Political Correctness (PC) or Postmodernism: call it what you will, define it as you like, but by now we're all familiar with the basic thrust of the Left critique of Western Civilization : it is, essentially, that all of the truths and understandings of the world around us and of our purpose in it--that we inherited from Judeo-Christian moral tradition, liberal democratic political tradition, and capitalist economic tradition--are fundamentally wrong. In fact, these systems and their teachings were merely artificial constructs designed to serve the few--straight, white, males--and subjugate the many--women, people of color, the sexually other. PC/Postmodernism seeks to remedy this situation by utterly rejecting the fruits of Western Civilization--religion, morality, reason, scientific method, etc.--and replacing them with pretty nearly any quack theory that one of the oppressed can dream up and by seeking to punish anyone who speaks favorably about the obviously outmoded traditional way of thinking about things, or who, Gaia forbid, actually tries to apply any of the old theories to human affairs.
It's easy enough to see the appeal of PC/Postmodernism to those who have historically fared poorly in our society. First of all, it is important to note, as far too few conservatives are willing to, that a large part of its underlying premise is absolutely correct : Western Civilization is for the most part, at least up until the last half century or so, a creation of males of European descent. Furthermore, these men were not always as enlightened in their relations with people who were different-than-they as we might have wished them to be. Lastly, it is true that these men still predominate in Western society, though their (our) grip would certainly appear to be slipping. Most people look at that set of facts and, though they may judge our ancestors harshly, are nevertheless able to appreciate what they achieved. They can separate out the ideals that Western Civilization enunciated from its failure to always live up to them in practice, and can embrace the ideals. Most of the great strides in civil rights have grown out of this embrace, for instance when women and blacks decided to throw democratic rhetoric back at their oppressors, and make them live up to their own ideals. Women's suffrage and black voting rights and desegregation were won precisely by referring to Western values and demanding that they be realized.
Unfortunately though, these groups have not always recognized the worth of Western Civilization. First, because they had so little role in its creation, they are not emotionally and spiritually invested in it. Second, because they may still trail white men in some areas of social progress, they find it easier to condemn the system, rather than to try and catch up. Thus, they cultivate a culture of victimhood, a process which the feminist author Tammy Bruce has nicely captured in her own book, The New Thought Police, a leftist critique of political correctness :
The sense of perpetual victimhood precludes even
the concept that the members of a victimized minority could actually rise
above
their assigned position in society and meet that
society on their own terms. To do that would mean taking personal
responsibility
for the condition of their own lives, instead today's
'progressives' have designed an argument that leads not to the encouragement
of personal change and growth but to entitlement,
group rights, and the eradication of the individual, all in the name of
progress.
Why bother even trying to compete in modern society, if you can, instead, simply portray yourself as a victim of that society, entitled therefore to special treatment and remedial largesse from your fellow citizens. So we arrive at a political climate where personal responsibility, self-reliance, moral behavior, and even rationality come to be seen not as the tools through which we can all achieve a better human society, but as treacherous remnants of the old system of oppression, to be rejected and discarded, post haste.
Sally Satel's book is a disturbing look at how this kind of PC/Postmodernism is infecting medicine and having a deleterious effect on the very "victims" it is supposed to be helping. We've had plenty of warnings, mostly ignored, about the damage being done to our classrooms and culture by PC/Postmodernism, but as Dr. Satel notes :
Postmodernism may be a harmless approach to literary criticism, but in medicine the stakes are much higher.
After all, a college professor who teaches his classes that the Egyptians were black and could fly is merely an idiot. But a doctor or nurse who tries treating your illness with an ancient Egyptian technique is quite possibly a threat to your life.
Addressing herself to a relatively limited range of topics, mostly ones with which she has personal experience, Dr. Satel amply demonstrates that these kinds of threats to public health are quite real. Among the topics she covers are : the efforts to treat racism as a cause of sickness; the movement by psychiatric patients to deny the very existence of mental illness; the use of "alternative medicine" techniques by nurses; the portrayal of women and minorities as somehow underserved or underrepresented within the health sector; the treatment of addictions as diseases, rather than as functions of personal choice; and the growth of what are basically political therapies, such as recovered memory and the like. She offers numerous, well-documented, and quite frightening examples of all of these pernicious trends in action.
Though at first blush this may seem a random grab bag of problems, they are in fact united by a few simple themes, each of dubious merit. For the most part, each requires us to ignore scientific evidence and instead to accept politically popular explanations for the "causes" of disease. But just because New Age practices like fondling crystals are in style does not mean they have any real worth in the health care setting. Treating them as if they do is downright dangerous. Similarly, we can all celebrate the rising power of women in our society without creating a whole range of incredibly sketchy new "skills" for them to utilize, like recovering memories and using alternative therapies. At current rates of medical school admission and graduation, women doctors will soon achieve parity with their male counterparts if not outnumber them. Women are being empowered within the traditional system; we've no need to turn the system into a dangerous joke just to give them a sense of power that is ultimately based on falsehood and fraud.
Finally, the most basic similarity among the various topics Dr. Satel covers is the way in which they deny personal responsibility and shift blame for a variety of preventable or treatable medical conditions to forces beyond the patients' control. Why lose weight to control my hypertension if I can just blame race? Why take my medications if I can claim schizophrenia is normal? Why try to control my own drinking or drug-use if I can pretend they aren't my fault? And so on. PC/Postmodernism excuses us of all of our sins and pins them on someone or something else. Hell, no wonder it's so popular among people with problems.
Meanwhile, if this were all simply a matter of whom to blame, it might not be a big deal, but consider the implications of this victimology. For one thing, it has to stifle the motivation of people to help themselves, which must thereby prevent them from improving their health. It would be fine for folks to say : I'm a drunk because of the historic crimes of white men, but now I'm taking control of my own life and I'm going to quit drinking. At least they'll get better. But if they sit around saying : It's not my fault, so I don't need to change, then they are going to remain sick. Beyond that though, such victimology, by depriving them of a work ethic and of any sense of personal responsibility, also serves to keep minorities in the lower socio-economic status that PC/Postmodernism has correctly identified as contributing (at least somewhat) to their poor health. The very pathologies that contribute to poverty--ignorance, indolence, immorality, atomization of the once nuclear family, and addiction--also contribute to ill health, yet in excusing these behaviors to suit their political purposes the practitioners of PC/Postmodernism have sacrificed the surest cure for what ails the poor : self-help. And because the doctrine of PC/Postmodernism requires the rejection of modern society and Western values, it leaves those who buy into it ill-equipped to succeed in the very society in which they live, creating a vicious cycle of failure, righteous helplessness and more failure.
Over the course of this fine book, Dr. Satel shows not just that the
health care system is being steadily degraded by people whose primary concerns
are political and not medicinal but that even these political motives are
counterproductive. She makes a convincing case that PC medicine
is part and parcel of the Left's broader attempt to demoralize the culture
and to subvert the social order, and that this is being done without due
regard for its actual effects on the ill. Most of the negative comments
I could find, come from folks who think that Dr. Satel overstates her case
or is merely grinding a conservative axe. On the contrary, she seems,
if anything, to be a tad too cautious in her argument, sticking so closely
to personal knowledge that she misses some big targets. The book
makes little or no mention of such blatantly anti-scientific, though politically
correct, causes as Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, the silicon breast-implant
hysteria, or the myth of heterosexual AIDs and the murderously foolish
notion that you can practice "safe sex". And anyone who has
had a baby in recent years can tell you a half dozen or more areas of that
seemingly straightforward branch of medicine that have been thoroughly
corrupted by political theory, from the cult-like insistence on "natural"
child birth and breast feeding to the vehement opposition to circumcision.
Hopefully Dr. Satel will be returning in the future to address an even
wider range of such topics. As is, PC, M.D. will frighten
anyone who cares about the quality and the future of medicine in America;
which should be everyone.
(Reviewed:04-Mar-02)
Grade: (A-)
