Defining Life

Defining Life

In chapter two of Rose (2007), “Politics and Life,” he specifically discusses the terms of contemporary biopolitics: Life, Nonlife, Politics, Biopolitics, Eugenics, Population, Risk, and The New Pastorate. First, Rose discusses “the meaning of life.” Rose discusses how conceptions of the term, life, have changed since the 1800s, noting the rise of biology, which did not exist in the 18^th century; then Rose discusses Foucault’s idea of binary divisions of nature  in the 19^th century as either – the living which is continuously fruitful- or inorganic – the non-living, those who do not produce/reproduce; and lastly, the 20^th century is more conflicting in assertions of life with some scholars viewing the era of “life as information” replaced by “life as organic unity,” Rose agrees with EvelynFox Keller that

a genetic style of thought is giving way to a postgenomic emphasis on complexities, interactions, developmental sequences, and cascades of regulation interacting back and forth at various points in the metabolic pathways that lead to the synthesis of enzymes and proteins. (p. 47).

Rose also asserts that life “in terms of information” has reached its limits and “can no longer capture what researchers do as they represent and intervene in the vital complexities that constitute life at a molecular level” (p. 47). In addition, Rose also discusses the differences between life and nonlife, noting that the lines between these two states of being are not concrete but rather blurred (as he cites the issues concerning organ transplantation), and are subject to political, bioethical, and biomedical debate, along with concentrated capitalization.

Politics & Biopolitics

Using Foucault’s (1978) theoretical framework of political power in The History of Sexuality, Rose emphasizes that politics have to address the vitality of human existence: “the size and quality of the population; reproduction and human sexuality; conjugal, parental, and familial relations’ health and diseases; birth and death” (p. 53). Because of essential relations between managing populations and their characteristics, and the many components of government and their systems of management, Rose uses the term biopolitics to refer to “strategies involving contestations over the ways in which human vitality, morbidity, and mortality should be problematized, over the desirable level and form of the interventions required, over the knowledge, regimes of authority, and practices of intervention that are desirable, legitimate, and efficacious.” (p. 54).

Eugenics, Risk, & the New Pastorate

            Rose notes the different ways in which eugenics has been defined by many scholars throughout the first half of the 20^th century. Rose states that eugenics is comprised of strategic ways of legitimating and making vital the need “to secure the future welfare of the nation by acting upon the differential rates of reproduction of specific portions of the population, so as to encourage the best to procreate and to limit the procreation of those thought to be of lower, inferior, defective, or diseased stock” (p. 54). Central to the idea of eugenics is population. FrancisGalton (1883) coined the term, eugenics, and believed that “the science of heredity is concerned with Fraternities and large Populations rather than with individuals and must treat them as units” (Galton, 1889, p. 35 as cited in Rose). In other words, as Rose reiterates, while the aim is strategically placed on the agency for individual health, this aim ultimately hopes to improve the quality of the entire population, and not just select individuals. Roses discusses Foucault’s concepts of the body politic- eugenics- as to include: population, quality, territory, nation, and race as being an essential part of eugenic discourse, as he gives the example of how Nazi physicians used these terms to promote superior bodies over “inferior” ones.

According to Rose, in eugenics, through a “variety of strategies that try to identify, manage, or administer those individuals, groups, or localities, where risk is seen to be high,” risk thinking has been central to biopolitics for over 150 years (p. 70). Here, risk implies multiple ways of contemplation and acting that “involve calculations about probable futures in the present followed by interventions into the present in order to control that potential future” (p. 70). In the first half of the 20^th century, genetic advising was used in heredity clinics following WWII. Throughout the same century, reproduction risks became a central area in which women were risk profiled by their physician or midwife. Pregnant women already considered high risk due to age or family history, could choose to receive antenatal screening – testing samples of maternal serum for genetic abnormalities; in addition, many of the “feeble minded,” psychiatric patients, and sexual offenders were sterilized.

          Similar to Foucault, Rose also discusses eugenics as pastoral – “a form of collectivizing and individualizing power concerned with the welfare of the ‘flock’ as a whole” (p.73). Rose states that contemporary pastoral power is not managed by the state; rather, this power takes form in a plural and debated field imbedded by the codes defined by different ethical and professional associations and committees, researchers’ empirical analyses, attitudes and policies by employers and insurers, tests developed and advertised by psychologists and biotech companies, self-help organizations advice, and additionally, the perspectives of religious organizations and sociologists. In other words, Rose describes contemporary pastoral power as relational, working “between the affects and ethics of the guider,” the medical professionals, and the affects and ethics of the guided- “patient”- who are making themselves more productive and better citizens of society. Lastly, as we already briefly discussed in class, Rose discusses the problems surrounding the fact that, “once known to fall within a risk group, the individual may be treated – by others and by themselves – as if they were, now or in the future, certain to be affected in the severest fashion” (p.75).

U.S. Healthscapes and Iconography

In chapter three of “Biomedicalization,” Clarke (2010) argues that modern American biomedicalization, along with the rise of medicine and medicalization, are all overlapped “with popular and visual cultural materials, representations, and media coverage of things medical”- which Clarke deems as healthscapes (p. 105). To reiterate, through discourse, healthscapes “focus on all kinds of things medical as forming assemblages, infrastructures of assumptions as well as people, things, places, images and demonstrate “how medicine gained cultural authority” (Clarke, p. 141, p. 106).

For critically evaluating healthscapes, Clarke first notes Jordanova’s (1998) theory that visual imagery exists beyond language in ways still not clearly understood; second, Collier and Lakoff’s  (2005) notion that “(bio)medical framings of ‘regimes of living’ have become deeply naturalized” (p. 107); third, health has “densely elaborated iconographies” (p.107); fourth, medical imaging technologies have depicted the body as seemingly transparent; and lastly, through visual medicine, people “imagine (bio)medicalization.” Throughout the majority of the chapter, Clarke discusses the three eras of healthscapes: 1). The rise of medicine (1890-1945) – cultural products, via mass production and consumption, centered on advertising physicians, the medicine profession, and the life sciences without medical professionals having to put forth much effort to promote themselves; 2). Medicalization (1940-1985) – people having/ and more routinely visiting a family doctor; relying more on advanced medicine; new acts and health insurance policies promoting health benefits; more regularly published books and radio airings on health issues; and “newer media” of television programming and films concerning health; 3). Biomedicalization (1980-Present) – began with the infrastructures of computer and information sciences; health research projects, such as the Human Genome Project; newspaper covers and mystery novels dedicated to biomedical issues; the rise of the era of fictional medical dramas on television; new media focuses on celebrity health; through many cultural forms, patients publicly becoming spokespersons of  their own illnesses; the creation of video, digitalization, and robotics; and websites.

            I think that an important area that Clarke does not directly discuss is social media. The way people think of and can view other women’s ultrasounds has drastically changed since the creation of networks such as Facebook. Ultrasounds are now not simply viewed in the privacy of a gynecologist office (as Clarke notes the pictures are often passed around), but can be posted to millions and millions of people on a social network; thus, posting sonograms online further promotes the idea of fetal personhood as friends may post their comments on the characteristics of the fetus. Also, I think another relevant example is online support groups discussing and promoting different health issues. These groups can persuade inquirers of the benefits of different biomedical issues, such as in-vitro fertilization, genetic testing, and even issues such as vegetarianism. Online support groups offer citizens a way to show they actively care about the well-being of the population by giving helpful advice to those who feel “inferior” in their own health management, etc. 

Questions:

1). In chapter three, Clarke discusses the healthscapes of the biomedicalization era and emphasizes the idea that Altheide (2002) argues that the media produce a “discourse of fear” – “a vigilant awareness that danger and risk lurk at every turn” (p.135). Based on Rose’s assessment of managing risk and Clarke’s analysis of biomedicalization healthscapes, cite a specific health-related example of how you see fear, risk and/or danger being emphasized in culture.

2). In an above post, I posted a link to an upcoming movie that I think represents the idea of eugenics because the citizens are always consumed about their future because they, ultimately, can control if they wish to live longer than the age of 25 and do so without bodily maturing past that age. How do you view examples of eugenics in modern society?