Yet, here I am disabled by a crippling disease begging the medical profession to find something that will make life livable. I want drugs now!!! I'll ask many, many questions later (when I have a clearer mind). If I completely accept the 'cultural argument' of disease, to be morally consistent I have to sit passively by waiting for the revolution (I know I should be out raising shit - but there's a problem - with CFS I can't do that). Only then will my 'cultural' disease disappear. I had a very close friend who developed schizophrenia in his late 30s. This man was brilliant, a fervent critic of capitalism and all its insidious elements. And we chewed up the medical profession (intellectually of course) pretty damn well before he got sick. When he developed schizophrenia, he WAS consistent. He refused to see a psychiatrist because he knew they were going to drug him, define him and negate him. When the voices got too loud and the torture of his body was too great, he killed himself. Yet, we can be so proud: he was consistent. This is the tragedy of these critiques. I'm sure all his friends (and he himself) would have felt a lot better if it meant that a whole social movement started up because of his convictions. It hasn't. There needs to be a differentiation between the higher level critique of medicine/disease as a cultural construct and the very experiential level of people living with diseases.
Also, if you want to 'sacrifice' a disease to challenge the status quo, CFS won't do it. You'll just confirm everyone's suspicions. Why not pick a disease like cancer? Gasp, but it would be so cruel to say that cancer is cultural. Precisely my point. The fact that sacrificing sufferers of CFS for the sake of cultural critique is okay and those with cancer is not, means that CFS has been put into a separate category - a non-physiological disease. (CFSers have developed a morbid sense of humour - if only someone would die from CFS, we say, then we'd be ordained by god, oops I mean the medical profession, as a 'legitimate' disease).
I refuse to follow my friend's path. I know that medicine does not deal with the root of disease - it can't because of its limited perspective. But, it may make life (although not in all cases) more bearable. Being critical of the disease model of medicine is not contrary to accepting its medicine. Would you expect poor people not to try and escape poverty even if they know that opportunity only knocks for some? If you do, then you've obviously never been poor. Critique is great for the mind, but it doesn't feed the belly. But I tell you what, if you promise me a revolution, I'll stop fighting for drugs and proclaim loudly CFS is only cultural. The sacrifice (and lie) will be worth it. 'Til then, I remain drug free (damn!).
Cathy
At 03:10 PM 12/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>We seem to be having some sort of grammatical problem here. I read Liza as
>suggesting Carrol caricatured my position. Carrol seems to think that she
>is referring to my comments on the position he & Schweitzer share. It does
>seem a bit inconsistent of Carrol here to be saying science & Medicine are
>cultural, whereas he was earlier uncritically accepting that CFS is purely
>physiological, rather than taking the more radical stance that it would be
>better for the status quo that CFS be physiological.
>
>Frances
>sinister humanist
>
>On Tue, 15 Dec 1998, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> I haven't check my original post, but the following quotation is from me
with an
>> antecedent wrongly identified. The "She" referred NOT to Mary Schweitzer
but to
>> Frances, and was written in defense of Mary Schweitzer. The "Mary
Schweitzer" in the
>> text were the last words of the preceding sentence, which referred to
Frances
>> attacking Mary.
>>
>> Otherwise, I agree fully with this post from Lisa Featherstone. I have
sometimes
>> disagreed, even sharply, with Mary on femecon-l, but I would never
accuse her of
>> unprincipled arguments or of turning political disagreements into
personal attacks.
>>
>> I'm sorry if my text was ambiguous on this point.
>>
>> Carrol
>>
>> Liza Featherstone wrote:
>>
>> > I'm not familiar with Frances's work but this
>> >
>> > > Mary Schweitzer. She is one of those humanists who [hysterically?]
believes in
>> > > the mumbo jumbo that leads to dividing humanity into two parts, one
of which is
>> > > superior to the other.
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
>