The words we use today could not have been used or understood by those who were called physicians in even the relatively recent past. It would have made no sense that there should be people around who prolong life… by fighting life threatening elements in the environment. /1
In the mid-19c an idea of killing pain without killing a person appeared in America. At the same time people began to have diseases , rather than be sick. /2
[In Medical Nemesis Ivan Illich tried to understand] how this ghastly world could come about in which most people are convinced that they should do everything possible to prolong their own lives, and those of their relatives. /3
Consequently they need the Supreme Court of the US to decide if they may be administered death as they are administered life. /4
No one wants to face the question of what it does to human beings to live in an a-mortal world, a world in which there are no dead around. /5
If the struggle against death became a competence of the physician, and the physician was therefore put in charge of life “from sperm to worm”, then execution would inevitably become a medical duty running parallel to the fight against the onset of death. /6
Everyone is now forced to assume responsibility for his own death, which is no more that the cessation of life. /7
We are far from 15th c idea that you cannot choose your death but only accept the death which has been destined to you and hope that you are fit to bear it with dignity. /8
The production of of disease definitions, the number of conditions that can now be diagnosed and ascribed to us, has multiplied more rapidly than any other form of production. This is our strange privilege. (cf. a cold or flu vs covid, Delta, Omicron) /9
Increasing demands for care are reality. Now every layman must be taught how to offer professional care and counsel to himself and others. The professionalization of the layman and the transformation of professional care into self care has reached a high point. /10
(Eg. Self-testing for covid, counselling on immunity, vaccination, need to prevent disease and death re:covid that takes place within laiety by volume more so than between professionals). /11
From #IvanIllich The Rivers North of the Future. /12
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
