It’s been almost a week since I attended the Rose Cafe hosted by GRF Magdala. The reason was that I wanted the discussion to sink in. To use a word that was frequently cited during the discussion, the ‘narrative’ that our societies’ focus on and measuring of individuals against a normal (different from but nearly synonymous with, depending on your point of view, average) standard removes the autonomy and individual worth that individuals seek. Put bluntly, and as rgc94 pointed out, this argues that our individual conception of self is taken from them when we reflexively evaluate their worth with respect to some normal. Instead, particularly in medical practice, the medical professional should treat the patient, rather than the illness, the latter of which necessitates the comparison of the patient to a more normal “healthy” individual.

I have two concerns with this. The first involves our conception of self itself, and where it comes from. If I understand the post made by rgc94, this point is also made there. I heard of this idea somewhere else as well, and I think it goes back to Hegel; that our understanding of self is built from our contrasting ourselves with an “other”. It is not a perfect mapping, but suppose we map on to this conception “other” instead the conception “normal”. Our ability to develop a sense of self then is necessarily dependent on my ability to differentiate myself from an external model, in this case the “normal”. So, if we value self, this is necessary.

But that last is a big if – should we value self? I’m increasingly in the camp that argues we should not. Self consciousness could easily be an illusion, and our conception of self leads to selfishness, greed, and an ill society. The counter is simple, that an elimination of self leads to oppression, a lack of rights, and dominance hierarchies, and while this may be somewhat true in Western societies that have forced a conception like this (a huge debate I won’t get into here), my (limited) understanding of Eastern societies with similar conceptions suggests that it can be highly functional. Either way, a disregard of a self in this sense I think plays well into Magdala’s thesis; If disease is truly a form of natural harmony, and good health merely the absence of suffering (thus the only disease needing to be cured is one leading to any amount of suffering), then a patient treating that disease is treating the wider conception of suffering, the patient’s “narrative”, rather than the patient as an individual. To treat the patient as an individual would necessitate this comparison to the “normal” that she wants to avoid, and with this (perhaps disingenuous) re-characterization of the argument, I am back on board with accepting its claims.