HSS 2321 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Generic Point, Sexual Politics, Common Cold
31 May 2016
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Document Summary
Cultural variations in the experience of being ill: the experience of pain differs from culture to culture and, at times, so does what is viewed as illness and as health. In the western world, illness is thought to be empirically caused and chemically treatable. In non-western cultures, illness and cure have a non-empirical basis. Disagreement is widespread over which states of physical being are desirable and which are not: it is clear that, for many people, health and religion, the natural and the supernatural, are often closely related. Popular conceptions of health, illness, and disease: illness as carelessness or failure. Contemporary health promotion is built on the assumption that individuals are responsible for staying well. The medical care system is based on aggressive intervention once a disease has been detected. The assumption is that the earlier the detection the better: illness as choice. The idea that illness reflects and results from a sort of despair.
