You stated this brilliantly. I agree.
Marta
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Frances says we must first read Elaine Showalter's book _Hystories_ in
> order to discuss it. I haven't read the whole thing, but aren't her project
> and where it fits in our contemporary ideology rather painfully obvious?
> Isn't her basic idea that stupid people (unlike Prof. Showalter) invent all
> kinds of imaginary entities--aliens, incestuous fathers, satan worshippers,
> germs, diseases, etc.--external to themselves and beyond control, in order
> to avoid the responsibilities of the "modern individual" (which include
> good mental housekeeping with the aid of psychoanalysts as well as getting
> up every morning to go to work)?
>
> Showalter's book seems to be a liberal feminist version of "Personal
> Responsibility" discourse, _despite_ the fact that some of the targets of
> her critique (such as those caught up in moral panics about "ritual abuse"
> and "recovered memories") are well-deserved ones. As such, it will only
> help those who want to paint, for instance, the CFS patients as frauds, in
> the interest of helping us maintain our "healthy" work ethic.
>
> The question is neither whether Showalter's analysis is cultural or
> physiological nor whether cultural critiques of medical discourses are
> legitimate. The problem with Showalter is that she is making use of
> psychoanalytic means to promote the ideological ends of individualism.
> (And, remember, in her prescriptions for grad students she is similarly
> asking us to individually accomodate ourselves to whatever the job market
> offers--with perhaps the help of anti-depressants.) In this regard,
> Showalter is no alternative to the individualism that standard medical
> research promotes, though she may think she is. What's wrong with her book
> is not its interest in "culture"--it is bad because it offers a familiar
> and seductive critique of mass culture and self-absorption from a liberal
> individualist point of view.
>
> Yoshie