Analysis #7 - The Drug of the 21st Century: Neuroenhancements

In the hustle-bustle of everyday life surrounding academics, busy work schedules, and social interactions, we constantly find ourselves extremely overwhelmed, mentally stressed, and physically exhausted. For the majority of Americans, who are consistently reminded of the need to strive for optimal production and success, having the time and energy to stay focused is a strenuous and seemingly impossible challenge that must be encountered each day. Anxieties and pressures associated with performance in both school and work have created a demand for neuroenhancers that would give people the opportunity to boost their cognitive functions. Adderall and Ritalin, drugs that were initially created to help children and adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), are now being abused by undiagnosed and unprescribed individuals who take these stimulants for "nonmedical" purposes" (Talbot, 2). Advances in medicine and improvements in marketing strategies have combined with societal expectations and demands to create in us the attraction to the idea of consuming neuroenhancing drugs to keep up with society, our peers, and ultimately, ourselves.

The above image, taken from a blog on Adderall on the college campus (http://thestudypill.wordpress.com/), is a poster-like visual that says (in large letters) "that twenty five thousand dollar ticket will look fabulous next to the A+ paper on your cell wall" and then asks (in much smaller font) "is it worth it?" The image depicts in the background a pair of lips about to intake an Adderall XR pill. This image and the message it sends are very powerful in the sense that they address two important aspects of neuroenhancing drugs - their ability to effectively improve cognitive function and their potentially dangerous side effects. What makes neuroenhancers like Adderall and Ritalin dangerous is not only their "high potential for abuse...and serious cardiac problems" (Talbot, 2), but also people's tendency to underestimate and ignore these potential hazards. In her article on "Brain Gain: The Underground World of Neuroenhancing Drugs", Margaret Talbot informs readers that "white male undergraduates at highly competitive schools...are the most frequent collegiate users of neuroenhancers" (Talbot, 2). Talbot also discusses the results of an online poll published in the scientific journal Nature, which stated that "a majority of the fourteen hundred readers who responded said that healthy adults should be permitted to take brain boosters for nonmedical reasons, and sixty-nine percent said that mild side effects were an acceptable risk" (Talbot, 3). Debates on using neuroenhancers as a sort of "cosmetic neurology" (Talbot, 3) as a way to increase performance are not something that should be taken lightly and they are definitely sending us on a slippery slope. Time is of the essence to all of us, yet the idea of allowing undiagnosed individuals to use medications that were "developed for recognized medical conditions" (Talbot, 3) seems like an unfair and crude insult to those that actually require the drugs to assist them in medically diagnosed cognitive deficiencies. For those that highly criticize the use of medicine and technology to serve nonmedical purposes, the popularity of nonmedical uses of neuroenhancers may appear to be a living nightmare and a failed attempt by society to do better for its people. Yet can we really blame the abusers of Adderall and Ritalin when societal pressures may be the source of their popularity to begin with? After all, as Talbot tells her readers, "the demand is certainly there: from an aging population that won't put up with memory loss; from overwrought parents bent on giving their children every possible edge; from anxious employees in an efficiency-obssessed, BlackBerry-equipped office culture, where work never really ends" (Talbot, 3). It is a sad, yet inevitable truth that we have allowed ourselves to become so enveloped by productivity and success that we are willing to do anything (even if that means taking drugs) in order to pull ourselves through and make it to the top.

The concept of neuroenhancers may seem straightforward enough (take the drugs, enhance cognitive function, focus better, become successful), yet that would be a vulgar oversimplification of the processes involved as it fails to define the term "enhancement'. As one of the cofounders of NeuroInsights states, "We're not talking about superhuman intelligence. No one's saying we're coming out with a pill that's going to make you smarter than Einstein!...What we're really talking about is enabling people" (Talbot, 4). By enabling, I believe he is referring to the possibility of giving people the opportunity to expand their abilities and perform better than they otherwise normally would without the assistance of the drugs. However, it seems many people who abuse the drugs believe the pills are some sort of magical "smart drugs" (Talbot, 2) that are completely benign without any potentially dangerous side effects. Although some people might be unaware of the potential hazards of taking neuroenhancers, perhaps the majority of them knowingly consume them in order to keep up with the "baseline competitive level [that] reorients around what these drugs make possible" (Talbot, 6). Social and academic anxieties are not the only pressures society places on us to work harder and perform better. As Talbot states, neuroenhancers "have a synergistic relationship with our multiplying digital technologies: the more gadgets we own, the more distracted we become, and the more we need help in order to focus" (Talbot, 11). As we become more scientifically equipped and medically knowledgeable, we strive to find "multiple opportunities for therapeutic interventions" through biomedicine (Rose, 206) to target neurological disorders.

Technological advances and interventions cannot be blamed to be the sole culprit causing our attraction to and reliance on neuroenhancers. In a society based on capitalism, marketing is an important aspect of a functioning economy. As Nikolas Rose suggest in his piece on "The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century", mental disorders today are "vital opportunities for the creation of private profit and national economic growth" (Rose, 209). The lay public are drawn into the idea of viewing diseases in a "clinical form" (Rose, 214) through direct-to-consumer advertisement and presentation of disorders and diseases alongside "advice on the [existence and] use of pharmaceutical treatments of the [conditions]" (Rose, 217). Marketing clothes, hair products, or electronic gizmos and gadgets is one thing, but marketing neuroenhancers and pyschostimulants is a whole different thing. It becomes a concern when drugs become "entangled with certain conceptions of what humans are or should be - that is to say specific norms, values, and judgments internalized in the very idea of these drugs" (Rose, 220). Neuroenhancers cannot be discussed in isolation of social, cultural, and political factors that have shaped its creation and demand in the first place. We wouldn't find ourselves depending so heaviliy on neuroenhancers if we weren't pressured to constantly perform beyond our physical and mental capabilities. As Talbot suggests, "every era has its defining drug" (Talbot, 1). It does not come to me as a big surprise that in our era, which places much value and emphasis on productivity and efficiency, neuroenhancers have become the predominant drug of the twenty-first century. In today's modern world, most of us would do anything to get that extra boost of energy or that extra half an hour to complete our duties in order to stand out among the rest (or just barely get through the day). The frequency and popularity of the abuse of neuroenhancing drugs today should serve as important indicators of where we may be going in terms of future dependency on medical science. We are becoming more and more obsessed and addicted to the "benefits" science may offer us, failing to see that these opportunities come with strings attached.



Works Cited:

Rose, Nikolas. 2007. Neurochemical Selves, in Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 187 – 223.

Talbot, Margaret.  “Brain Gain: The Underground World of ‘Neuroenhancing’ Drugs”. The New Yorker, April 27, 2009. 

Analysis #6 - The (Not So Obvious) Meaning of Food

If there's one thing in the world that we all share it's eating. Every human, every living organism, every tiny particle of life form on Earth must take in nutrients in order to sustain itself and survive. Although the types and availability of food resources themselves may vary across cultures and geographical regions, we all partake in the universally accepted and essential activity of eating. The most basic (and most obvious) reason for eating is to provide our bodies with the energy it requires to function properly - energy that we are able to obtain from consuming animal and plant products, which sustain us through nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, sugars, and vitamins. In recent times, much emphasis has been placed on the value and functionalities of these nutrients, creating what Gyorgy Scrinis classifies as the "ideology or paradigm of nutritionism [which] has come to dominate, to undermine, and to replace other ways of engaging with food and of contextualizing the relationship between food and the body" (Scrinis, 39). Our growing obsession with the biochemical composition and nutrients of foods has led us to become more dependent "on nutritional experts as a source of knowledge about food" (Scrinis, 46). Our nutritionally reductive approach to food reflects not only society's changing demands and values (of health and diet), but it also displays our infatuation with the "perfect body" and the power it holds in shaping and maintaining our identities.

The image above, taken from a bodybuilding blog (http://www.bodybuilding4idiots.com/blog/163/7-cardio-myths-expelled-once-and-for-all/), depicts a simple picture of a fork, knife, and plate. Seems normal enough, yet the plate is the centerpiece in this image as it is shown tied around and knotted by a measuring tape. The message of the image is clear and concise: it reminds us of the all-too-familiar phrase "you are what you eat". This image is a good example of the nutritional reductionism, biomarker reductionism, and genetic reductionism that Scrinis discusses in his chapter "On the Ideology of Nutritionism". As the image suggests, our experience with food and eating is something "that must be measured, monitored, and scientifically managed" (Scrinis, 46). Unlike our hunting and gathering ancestors, modern humans have modified the meaning of eating and have extended its definition to incorporate not only its essential role for survival, but a more broader landscape of its usages in terms of identity maintenance. Food is no longer just food; it has now become the very grounds on which we evaluate food products and make health-conscious decisions about what to eat and what not to eat. Hillel Schwartz argues, in R. Marie Griffith's chapter on "The Erotics of Abstinence in American Christianity", that "modern dieting is itself a central ritual in what has become the predominant religion of late twentieth century America: the worship of the body beautiful, lean, and physically fit" (Griffith, 38). Such "worshipping" of the body does not serve merely as a figure of speech. In fact, as Griffith informs us, "American culture's treasured doctrine of the perfectible body is deeply indebted to Christian currents that have perceived the body as central for pushing the soul along the path to progress" (Griffith, 38). This path to progress was most easily indexed through "the size and fitness of his or her body" (Griffith, 41) and would entail abstinence from food (during the early fourth century C.E.), which was seen as "a means of purification, a sign of grief, a work of charity, or an expression of penitence, and the desire for God's mercy" (Griffith 36). In this sense, food was used as a way to maintain spiritual health, by advising Christian followers to consume foods from the Kingdom of God while avoiding "worldly" or fattening foods (Griffith, 42). Food not only holds a biological and/or physiological importance on our bodies, but according to early forms of American Christianity, it also maintained a religious power over our bodies and souls.

Edward Dumke, author of Christian diet book The Serpent Beguiled Me and I Ate: A Heavenly Diet for Saints and Sinners, advises readers that "thou shalt consume sufficient protein but thou shalt limit the amount of animal protein...Thou shalt create a diet in complex carbohydrates...Thou shalt create a diet low in saturated fat" (Griffith, 44). Such religio-scientific advice regarding food intake mirrors the nutritionally reductive approach mentioned earlier in Scrinis' chapter that discusses our narrow focus on the biochemical breakdown or nutrient composition of the foods we consume. Much like Dumke, "nutritionists highlight the distinctions between good and bad cholesterol, good and bad fats, and good and bad carbohydrates" (Scrinis, 44). This "nutri-quanitification" (Scrinis, 43) is evident in other nutrition discourses such as macrobiotics, which, "like traditional diets, categorizes food into better and worse options" (Crowley, 37). Food becomes once again something that can be distinctively measured and within macrobiotics, it is "understood to precede and to give rise to every thought, speech, feeling, and act" (Crowley, 38). Macrobiotics does not use food as a means of controlling spiritual enlightenment or maintaining culturally-imposed images of the ideal body; it instead "offers satisfactions derived not from trying to fit one's body to an unattainable ideal, but from exerting some control over gender" (Crowley, 38) by allowing individuals to adjust their daily intake of yin and yang (feminine and masculine energy, respectively). According to macrobiotics, certain foods (i.e. fruits and alcohol) are categorized as "yin foods" while others (i.e. meat and eggs) are categorized as "yang foods". The belief that by "eating certain foods cooked in certain ways, an individual can achieve a healthy new gender balance" (Crowley, 40) parallels the beliefs of nutritional reductionism in the sense that foods can be broken down according to their various nutrients and can serve functional purposes in bodily health.

While going about our daily lives and busy work schedules, we rarely think twice (or even once) about the all-too-mundance activity of eating. We partake in the activity of eating everyday without stopping to think about how our choices of food have been influenced by the advice of nutritional experts, marketing strategies of the food industry, and dietary guidelines established by the government and various other institutions. Food holds a very powerful control over our lives simply due to the fact that we require it for our very survival. Yet food "has the capacity not only to nourish the body but also to alter personality and behavior" (Crowley, 40) through religious, gender, social, and cultural systems of power.


Works Cited:

Gyorgy Scrinis, 2008. “The ideology of Nutritionism,” Gastronomica 8(1): 39-48.

R. Marie Griffith, 2001. “Don’t Eat That’: The Erotics of Abstinence in American Christianity.” Gastronomica 1(4): 36-47.

Karlyn Crowley, 2002. “Gender on a Plate: The Calibration of Identity in American Macrobiotics.” Gastronomica 2(3): 37-48.

Analysis #5 - Medicalizing "Deviance"

"Disease" is universally accepted as causing some form of abnormality or state of ill-compromised health that disrupts an individual's normal everyday life experience. Although the actual definition of the term "disease" differs widely cross-culturally and geographically, its existence is acknowledged in all human societies. One culture may view "disease" as being caused by the effects of misfortune or acts of witchcraft or contact with natural/spiritual phenomena, while another may associate it with scientifically proven psychological, physiological, or mental medical conditions interfering with the body. It is this latter definition of "disease" that is of interest here and will serve as the main focus of this analysis, which will concentrate primarily on the causes and effects underlying the medicalization of social problems or "deviance" in Western societies.

The image above, taken from The Global Sociology Blog (http://globalsociology.com/2010/01/16/medicalization-of-deviance-as-strategy/), depicts the socially acceptable and socially unacceptable perceptions of what one may generalize to be considered social problems. In this particular cartoon, on the left frame we see a young boy telling his mother that laziness was the reason behind his incompletion of his homework (labeled socially unacceptable) and on the right frame we see the same young boy telling his mother that laziness syndrome had been the culprit behind his uncompleted homework (labeled socially acceptable). This cartoon provides a straight-forward demonstration of Western notions of the tendency (and necessity) to medicalize any (or rather, every) social problem we experience. As the cartoon illustrates, laziness itself is not sufficient to explain why we were unable to finish our homework or mow the lawn or walk the dog or take out the trash or pay our electricity bills or whatever it is that we were just too darn lazy to do. However, laziness immediately becomes a socially acceptable cause of idleness and lack of progress as soon as a medical term is attached. As absurd as it sounds, "laziness syndrome" apparently serves as a legitimate medical condition  that can excuse us from our daily responsibilities and duties. This medicalization of social problems or social "deviance" can be seen quite frequently in our society. Reduced (or uncontrollably heightened) sexual desire among single and married individuals becomes medically coined as Inhibited Sexual Desire (ISD) and Sexual Addiction, respectively. As Janice M. Irvine states in her article on "Regulated Passions", "diseases are artifacts with social history and social practice" (Irvine, 314) and "inhibited sexual desire and sexual addiction are two of the most recent medical constructions of sexual disease and disorder" (Irvine, 315). In a time during which increasing number of people were exhibiting concerns of sexual dysfunctions, "sexologists, with their appeal to scientific legitimacy and medical authority, were riding a wave or popularity in a vast market eager for a new approach to sexual problems" (Irvine, 316). 

ISD and sexual addiction became increasingly accepted as being medical disorders because the "proposal that any behavioral excess could lead to dependence fit nicely with the popular and widespread generalization of ideas about addiction represented by such figures as the workaholic, shopaholic, and compulsive gambler" (Irvine, 317). By medicalizing these disorders as being a form of sexual disease, it allows those suffering from them to remove personal responsibility by blaming uncontrollable sexual desires on mechanisms of the brain that are "locked...in early childhood" (Irvine, 321) and "encoded into the hardwiring of the brain" (Irvine, 322). The medicalization of sexual disease can be seen as a result of cultural and social ideologies of sex. Irvine states that "both ISD and sexual addiction rely heavily on self-diagnosis and serve as beacons for the individual who feels a sense of inadequacy or incongruence with cultural or interpersonal sexual norms" (Irvine, 323).  Perhaps this can explain one of the dangers behind medicalizing social problems. ISD and sexual addiction may not truly be medical disorders; they may in reality be socially invented forms of sexual "disease" created as individuals fell under the cultural pressures of sex and how much (or little) sex a "normal" person should be getting. Despite the medicalization of ISD and sexual addiction, "the diagnosis of ISD remains controversial among sexologists, with little consensus regarding operational criteria" (Irvine, 324). I would think if ISD was categorized as being a medical disorder, its method and mode of diagnosis should be more agreed upon and universally understood, at least within the medical professionals. Currently, experts in both sexology and addictionology are "[looking] hopefully and confidently to the future of neurochemistry for unlocking the determinants of their diseases" (Irvine, 326). But what happens if neurochemistry cannot explain the reasoning behind ISD and sexual addiction? If, contrary to what sexologists and addictionologists believe, these sexual disorders are not caused by "a specific neural system in the brain" (Irvine, 321), will their medicalization be invoked? If they are maintained, in which forms will they take?

Much in the same way that sexual desires have been medicalized is the pathologization of male and female homosexuality. Jennifer Terry's chapter on "Medicalizing Homosexuality" states that doctors' expertise concerning the body gave them authority to comment on the causality, prevalence, and treatment of any socially deviant behavior that they could plausibly link to heredity or to bodily processes" (Terry, 40). It comes as no surprise that homosexuality became subject to Western tendencies of medicalization since homosexuality was not very well understood and therefore widely unaccepted in modern societies. "Homosexual bodies, as they were imagined by physicians, were objects to be measured, zones to be mapped, and texts to be interpreted" (Terry, 41). Irvine's piece on "Regulated Passions" also discusses the "biomedical tradition [of quantifying] desire" (Irvine, 320) and exhibiting the "impulse to map desire and its varied disorders in the body" (Irvine, 320). Western notions of medicine seem to emphasize on the mapping of disorders and signs of social deviance on the human body, which isn't surprising since biomedicine seeks to stray away from subjective components of illness and move towards objective aspects of medicalized disorders. Homosexuality has been medicalized and discussed in terms of nervous degeneration, congenital predisposition (Terry, 45-50), evolutionary throwbacks, and what Freud calls "an immature stage of psychosexual development" (Terry, 61). 

Like ISD and sexual addiction as well as homosexuality, behaviors considered to be reflections of social "deviance" are medicalized in an attempt to validate their existence as a result of events that can be scientifically proven. Medicalization of social "problems" can be seen as beneficial to those suffering from the disorders since "the seemingly neutral and scientific language of disease may offer palpable relief to those who secretly worry that their sexuality is inadequate or out of control" (Irvine, 328). 

Homosexual men and women beseeched doctors to make sense of their unusual desires and to defend them against criminal charges and religious intolerance" (Terry, 42). Despite sufferers' opportunity to use medicalized definitions of social disorders to divert personal responsibility to biological causes of disease, medicalizing disorders "cannot really be said said to eliminate moral stigma or enhance "cure"" (Irvine, 330). What really needs to be looked at are the various social, cultural, and political factors allowing for the medicalization of social concerns and the tremendous effects they are having on professionals as well as those afflicted. We need to be able to realize that social and cultural ideologies are shaping the ways in which we view the body as a form of object to be manipulated and studied by science and as an individual entity that should be viewed and valued by the qualities it possesses. 

Works Cited:

Irvine, Janice M. 1995. "Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction". In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Sci Works ence and Popular Culture". Edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla. Pp. 314-337. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Terry, Jennifer. 1999. “Medicalizing Homosexuality”. In An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 40-73.           

Analysis #4 - The "Heal" in "Heal(th)"

Cross-cultural studies have shown that the term "healing" can have very different meanings and manifestations in various social and cultural settings. Despite dominance of Western biomedicine, research on traditional forms of healing may reveal the possibility of alternative or ethnomedical methods of healing. For those accustomed to Western knowledge and notions of scientific thought, religious healing appears to be a rather far-fetched concept. The idea of fusing bits of science here and there with what seems to be magical, mystical, or supernatural illusions sounds impractical and inaccurate based on Western standards of medicine. But perhaps hastily overlooking the power that these ethnomedical approaches may hold could be a narrow-minded mistake on our part as they may prove to be just as valuable in various healing processes.

Above is an image from an online blog (http://www.prometheus-burning.com/). The image is a pyramid depicting the various components of a faith-based healing model. Unlike a biomedical healing model, which would mainly emphasize the need for accurate diagnoses and medical attention, this faith-based healing model incorporates all the different aspects of an individual's life. This is not to say that Western healing processes do not find nutrition, exercise, attitude, support, and meaning and purpose significant in healing patients; the point here is that traditional approaches to healing place a much heavier emphasis on the latter components of healing rather than the purely medical component that is more commonly seen in Western biomedicine. Navajo religious healing is one example of a traditional approach that focuses on the role of diagnosis in a "patient-centered therapeutic process" which "[imbues] narrative with healing power" (Howard & Milne, 544). The above image depicts a medical component of the healing process, which the Navajo exhibits through their emphasis on the fact that the success of a healing ceremony ultimately “is predicated on an accurate diagnosis” (Howard & Milne, 546). Properly diagnosing patients is a medical act in itself since without it, there would be no objective basis on which to determine the most appropriate method of treatment and healing.

Unlike Western medicine, Navajo religious healing processes “collapse the dichotomy between natural and supernatural, as they include physiological, psychological, cultural, social, and spiritual factors” (Howard & Milne, 546). The removal of this dichotomy, along with a loose correlation between symptom and cause, “distinguishes Navajo ethnomedicine from Western medical healing therapies” (Howard & Milne, 546). Western medicine would not approve of the incorporation of the supernatural or spiritual being into medical discourse. However, as Joseph S. Alter asks in his piece on modern medical yoga, “where is the proof that prana flows through the sushumna; where is the evidence that yogis can live forever by stopping their breath and the flow of their semen? Conversely, where is the proof that they cannot? It is the power of these unanswerable questions that makes yoga powerful” (Alter, 141). Alter’s quote is applicable in this context since it addresses the Western medicine’s refusal to consider non-medical traditional forms of medicine. Just like we don’t have any proof to answer Alter’s questions, we also do not know for sure whether or not religious healing processes truly work. The fact that we cannot objectively state with hard evidence that religious healing is invalid may make it all the more possible. 

It is not uncommon in any patient-physician/sufferer-healer relationship to witness varying levels of physician/diagnostician confidence. Despite potential allegations of incompetence, “Navajo people do not abandon the use of diagnosticians, since etiological complexity and the necessity of choosing the right ceremonial course of action make them indispensable to the therapeutic process” (Howard & Milne, 548). The Navajo place much importance on attitude, support, and meaning/purpose. The attitude of an individual (willingness to share private information that may assist during the healing process or genuine sincerity of forgiveness during a Native American Church meeting) may determine whether or not the individual will truly be cured. Both healers and patients emphasize the need to “allow every individual the opportunity to better understand the nature of his own problems, a process that is seen as central to healing efficacy” (Howard & Milne, 551). Through the help of the diagnostician, a patient would be able to see the meaning and purpose behind their assigned healing process. The purpose could mean seeking forgiveness for previous misbehavior (required by the NAC) or coming to one’s one sense of the causes of their maladies through narration.

Even within Navajo religious healing, many differences differentiate the healing processes of the NAC from those of the Traditional Navajo religion. Despite these differences, however, the various “views of cause and treatment can be negotiated to find a common ground, creating an innovative syncretic form” (Howard & Milne, 559). Perhaps this is something we could apply in Western notions of medicine. Rather than forcefully separating ourselves from the more traditional methods of healing, it might be helpful to try and “[bridge] the differences between the two healing systems by incorporating important elements in each” (Howard & Milne, 560). Unlike Western medicine, the Navajo healing processes emphasize the importance of narration and the “effective potential of language itself” (Milne, 564). According to the Navajos, “narration of illness experience is the process by which thought and speech are used to bring the body back to a state of health” (Howard & Milne, 564-565). The focus on helping the patient discover his/her own cause(s) of illness demonstrates the importance that Navajo healing processes place on the individual’s understanding of meaning and purpose as well as the other components involved in accurately diagnosing and treating an ill individual.



Works Cited:

Alter, Joseph S. 2005. “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy, and Sex”. Asian Medicine 1(1): 119-146.

Howard, Wilson and Milne, Derek. 2000. “Rethinking the Role of Diagnosis in Navajo

Religious Healing”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14(4): 543-570.