Abstract

VINIEGRA-VELAZQUEZ, Leonardo. Cultural order, disease and health care. Bol. Med. Hosp. Infant. Mex. [online]. 2017, vol.74, n.6, pp.397-406. ISSN 1665-1146.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bmhimx.2017.06.002.

With the appearance of Homo sapiens, the biological order was gradually replaced by the anthropocentric cultural order (CO), in which traditions, appreciations, preferences and desires for possession and domination guided their interactions with nature (predation or care), within the group (ranks, classes) and with others groups (commerce, wars). Current CO, characterized by unlimited profit interests, extreme wealth concentration and inequality where moral degradation hits rock bottom and planetary ecosystem is devastated, shows a collapsed civilization with a background of a global media controlled anesthetized societies.

Regarding the health field, control works by prevalent ideas and practices: sickness as a strange object to the body, health as an imperative vital ideal and technologically based suppressive medicine shaping life's medicalization, main control “device” and health industry support. Other alternative ideas and practices are discussed: sickness as an inner harmony disturbance or as a differentiated and particular way of human beings, and stimulating medicine, that targets sick people with the purpose of strengthening and harmonizing them so they may recover, alleviate or appease. Considerations about possibilities and significance of stimulating medicine are made at the end.

Keywords : Cultural order; Anthropocentrism; Civilization's collapse; Chronic disease; Medicalization; Suppressive medicine; Stimulating medicine.

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