Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Birth of the Clinic--Chapter 3

"It must, therefore, have a world in which the gaze, free of all obstacle, is no longer subjected to the immediate law of truth: the gaze is not faithful to truth, nor subject to it, without asserting, at the same time, a supreme mastery: the gaze that sees is a gaze that dominates; and although it also knows how to subject itself, it dominates its masters" (BC 39).

"Disease is thus caught in a double system of observation: there is a gaze that does not distinguish it from, but re-absorbs it into, all the other social ills to be eliminated; and a gaze that isolates it, with a view to circumscribing its natural truth" (BC 43).

"disease is an individual accident that the family must respond to by ensuring that the victim has the necessary care" (BC 44). how true it seems our society believes that sentiment really is...

I'm thinking this passage relates well to the discussion on corporatization of autism: "Can medicine be a free profession that is protected by no corporate law, no prohibition of practice, no privilege of qualification? Can the medical consciousness of a nation be as spontaneous as its civic or moral consciousness? Doctors defend their corporate rights on the ground that they should be understood not in the sense of privilege but of collaboration. The medical body is to be distinguished from political bodies in that it does not seek to limit the liberty of others or to impose laws and obligations upon the citizens" (BC 46).

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