects? Cephalon’s founder and CEO, Frank Baldino Jr. says “I think if you’re tired, Provigil will keep you awake. If you’re not tired, it’s not going to do anything” (Talbot 6), yet studies on his company’s drugs have proven that non-sleep-deprived volunteers had significantly shown more effects than those who received a placebo.

What we are seeing from the videos above and the articles of interest is a clash between controversial usage and the widespread prevalence and distribution, both prescribed and illegally, and this has formed a sort of acceptance in society and in college campuses. My belief is that this could potentially stem from corporate greed and profitable pharmaceutical marketing schemes.


Here's an example of how Adderall is so readily available. The first three posts on YahooAnswers is about the drug and how they got it from a friend:

Works Cited

"YouTube - Adderall U. Part Two." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

"YouTube - The Truth About Adderall." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

Yahoo! Answers - Home. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

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

Margaret Talbot, "Brain Gain: The Underground World of 'Neuroenhancing' Drugs." The New Yorker, April 27, 2009.

"The Sad Truth of Humankind"

This week, as I Go-Post title, I used a reference for the Disney and Pixar animation film WALL-E. I thought it would also be a great example to use for analyzing with the tools given by Dennis Wiedman, Gelya Frank, Carolyn Baum, and Mary Law. The blockbuster movie WALL-E is about a small, trash-compacting robot (that stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) in the year 2700. This robot, WALL-E, has been working in the planet that has been uninhabited for hundreds and hundreds of years. Eventually, WALL-E meets another robot, EVE, which has come to earth to look for any signs of life on the planet. After befriending the robot, WALL-E shows EVE a green plant that he has found and to stay consistent with her directives, EVE had to retreat back to the large spaceship she originally came from, which consists of a large quantity of the existing human population which was used to evacuate the planet about 700 years earlier. WALL-E follows EVE back to the massive space cruise ship, and discovers the way of life of the human beings (Bing Movies). We see this footage of the lifestyle of the humans aboard the ship on the YouTube clip shown above. The humans disregard their bipedal structure for locomotion, and use hovering chairs to make their way around in organized, highway-like order. Every one of these chairs has a constant feed of television or offers a type of video chat with another person. For example, the first human shown in the clip is seen video chatting with a companion who is just to the side of him. We see that the humans only “eat” their meals through cups and straws, possibly symbolic of processed foods, designed efficiently to meet demand. About two minutes into the video clip, we a human fall off his chair and unable to get back up, waiting for the service bots to come put him back in his chair. The other robots created detours for passing people, as if they themselves are vehicles.

In this space cruise ship, we see that marketing and advertisement plays a key role in the lifestyle of the humans. Everything from the food in the cup, to learning the alphabets that relate to an upper power corporation, to changing into outfits that are “in” shows how the effects of corporate greed makes one lose sight of their inabilities from a physical, active, and healthy life to a lazy, convenient, and obese one. In what ways can we relate the context of this YouTube clip to the readings relating to disabilities? We must look into the message being sent by Wiedman, first. Dennis Wiedman has brought to light the disabling construct of modernity, by suggesting that chronic diseases are correlated with the progressive mindset of humankind. The large physique of the humans portrayed in the film illustrate how “the chronicities of the modern lifestyle are embodied by infrequent metabolic variation and overconsumption of calories leading to obesity” (Wiedman 43). The space cruise ship that these humans are living in is like a trap to feed a company with continuous income because the humans don’t quite have the ability to escape out of it, and don’t have any alternatives to subject themselves to. This is an accurate representation of Wiedman’s idea that “by being forcibly contained politically, economically, and bodily to small resource areas, history shows that they quickly became limited in their physical activities and dependent upon the U.S. government for energy-dense, industrially processed food” (Wiedman 46). That pretty much hits the nail on the head. Perhaps there is an exaggerated depiction of a cultural transition from a more physical group of people, to a lazy and more convenient group. It could be an example of a cultural transition that “portrays the critical juncture of modernity as populations transition from subsistence agriculture to a cash economy, from self-produced foods to a store-brought foods, from vigorous household chores to the comforts of household appliances, and from actively walking to riding in cars and trucks” (Wiedman 42).

How can a movie like WALL-E complement the works of Frank, Baum, and Law? Maybe the film played a huge role in addressing the goals of anthropologists and even therapists? “In the sophisticated interdisciplinary academic environments in which occupational therapy must survive, stronger institutional ties are need with medical anthropology, public health, disability studies, and other fields that can help to build social theory and critical standpoints affecting not only clinical encounters and life worlds of suffering, but the profession itself” (Frank 246). Occupational therapy is a great source of treatment for individuals who have to learn to adapt to the demands of society as “its practicioners address health promotion, wellness and quality of life, rehabilitation, and function,” (Frank 230) but what about prevention? I strongly believe that WALL-E was a great tool to use as a “crystal-ball effect” to show kids (who were the main audience) the flaws of ultra-convenience and processed foods. Occupational therapists deal with patients who are involved with chronic diseases, and this Pixar animation was a product that dealt with “normal” humans that evolved to have chronic conditions according to our standards. The trick here was that the film is presented to millions of children, and that is a huge way of spreading prevention and awareness through the market of entertainment.


"WALL-E - Bing Movies." Bing. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

"YouTube - Wall-E...the Sad Future of Human Kind." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

Gelya Frank, Carolyn Baum, and Mary Law. 2010. “Chronic Conditions, Health, and Well0being in Global Contexts: Occumpational Therapy in Conversation with Critical Medical Anthropology.” In Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness. Lenore Manderson and Carolyn Smith-Morris, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 230-246.

Dennis Wiedman. 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 Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pp 38-53.

HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDERS: RELIGION vs SCIENCE

<(([[[CATHOLIC ANSWERS]]]))>


The example for this week’s analysis is brought to you by the website for “Catholic answers” by www.catholic.com. We will compare the contents of this website with the summary for Thursday’s articles which relates to the effect medical authority and the dynamics behind sexual desires and sex addiction. Jennifer Terry’s article “Medicalizing Homosexuality” from An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society— dives into the use of medical authority as a means of embracing homosexuality in society with scientific evidence, in which physicians who were proponents of homosexuality would try to use their credibility, respected by most people, to change views on gay men and women who were victimized in discrimination and prejudice. It was believed by most people that “the growing trust in medicine, held by a wide range of people, was tied to the belief that its practitioners were rational, truthful, and objective, while also caring and compassionate” (Terry 42). Biomedicine were aware of this “trust,” but was it enough to make a difference?

Jannice Irvine’s article “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desires and Sex Addiction” from Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture shares a similar approach to the idea of sexual desires and addiction by connecting to science once more. She links desire and addiction to the endocrinology of the brain and the body which could be medically justified as a disease as opposed to choice. She says that “professionals have assiduously tracked the etiology of sexual conditions within a biomedical tradition that quantifies desire and locates this search for primeval urge in the subject itself” (Irvine 320). What Jannice Irvine and Jennifer Terry have shown is that there tends to be a need for a scientific evidence for there to be a social acceptance about a subjective topic. The basis of scientific and medical evidence is often interpreted as the most definitive, but what is one of the most common grounds of confliction with science? Religion. For so long, science and religion have clashed and clashed, and although some individuals believe both in simultaneity (with Pascal’s theorem being a force in the existing religious beliefs), religious institutions and foundations tend not to budge or give way to science as a means of reason and understanding. For instance, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and idea of evolution was thought to be dumbfounded by religions that are solely revolved around creationism by God. Magnus Hirschfield was brought into Terry’s article, saying he “was compelled by Darwin’s idea of indispensability of natural variation in evolutionary processes” and that “[homosexuality] represents a piece of that natural order, a sexual variation like numerous, analogous sexual modifications in the animal and plant kingdoms,” yet this given information could be played off so fast by religious institutions (Terry 54).

By understanding the notions towards science by conservative religious groups, we can understand where these clashes between ideas occur and why. First off, I want to state that the quotes that I’m citing directly off Catholic.com are in no way an accurate representation of the beliefs of every individual who is part of the Catholic religion. On the website, under “Homosexuality,” I came across the following:

“Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law” (Catholic Answers).

What we see here is a quote that undermines, in a sense, the homosexual’s existence. It is given through that particular statement, that homosexual behavior is an “act,” and can’t be seen as a way of life despite the natural outcome of the individual’s sexuality from the very moment of birth. Scientific specialists have been aiming for an “emancipatory” approach to homosexuality, including Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who presented that “homosexuals were psychical hermaphrodites, having bodies that seemed to be normal but psyches that were inverted” (Terry 44). The website forms a counterargument against this by stating:

“Even if there is a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality (and studies on this point are inconclusive), the behavior remains unnatural because homosexuality is still not part of the natural design of humanity. It does not make homosexual behavior acceptable; other behaviors are not rendered acceptable simply because there may be a genetic predisposition toward them” (Catholic Answers).

A few questions a person can ask the writer for this website are: what if the individual was naturally designed to be homosexual? What is humanity designed for, even if it was meant to be heterosexual? Does the disregard towards the genetic predisposition of homosexuality downplay the medicalization of homosexuality, which in turn questions the structure and objectivity of biomedicine in general?

Irvine produces the idea that sexual desire is a result of a “biological drive or surging energy that is either flooding uncontrollably or woefully diminished” (Irvine 320). This is to say that we aren’t always in control of what our body wants. There is a chemical foundation that leads to the desire, and at times we don’t have the ability to refrain. The website tackles this by stating:

“Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner” (Catholic Answers).

In the end, it’s all about culture. Scientifically, there is no pathogenesis in regards to sexual desire, but culturally it could be seen as a disease. This is supported by Irvine’s claim that “there must be cultural recognition that desire problems are diseases, with a subsequent adoption of the language and concepts of dysfunction" (Irvine 327). How does homosexuality produce dysfunction, though? Biologically, it may not provide offspring for males, but socially they are just as contributive as any other group of human being.


"Homosexuality." Catholic Answers: Catholic Apologetics, Catholic Evangelization, Catholic Teachings, Catholic Radio, Catholic Publishing, Catholic Truth. Web. 11 Feb. 2011. .

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

Jannice M. Irvine. 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. Bloomington and Indianoplis: Indiana University Press.

KAMA SUTRA?!

One of the most recognized groups of text in the world is the ancient Indian text that is almost always referenced in popular culture, the Kama Sutra. This text was written by a Hindu philosopher named Vatsyayana between the 4th and 6th century, which was a time period well before the anatomical claims mentioned in Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex: Body and Gender from Greeks to Freud. This example was chosen because it raises a question about how culture, relevant to region, influences the science and social science of sex. Before we can dive into the analysis of the Kama Sutra, let’s quickly review what the text is all about.

The Kama Sutra has thirty six chapters which are separated into seven parts. The first part of the book talks about the three goals of life which are: “the acquisition of knowledge, conduct of the well-bred townsman, and reflections on intermediaries who assist the lover in his enterprises.” The second part of the text is about the amorous advances and sexual union. Here we see the book providing details of up to sixty four different types of sexual acts, everything from different ways of kissing, sexual positions, and types of embraces. The second part is probably the most notable and popularized of all. The third part is about acquiring a wife. It’s five chapters long and is all about meeting a girl and making her feel comfortable, then eventually marrying her. Notice that it’s for a male’s point of view. The fourth part is about the duties and privileges of the wife which is only spread into two chapters. The fifth part is delves into other men’s wives and the behavior between man and woman. The sixth part is about courtesans, which are also noted during the Renaissance era in Europe. These six chapters are about advice of the assistants on the choice of lovers and looking for a steady lover. The seventh and final part is about improving physical attractions and arousing a weakened sexual power.

I think it’s important to get an idea of who the Kama Sutra is intended for. Is it written to provide a mutual sensation for both males and females? It doesn’t quite follow the one-sex model as Laquer emphasized throughout most of his article, but it does agree with his point that “context determines sex in the world of two sexes as well” in his conclusion (113). But could the book be more geared towards females? Or is it more geared towards the males? The Kama Sutra could possibly be more of a guide for men because of its hints for finding the other female and taking care of her. There is no guide for women on how to approach men, so this could mean that in the pre-Renaissance era in India, male dominance had an influence on culture, just as Laquer had suggested in Making Sex: Body and Gender from Greeks to Freud by mentioning that anatomically “…one saw only one sex made even words for female parts ultimately refer to male organs” (96). Maybe Vatsyayana believed that the best way to understand sexuality comes from the male perspective, since it was commonly referred to as the standard back in antiquity. Could the Kama Sutra have been written to further promote reproduction, though? Laquer did state that “the specific claim that female orgasm was necessary for conception was, moreover, known to be vulnerable since antiquity” (66). It’s very possible that this idea existed before the Renaissance era and in a distant land. Perhaps the Kama Sutra was a way to help provide the extra stimulus, arousal, and to intensify pleasure to insure fertilization. All the chapters in the book about different ways to perform intercourse and improving sexual attractions and arousing a weakened sexual power could be seen as a huge cultural factor to promoting and allowing successful conception. Perhaps Vatsyayana agreed with the notion presented by Laquer from the Renaissance era that “foreplay was taken as a requisite prelude to procreative intercourse” (67). Could the Kama Sutra still exist as the traditional means of conception in India in the present day? What contradicts this argument is the fact that nowhere in the brief descriptions of the Kama Sutra did it mention fertility or conception, or even having a family with kids. If Vatsyayana wanted to promote a means of fertility through his book, wouldn’t he have mentioned it so the readers knew what it was meant for? Or maybe back in that time period, it was widely known that the process of fertility could only be brought by the natural pleasures of intercourse.
Another question to keep in mind is if the Kama Sutra had any role in the overpopulation that is occurring in India with over one billion people.

"The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Index." Internet Sacred Text Archive Home. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. .


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

Namaste Ayurveda!

The YouTube clip shown above is a part of a four video series about the philosophy of Ayurveda taught by Dr. Mamta Landerman. This video has been chosen for analysis to provide a narrative from the perspective of the Ayurvedic practitioner, first-hand. The ethnography by Jean Langford sent out a slightly ethnocentric vibe which seemed fairly apparent from the beginning of her article, stating her skepticism early on and offering a critical tone about the practices of Dr. Mistry, and perhaps even Ayurvedic medicine itself. Langford provided bits and pieces of Dr. Mistry’s dialogue, which could have possibly been manipulated in her writing style to give the reader a particular impression that could further support the author’s argument. The reason for showing this clip is because there is no middle man to report the facts, so it’s a very neutral ground. Another reason is because these videos are filmed at a school, Kerala Ayurveda Academy. I think it’s important to keep in mind that Dr. Mistry was described to have not graduated with a degree in Ayurveda, yet somehow he has managed to provide so much care and treatment to hundreds and hundreds of patients per day, for only five minutes each. To be able to understand the ideologies behind how the practice of a labeled “quack” succeeds, we must also compare and contrast it to what’s being taught at a school.

One very noticeable thing shown in the video as opposed to the way Ayurveda is described in the article Medical Mimesis is the fact “Philosophy of Ayurveda” manages to connect this form of medicine to realism rather than an acceptance of magic. Langford mentions that “the study of Ayurveda became a site for the consolidation of modern science against superstition,” however, she also mentions that Dr. Mistry was “obviously aware of the magical aura of pulse diagnosis” (33). The video above talks about the bridge between Ayurveda and the body/mind/spirit by attacking the cause using natural remedies. Dr. Mistry is unable to explain the processes behind the diagnoses of his patients, which makes one wonder if this could be from the lack of education he received at an institution, yet be able to supplement his “quackery” through years of experience to be able to actually treat his patients at his clinic and eventually become a reputable practitioner of Ayurveda. Dr. Mamta Landerman, in all her four videos dives into great detail how there are different causes of a single disease and multiple symptoms, and she gives a very holistic lesson of this form of medicine – describing it as “the wisdom of life of everything that travels in life, how to live well, how to live long, how to come back on track.” One common argument that both Dr. Mistry and Dr. Mamta Landerman share is that there is a whole lot of psychological aspects of the patient that will help the patient recover or be fully treated. Dr. Landerman says that “it’s much more effective to treat their mental attitudes than it is just treating their physical,” whereas Harvard studies show that “when a patient is just being treated physically, they may or may not get better.” This closely relates to the same viewpoint shared by Dr. Mistry when Langford transcribes him saying “80 percent of illness is psychological” (40). Perhaps Dr. Mamta Landerman, whose approach to Ayurveda is much more holistic, stresses less on the power of the mind than Dr. Mistry does, because Dr. Mistry’s belief in the mind and possible understanding of placebo effects is just enough for him to be able to treat patients successfully. Dr. Landerman might be conjoining psychology with additional sects of Ayurveda to let her students understand the meaning and reasoning behind diagnoses and treatments to give students a feeling of confidence, something that Dr. Mistry has plenty of.

And exactly are some of the things that Dr. Mamta is emphasizing along with the power of the mind? Physiology. As you watch the end of the video and the beginning of the second video, you’ll see she goes on to talk about an anti-oxidant called curcumin which “goes through the cell walls and into the nucleus of the cell.” This is an interesting point made because you normally don’t hear about traditional medicine being linked in a biomedical way to the physiological and scientific body. The way Dr. Landerman teaches the foundations of Ayurveda differs a lot from the way it is presented by Dr. Mistry. The question of Ayurveda seen as a science is awoken by the lecture of Dr. Landerman. Vincanne Adams says “the meanings of ‘science’ … [varies] on the basis of not only method and content, but also on the basis of the transcultural, political, and historical conditions that give rise to the use of the term and the efforts to translate it in locations that have not parsed their knowledge in the same ways as those places from which ‘western science’ is now deployed” (570). The origin of Ayurveda is from India, yet Dr. Landerman is giving a lecture in English, and occasionally mentioning American culture-specific items like a McDonald’s quarter-pounder and such. With the idea of Ayurveda spreading to other countries and becoming a more popular form of medicine and means of explaining physical and natural phenomena, it shouldn’t be surprising that Ayurveda has taken shape as a science.



Jean M. Langford, 1999. “Medical Mimesis: Healing Signs of a Cosmoplitan ‘Quack’.” American Ethnologist 26(1): 24-46.

Landerman, Mamta. "Philosophy of Ayurveda. (Kerala Ayurveda Academy)." YouTube. Web. 28 Jan. 2011. .

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

House is in the house!

After reading both Good’s and Adams’ articles this week about “mediating,” the first person that should come to mind is the fictional diagnostician portrayed in the Fox series House. Gregory House is a medical genius who is seen constantly dealing with mysterious symptoms and diseases of patients all around the world. What sets him apart from all other medical geniuses is his attitude, pill-popping demeanor, and personality which in turn influences the way he practices and treats patients (treat meaning both medically and personally). Before we can analyze the different acts shown in the above YouTube video using the lenses provided by Good and Adams, it’s substantial to understand the background behind this particular doctor to help form critiques or supportive arguments. Although this is a fictional television series, we must take a look into why House is the doctor who everyone around the world turns to and if his style of practice is congruent with the attributes described by Adams and Good as most productive and successful.

Gregory House attended Johns Hopkins University as an undergraduate, and also attended Johns Hopkins Medical School and University of Michigan Medical School. In many episodes, House claims he is not a believer of God, which conflicts with many religious patients he has encountered (Fox). House reveals these personal beliefs to his patients in numerous circumstances because he has a strong hold of science as the answer and not the prayers. This idea runs parallel with Vincanne Adams’ point that “if villagers continue to see disease in a non-scientific, nonsensical way – that is, as a result of spirit attack, evil eye, loss of soul – then health will never be achieved. Ignorance is the real cause of disease” (Adams 44). House consistently works to eliminate this ignorance from the patient and tries to break it down to the patient at the physiological and scientific level.

                As a well-recognized diagnostician, House approaches medical cases utilizing as many resources at his disposal. You can see in the video in multiple occasions where he is examining x-rays, conversing with patients near the magnetic resonance imaging machine, and recording symptoms and data (i.e. starting at 2:13) to help him brainstorm for solutions. This kind of work and devotion to a patient’s case is a big factor to House’s success at solving patients’ illnesses according to Adams; she states that “the language of evidence-based science, randomization, controls, and robust statistical analysis is seen as a language that will provide new information that was not already “commonsense” (Adams 51). An ordinary physician might not have all these useful tools by their side, which could also be why an ordinary physician might not have the capacity to solve these distinct, ambiguous, and mysterious medical cases. This could relate to global health because the foreign aspect of the emerging diseases could be as dissimilar of a case to the specialist at work as would a unique case would be to Dr. House. Being able to approach cases with “evidence-based science” could help eliminate the strange or unfamiliar picture of the situation.

                So knowing that House is a highly regarded doctor, and that Good claims that great doctors “[condense] two central symbols – ‘competence’ and ‘caring’” (Good 91) in contemporary American medicine, let us look at how House works in the video with his patients. We will assume that competence is clearly a given since he works at the Head of the Diagnostics Department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Without a high level of competence, it’s difficult to get a job at that rank. As far as “caring” goes, in the compilation of clips we see House (almost violently) stabbing patients with needles, flicking at or poking their faces, showing disinterest in the clinic (0:45),  and rolling eyes. House doesn’t have the orthodox persona that is obtained from the first two years of Harvard Medical School, yet he has a different “care-free” attitude towards his patients that makes it seem like he is dehumanizing them. It’s evident in the video that while he treats the patients themselves as “machines,” he is always working hard and putting time into brainstorming ways to help the patient. So, could that be a sign of a form of caring? We don’t necessarily see Good’s basic form, described as “a language of relationships, of attitudes and emotions, and of innate qualities of persons; it is a nontechnical, commonsense language of interpersonal engagement, not a language of knowledge and facts” (Good 93). In the video, I rarely see interpersonal engagement between House and his patients. Does this mean he doesn’t care? He offers no exchange of emotion with his patients other than sarcasm and disinterest. Does this mean he doesn’t care?

If we expect doctors to be competent and caring, why would Dr. House be so highly regarded as one of the best doctors when he hardly shows any upfront display of care? Perhaps patients see doctors as experts of human body machine, which could be why we subconsciously accept the lack of “care” despite asking for it.

Byron J. Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good. 1993. “’Learning Medicine’: The Constructing of Medical Knowledge at Harvard Medical School.” Pp. 81-107. In Knowledge, Power, and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life. Edited by Shirley Lindenbaum and Margaret Lock. Berkeley: University of California Press.

House MD - Is There a Doctor in the House ? Dir. NCISmelanie. Perf. Hugh Laurie. Fox. YouTube. 5 July 2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-supp7Ow9o>.

"FOX Broadcasting Company - House TV Show - House TV Series - House Episode Guide." FOX Broadcasting Company - FOX Television Shows. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. http://www.fox.com/house/about/.

Vincanne, Adams. . “Against Global Health? Arbitrating Science, Non-Science, and Nonsense through Health.” In Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality. Edited by Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland. Pp. 40-58. New York: New York University Press.

GO SPERM GO!

Emily Martin’s The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles is an article that was written to describe the subliminal imposition of gendered stereotyped that hide behind the material taught and presented by scientists cited from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. This piece was written with a fairly feministic approach to the issue which is important to consider especially at a time in the early 1990’s when feminism was part of a growing trend and any form of signifying male dominance intentionally or abstractly would have been highlighted to have been recognized. Back in the 1980’s and prior, very numerous amounts of textbooks and articles depicted egg and sperm fertilization with assigned gender roles, each respectively to their gender. It’s substantial to understand what some of the analyses were that Emliy Martin made in order to relate them to how they fit in present day context.

Martin’s article was written as a message so that her readers know “one clear feminist challenge is to wake up sleeping metaphors in science” (501). Although the examples that are being analyzed are not quite “sleeping metaphors,” they exhibit the exaggerated reality behind Martin’s proposed analysis behind how fertilization in the course of biology was being taught. One of the common descriptions of the egg that Martin found had to do with the lack of activity.

In this cartoon drawing of the semen and egg, you see several identical figures (the sperm) surrounding the stationed egg in the middle. The sperm are all saying things that a stereotypical male would often use to flatter a female. The egg is thus automatically gendered a female based on being on the receiving end of the remarks by the sperm. You can see it also large curvy lips, a cup with an umbrella, and a cigarette held with the palm out; all feminine features that are assigned to the egg. In this drawing, the sperm seem to be doing “all the work” by trying to impress or “get” the egg, while the egg is simply just (what appears to be) sitting there and doing nothing except drink and smoke. This description could be  related to how the egg was illustrated to be almost dormant and lazy, like “Sleeping Beauty: a bride awaiting her mate’s magic kiss, which instills the spirit that brings her to life” (490).  The cartoon shows how the egg can be passive and unexciting as the sperm.

Here we see another gendered illustration of the sperm, but not quite so much of the egg. The sperm that is seen ahead of the rest of the pack is labeled as Michael Phelps, who is a male Olympic swimmer with a record number of gold medals. The race for the sperm to meet with the egg is like a competition for the male gametes. In Emily Martin’s chapter, she mentions how authors of other textbooks would label sperm as warriors and constantly fighting through the journey into the fallopian tube with “a velocity that is often remarked upon” (489). She mentions how sperm are designed by authors to have so much power in their tail (or flagellum) to help them swim and navigate their way to the target. By labeling the first sperm as “Michael Phelps,” not only is the sperm being gendered, it is also supporting the notion that sperm are the exciting piece to fertilization and that all the hard work and dependence falls on the sperm its “mission.” The egg in this cartoon isn’t given a role or a label, it just simply sits there as the target for the Michael Phelps sperm.

In this last example, we see a zoomed in cartoon of two groups of sperm battling it out right by the female egg. The sperm are given masculine characteristics with the depiction of anger, teeth bearing, moustaches, and weapons. This illustration, just like the one above is an exaggeration of the competition that goes on between the individual sperm. The sperm are given titles of warriors that are fighting for the chance to fertilize or “rescue the egg.” It seems like a commonality in other cartoons for sperm to be fighting against each other, with the winner being seen as the “hero.” Once again, the egg drawn in this cartoon is not given a label or a relatively exciting role. It’s just a yolk-like circle that is drawn to emphasize the relevance of the fighting sperm. The sperm are featured as the focal point of the picture, with the egg resting far up top. This depiction supports Martin’s that the female gamete receives less of an exciting or valued role in the process of fertilization. It’s very difficult today to find a textbook which shows this type of stereotypical bias, but the humorous representations in forms of cartoons could be the signs of the historical existence of the gendering in fertilization.

Works Cited:

Love, Jason. "Sperm Egg Cartoon Illustration Blowup." CartoonStock - Cartoon Pictures, Political Cartoons, Animations. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?start=2&search=main&catref=jlvn108&MA_Artist=&MA_Category=&ANDkeyword=sperm egg&ORkeyword=&TITLEkeyword=&NEGATIVEkeyword=.

Onorato, Rick. "Cum Ons." Flickr. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27648211@N05/2748335526.

Thecoolestimage. Michael Phelps Sperm Egg Cartoon Funny Picture by Thecoolestimages - Photobucket. Digital image. Photobucket. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. <http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv98/thecoolestimages/?action=view¤t=michaelphelpsspermegg.jpg&newest=1>.