Tuesday, September 11

The heteronomous ethic demands that someone else control us

Like other medical scapegoats, and especially like involuntary mental patients who do not want to be patients at all, the "obese" also often reject--if not in word then in deed--the patient role. Their actions communicate a desire to be or remain fat or, perhaps more accurately, to weigh more than others think they should.
...
We must, after all, never be alone and never be self-controlled (however peculiarly so). The heteronomous ethic demands that someone else control us: a sexual partner our orgasms; a surgeon our obesity.
Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers, by Thomas Stephen Szasz

No comments: