Navigates the divergent cultural meanings of health, and its
entanglement with morality in current political discourse
You see someone smoking a cigarette and say,"Smoking is bad for your
health," when what you mean is, "You are a bad person because you
smoke." You encounter someone whose body size you deem excessive, and
say, "Obesity is bad for your health," when what you mean is, "You are
lazy, unsightly, or weak of will." You see a woman bottle-feeding an
infant and say,"Breastfeeding is better for that child's health," when
what you mean is that the woman must be a bad parent. You see the
smokers, the overeaters, the bottle-feeders, and affirm your own health
in the process. In these and countless other instances, the perception
of your own health depends in part on your value judgments about others,
and appealing to health allows for a set of moral assumptions to fly
stealthily under the radar.
Against Health argues that health is a concept, a norm, and a set of
bodily practices whose ideological work is often rendered invisible by
the assumption that it is a monolithic, universal good. And, that
disparities in the incidence and prevalence of disease are closely
linked to disparities in income and social support. To be clear, the
book's stand against health is not a stand against the authenticity of
people's attempts to ward off suffering. Against Health instead claims
that individual strivings for health are, in some instances, rendered
more difficult by the ways in which health is culturally configured and
socially sustained.
The book intervenes into current political debates about health in two
ways. First, Against Health compellingly unpacks the divergent
cultural meanings of health and explores the ideologies involved in its
construction. Second, the authors present strategies for moving forward.
They ask, what new possibilities and alliances arise? What new forms of
activism or coalition can we create? What are our prospects for
well-being? In short, what have we got if we ain't got health? Against
Health ultimately argues that the conversations doctors, patients,
politicians, activists, consumers, and policymakers have about health
are enriched by recognizing that, when talking about health, they are
not all talking about the same thing. And, that articulating the
disparate valences of "health" can lead to deeper, more productive, and
indeed more healthy interactions about our bodies.
