Against the medical model: People love talking about “diagnosing” the political condition to determine a “cure”. Rival political ideas becomes “cancers” or “parasites”. This is because we have the “body politic”, I suppose.
But is politics analogous to the body? Is the nation a body? Is the class a body? The medical model always supports extreme “cures”: cancer requires surgery or chemotherapy. No one says a rival political idea is a case of “ideological flu”.
-
-
People who use the medical model to think about politics tend to want to enact violent or very destructive politics. They want a purgative or to cut something out. I think this instinct comes first, & then the medical model is used to distance themselves from ethics&dehumanise.
Show this thread -
Similarly, are people who disagree with your politics—left or right—actually “mentally ill”? The truth is that the social consensus is fungible. A person coming from outside a social consensus, whether national, religious, or political can seem “mad” to insiders.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.