Myth 6: It is Normal to be Healthy

Although it is obvious that everyone gets sick at some point, we tend to treat illness as if it were some form of a "deviation" from a normal state. Likewise with disorders, syndromes, etc. It is as if there were one particular way the body is "supposed" to function, if not affected by assaults from without or perversions within.

But the body is a complex system. It is the very nature of a complex system to embody multiple physical configurations and to respond in highly unpredictable ways to changing conditions - to itself be constantly undergoing processes of change. Thus, thunderstorms, though possibly unpleasant or even dangerous, are requisite aspects of weather systems, following directly from their internal logics, as much as nice, sunny days. The same with illness and disease.

Furthermore, what it is to be "healthy" is itself a socially determined matter. No one is exactly the same; no body functions identically to any other. We are all unique and have our individual quirks, strong points, and weaknesses. So what, exactly, is the boundary between "healthy" and not "healthy"? If I have allergies, am I still healthy? My muscles are a little less flexible than the average person, and my ankle joints are tight... does THAT make me unhealthy? Is a person with lactose intolerance (coincidentally, a much more prevalent "condition" than lactose tolerance) still healthy? What about a hemophiliac? The lines we draw are arbirtary. But they do have meaning.

I mentioned in Myth 5 that the religious aspect of the "invasion" approach to disease has only partially been shed from contemporary thought. Although modern medicine is an ostensibly "secular" enterprise, the moralization of illness and disease still persists (and, in fact, is vital to the narrative of progress). It takes the form of a pervasive yet tacit assumption that health status is a measure a person's moral worth. Disease is often associated with unhygenic, "primitive," or deviant behavior. It also tends to become associated with particular groups of people (AIDS was a "gay disease" before it became a "black disease"; hepatitis is a druggie disease; syphillis is a pervert disease; TB is an immigrant disease; etc. etc.). Our notions of "health" and "disease" are a significant means by which we imbue human bodies with social meaning.

In the era of capitalism, we may do this to create social divisions among the human population to enact a division of labor; to construct a visual map of scientific/capitalist progress using human bodies (a task which requires contemporary representatives of our "primitive," diseased past); to evaluate and manipulate personal choices; and, of course, to sustain a consumerist attitude toward physical well-being, wherein if one just "tries hard enough" by investing wisely in food, in doctors, in pharmaceuticals, etc. then one can attain "health."