the tyranny of "healthy"

[firecat]

Originally posted as a comment in this entry of the very thoughtful journal of keryx. Somewhat edited and expanded here.


keryx writes:

Is the way our culture beats people with the healthy stick really about [an entirely demented concept of] what's good for you? Or is it about conformity?

It's definitely about conformity, but even more than that, it's about control, and moral judgement of others.

Even though this is supposedly a scientific information age, people still feel on some level that being not healthy means you did something wrong and you're being punished for it.

Health is in fact mostly a matter of luck (chance, genes, environment). One can have some influence on one's health conditions through behavior and environment, but one cannot absolutely control them and one cannot pick which health problems one is going to have to deal with. But people desperately want to believe that their health is entirely in their control, and part of sustaining that myth is to look down on people who are farther away from the health norm than they are, and believe "they did it to themselves." The other part is to look at their own health status, largely influenced by chance, and believe "I made this, I am this healthy entirely because of my own choices."

People do the same sort of thing with poverty. Even though there are enormous social and economic forces keeping poor people poor and rich people rich, people look at poor people and want to believe "They're there because they're lazy." And people look at themselves, if they aren't poor, and want to believe "I am a self-made success through hard work and sacrifice."

Note: I see this has come out implying that everybody always thinks this way. I don't really think so. But I do think these are general trends and attitudes that are part of the social fabric, and everybody who is part of the social fabric is influenced in some way by these beliefs.

Comments

[firecat]

I think people like you who make it out of poverty deserve a lot of credit because it's very difficult.

I also think that because it's very difficult, it's wrong to assume that people who don't make it out of poverty are making "bad choices." (As you mention.) They probably are making average choices rather than exceptional ones.

I also agree with what you say about society's training people to stay in poverty.

I think in part this happens because there's lots and lots of information pushed at people about "what you should do" to fix something -- and usually it's far more than you actually can do. But there is much less information about "how to prioritize." That's because teaching people how to prioritize involves teaching them how to think, and society doesn't want people to think, because then they'll stop conforming.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I'm not disagreeing with your thesis, but I'm curious who you are refering to when you point the accusatory finger at "society?"

[firecat]

There really isn't any "who." "Society" is a conglomeration of mainstream beliefs and pressures and realities. It's maintained via inertia and fear of change and the combined pressures of people who benefit from it in various ways, or think they do.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

With society being a rater nebulous target, do you have any suggestions for how to either manifest changes in those combined pressures or how to make the inertial mass work for, rather than, against change?

[firecat]

No.

Do you?

[snippy]

They probably are making average choices rather than exceptional ones.

Um, yeah. I know this intellectually but I haven't integrated it. Believing this fights with the "you are nobody special" thing my mom says in the back of my head.

And having lived through some of it, I can identify when people are piling up too much to do or in expectations, on someone who is struggling to survive, not even attempting to thrive yet.

I know that I wouldn't have had even the opportunity to make it out of poverty without the limited social welfare we had in the US when I was a child. I think upping the safety net to the point where more than just the exceptional people could make it out of poverty is possible.

theferret posted a day or so ago about going out for a luxurious, memorable meal, and advocated everyone doing it. But when people on food stamps want to have steak once a month, even if it means eating beans for two weeks, they're castigated by the people who think that kind of choice is what keeps people in poverty. That is not that kind of choice--that is the kind of choice made by people who have given up on getting out.

[firecat]

Interesting. I have no problem reconciling "I made exceptional choices" with "I am nobody special." "I am nobody special" is an axiom that remains true no matter what I do.

I wish the safety net were being improved rather than destroyed.