> There is also that stupid woman from Princeton who wrote a book
> classifying fibromyalgia sufferers ("chronic fatigue syndrome") with
> believers in ufos. Then in a "Diary" in the London Review of Books
> she used the quite reasonbly enraged response to her idiocy as
> further confirmation that all who disagreed with her were freaks. (I
> could easily check her name, but I would rather leave her in the
> limbo of nameless infamy.)
That would be Hystories by Elaine Showalter. It's not a great book, by any means, but don't you think she might have a point? Showalter associates CFS (and Gulf War syndrome, recovered memory, etc.) with hysteria not in spite, but precisely because, of its "very specific physical symptoms." After all, didn't Emma von R. and Anna O. have specific physical symptoms too?
Showalter argues that hysteria--including CFS, etc.--is "a body language for people who otherwise might not be able to speak or even admit what they feel." In the case of alien abductions, satanic abuse, and recovered memories, it's sexual fantasies or desires which are perceived as "improper, incorrect, sick" and therefore displaced onto something Out There. In a less sexually repressive society, presumably, people would have less need for these kinds of narratives. In the case of CFS she's vaguer about what kinds of unspeakable feelings are at work, which I see as a strength rather than a weakness. Gulf War syndrome she associates with shell shock and post-traumatic stress disorder, neither of which seems to require an organic explanation.
Where's the problem with this? At worst, she might be wrong on the facts--though I have yet to see any convincing evidence of an organic basis for CFS. (I'd be happy to be educated on this.) But even if she's wrong, why does her position arouse such hostility? She constantly insists that she in no way wants to belittle CFS victims or their suffering. Her broader argument--that a disease can be real even if its origin is psychological--is one I would expect disability advocates to embrace. And isn't she right that feelings of "overwhelming shame, guilt or helplessness" can make people unwell as surely as any pathogen? Wouldn't a left position be to broaden our notions of health rather than to insist that suffering can't be taken seriously unless it has an organic basis, as those who insist CFS _must_ be organic implicitly do?
Around the turn of the century, sociologists worried by "anomie"--all those suicides--talked about anonymous urban life, the decline of religion, degrading industrial work. Now it has to be something in the water.
Josh