"That is, medicine has been (and continues to be) an important social institution for reasons other than its ability to heal." Jacob Stegenga (Medical Nihilism) “Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered.” Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace) “Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.” Hippocrates & Galen (Galen) "Crazy as two waltzing mice." Raymond Chandler (Farewell My Lovely) Discussing health and illness is fraught with contradictions and confusions. Almost any definition of disease relies on certain notions of normalcy, or functionality. To call a condition, say depression, dysfunctional becomes a circular … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2019
Living Room
March 4, 2019 by 5 Comments
"All reading is projection. But, of course, it is not only projection." Peter E. Gordon (Adorno and Existence) “Mankind which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Homeric gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.” Walter Benjamin (Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) "...outside of here is death." Samuel Beckett (Endgame) "The ghost of Hamlet’s father keeps appealing to us lest we forget him and pursue our own desires." Rainer Nagele (Reading After Freud) Adorno's first dissertation (or first major disseration) was on Kierkegaard, … [Read more...]
