Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors Books
- ISBN13: 9780312420130
- Shape up: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as “one of the most liberating books of its time.” A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is–just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if excellent treatment is followed.
Nearly a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease stuffed with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote a sequel to Illness as Metaphor, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic.
These two essays now published together, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, have been translated into many languages and continue to have an enormous influence on the thought of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.
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Susan Sontag disparaged the thought that dis-eases are caused by mental states, and her resolutely taking this position illustrates the fantastic and willing loss of sight of this talented but dis-eased anti-white racist. She had such a gorgeous basket of blossoms to offer, and between their leaves and stems crawled poisonous snakes she may possibly not free herself of because she wasn’t willing to look in her own basket. Unfortunately her work is forever tainted with her hatred. Sad -
Rating: 2 / 5
i reckon Susan Sontag is gone the political nature of illness. as far as i’m concerned there is a culture of blaming the victim in our society that is not limited to medicine. the victim is blamed because the victim has small power. the ill person is blamed because the tobacco companies are powerful, the oil companies are powerful, the sugar companies are powerful, the retail chains are powerful, the manufacturers are powerful, the health insurance companies are powerful and the governments are powerful. they have armies of lawyers to defend them; they have armies of doctors, scientists, and psychiatrists to dream up pseudo-scientific evidence to support their self interest, but the victim is powerless to defend themselves hostile to blame. this isn’t about language, it’s about politics of money and power. language is only one of the tools that the powerful use to blame the ill, and victims more generally.
Rating: 2 / 5
Even the conventional medical community is beginning to integrate modern medicine with “alternative” forms of treatment, as seen in such infamous documentaries as Bill Moyer’s “Healing and the Mind.” Any book, including Sontag’s, is remiss if it fails to provide a balanced view of illness in the 21st century. (We know, for instance, that stress contributes to heart disease) Pretending that our internal lives have no impact on our health is irresponsible. Sontag herself writes about the negative effects doctors have noted in a patient’s health when the patient was given a diagnosis, thus underscoring the link between emotion and health. She then goes on to refute her own statement by discrediting the link between the two, and blaming the “new age” for perpetuating negativity in regard to illness.
I do judge that illness needs de-sensatization in our culture, but we must not succeed in downplaying the role our internal lives play in health. The myths and negativity that go by the side of with a cancer diagnosis are only evil because of the emotion and negativity they hold. For Sontag to suggest there is no such link between emotion and health is ludicrious, and further perpetuates the notion that intelligence and material reality are the only threads to the tapestry of life.
There is no substitution for a healthy and centered attitude towards life and death. When an illness is balanced with conventional medicine, an informed and knowledgable patient who feels empowered by his or her choices, (whether they be conventional medicine or alternative choices)and a connection to one’s self– the patient fares much better.
“De-mythacizing” cancer and aids is an vital step in reducing the emotional burden one feels from such a diagnosis. But it should also serve to replace that void with positivity, courage and a stronge sense of ones self.
Rating: 3 / 5
There are already many excellent reviews so I will only suggest reading the following books in addition to Sontag’s, all of them relevant for those interested in the social history of thoughts: 1) “A Terrible Beauty: The People and Thoughts That Shaped the Modern Mind – A History” by Peter Watson; 2) “The passions and the interests” by Albert Hirschman; 3) “The mind and the market: capitalism in Western plotting” by Jerry Muller; 4) “The proper study of mankind” by Isaiah Berlin; and 4) “Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Plotting from Antiquity to the Middle Ages” by Ellen Meiksins Wood.
Rating: 4 / 5
I got this book because of an art object that was placed at the lobby of UConn. The artist explanation of the theme – illness – mentioned this book. It looks at disease from a philosophical top of view, or from a social top of view, in a very excellent writing from this well-known author.
Rating: 5 / 5