Returns and reprieves

He's back! And on splendid form. I shall have to update the blogroll. So welcome back then, Brigada Flores Magon, who seemingly has enjoyed a reprieve from a serious health scare. Now let's all wish the same for dear old Hitch.

Health of the nation

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to my fellow blogger, Brigada Flores Magon, who's feeling rough after a spell in hospital. I heartily concur with Brigada's words of praise for the National Health Service: 'Yet again I was bowled over by the hard work, professionalism, cheerfulness, concern and sheer love shown by the people working at its front line.'

By coincidence, I too had a brush with the health service at the weekend: nothing to compare, really, just a trip to A & E for treatment of a very minor injury. But I, too, was struck by the dedication of those on duty. While I was in the treatment room, ambulance staff wheeled in a woman who had been in a road accident, strapped from head to foot on a stretcher, together with her baby daughter who had been asleep on the back seat of the car. Thank goodness neither was badly hurt, but I was mightily impressed by the care and attention lavished on them by the nurses and ambulance workers: they dealt with the situation with professionalism, care, and an appropriate dash of humour (even managing to make the injured parties laugh, which was quite something in the circumstances).

This was, of course, the weekend when the US Senate voted to proceed to a debate on the health care reform bill (well done, conservative Democrats, for stepping up to the plate). Googling my injury while deciding whether I needed to go to A & E, I came across a number of US-based forum discussions in which contributors urged their fellow sufferers to treat themselves at home and avoid a costly visit to the Emergency Room. Another reason to give thanks for the NHS. Come on, you Democrats: face down the turncoat Lieberman and go full-out for that public option.

Stupak simplifications

Earlier this year I dipped my toe in the controversial waters of the abortion debate, expressing my conflicted feelings, as someone who sees himself as pro-feminist and generally on the left, but gets queasy about a good deal of abortion rights rhetoric. Now, at the risk of alienating my liberal-left and secularist readership (with whom, on most issues, I am at one), I’m going to get my feet wet again.

Here at Margins Manor we’ve been following the US health reform debate quite closely, particularly as we were in Washington when some of the key breakthroughs occurred. This week, the successful passage of the health care bill through the House, thanks in part to the inclusion of the Stupak amendment restricting federal funding of abortion, has brought the issue back into the centre of political debate – and to the forefront of my mind.

On MSNBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday, Rachel Maddow described the amendment as a ‘poison pill’ that would alienate women from the Democratic Party. I’m usually a huge admirer of Maddow – watching clips from her show on the laptop at the kitchen table is a regular tea-time treat in our household – but on this issue I’m tempted to agree, if only for a swiftly passing moment, with those who criticise MSNBC as a liberal mirror-image of the execrably one-sided Fox News. Whenever Rachel discusses this topic, she always describes opponents of abortion as ‘anti-choice’, a phrase that is just as loaded as the equally partisan ‘pro-life’ (who isn’t?), and which rides roughshod over the complex and conflicted views of the majority of Americans.

Those on the left, like Maddow, who are up in arms about Stupak, characterise it as the denial of state funding for a perfectly legal medical procedure. In theory they’re right. But can abortion really be treated like any other medical procedure - except perhaps when it’s a matter of saving the mother’s life? Defending the gains of the women’s movement is of the first importance, but isn’t it a massive simplification to see federal funding for abortion as only a women’s rights issue? Isn’t the difficulty with abortion that it’s an issue that involves a balancing of competing rights – crucially, the right of a woman to make decisions about what happens to her body, and the right of the unborn child to life? Pretending that having an abortion is as morally straightforward as having your appendix out, or casting aspersions on the genuine ethical concerns of your opponents, is disingenuous.

Looking for a perspective on Stupak that goes beyond the shouting match between the partisans of left and right, I turned to Michael Sean Winters. In a comment on an earlier post of mine, Martin M. voiced doubts about the possibilities for a liberal Catholicism. But Winters, who has attempted to (re-) build bridges between the Church and the Democratic Party, represents exactly the kind of thoughtful, engaged, left-of-centre Catholicism that one had thought extinct, even if he is something of a voice crying in the wilderness.

Writing this week about the amendment to the health care bill, Winters denies that it’s a vote against women:

No, the members who voted for Stupak sent a message to the entire country that abortion is an issue about which most Americans evidence profound ambivalence. Even those who think it should be legal do not think it is something to be encouraged. "Safe, legal and rare" was the formulation Bill Clinton provided in 1996 and it captured the way most Americans feel still, especially those in the center of the electorate.

Like Clinton, Obama has pledged himself to look for common ground on abortion and has identified reducing the number of abortions as an aim that people on both sides of this contentious issue should be able to agree on. I don’t pretend to understand all the details of the Stupak amendment, but it seems to be a step in this direction, and a pragmatic concession that will ensure that the larger, historic project of providing affordable health care for all Americans finally comes to pass. As Winters writes:

What should be clear, crystal clear, is that many of us who support health care reform, who backed the President in part because of his pledge to accomplish health care reform, also cringe at the prospect of health care reform being hijacked by Planned Parenthood to increase abortion coverage with our tax dollars.

I'd encourage you to read the whole article. Even if you disagree profoundly with Winters' position, and are deeply suspicious of the Church's role in American politics, it's important to acknowledge that there is a perfectly respectable left-of-centre argument against unrestricted abortion.

While we’re on the subject, you may find this video (via Red Maria) a little cheesy, and take issue with its implicit message, but it’s good to see the Catholic Church making the positive ‘pro-life’ case for a change, rather than indulging in horror stories and negative rhetoric:

Alzheimer's and atheism

There was a very affecting piece in Friday's Guardian about a woman in her early 60s with dementia, and the experience of her husband and other carers. The article traced the progress of the condition, starting with an early premonition:

One night, shortly after Carla White had a blackout at work, she sat bolt upright in bed. 'She woke up and said to me, "I'm losing my brain"', says David, her husband. 'I think Carla knew straightaway. I almost find it eerie.'

After some years of caring for Carla at home, David now resorts to leaving his wife for long periods in a residential care home:

'The first time I visited she said something about coming home but now she never mentions it. I can sit there for half an hour and hold her hand. When I leave, there is no scene. I say, "See you next time." There's no point in saying "tomorrow" because she no longer understands what it means'.

The fear of dementia has almost overtaken that of cancer among people of a certain age. What could be worse than losing not only a lifetime's memories, but your very ability to remember, and with it your sense of who you are and have been as a person? (There's a poignant moment in John Bayley's memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch's descent into dementia when she asks him, 'Did I used to be some kind of writer?')  Would it even be 'you' who lived on? And if not, would there be any point in remaining alive? 

In my evangelical Christian youth, one of the most popular books passed around the prayer groups was Richard Wurmbrand's Tortured for Christ, a Romanian pastor's account of his sufferings under communism. The author confesses that the only time he experienced religious doubt was after periods of unconsciousness following torture. Where was his soul, he wondered, when he blacked out? Reading accounts of people with dementia has always prompted similar thoughts in me. If everything that makes a person an individual, an 'I', can disappear so completely, then how is it possible to believe in a soul that survives death?

Doesn't Alzheimer's confirm that our unique selfhood is a product of biological and psychological processes in a social world, coming into being when we are born, developing in richness and complexity through life, but ending inevitably with the death of the physical body?

Believers might argue that, even when the brain dies, a certain 'something' of us survives, but doesn't the experience of dementia sufferers suggest that this 'something', even if it could live on, would be far removed from any of our ideas of personhood? What do religious people think will survive of Carla White after she dies? Will it be the person who exists now - without reason, will or memory of who she is or has been - or will God somehow reconstruct the personality that disease has slowly crumbled away? Isn't it more logical to believe that the person who was Carla White has already in a sense 'died' and can never be brought back (which isn't to deny that she continues to be a unique and valued person to those who love her)?

In debates about evolution and faith, the impact of Darwin's theory on ideas of the soul is rarely discussed. Believers who attempt to reconcile science and religion tend to concentrate on demonstrating that faith in a creator God is compatible with belief in an evolving universe. But even if we accept that belief in an ultimate Being who kicked off the whole process is at least rational, surely all religions also depend on the notion that human beings, rather than being an accidental by-product of that process, are a unique and special part of it? And isn't this notion completely undermined by the whole idea of evolution?

At the heart of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is the belief that the purpose of life is some kind of relationship with God, and crucially that it's possible for this to continue after death. But the capacity for this relationship, and its survival, surely relies on some notion of a 'soul' that transcends and outlives the body. If we accept that human beings evolved over millenia from 'lesser' creatures, who presumably were not fortunate enough to have this capacity for relationship with God, then at what point did 'soul' enter in? Do we have to resort to some deus ex machina notion of the Creator intervening in the process and 'ensouling' some of his creatures at a certain point in evolution? I suppose if you believe in an all-powerful God, then you have to believe that this is possible, but knowing what we do about the way the world works, is it likely? And at what precise point did the transformation from finite, soulless mammal to 'ensouled' and potentially eternal human being take place? Was there a generation of almost-human hominids that had no capacity for knowing God and didn't get a shot at eternal life, but their offspring - now fully human - did?

It's not that what we know about evolution, or dementia, makes religious faith impossible, but surely it makes its claims seem less likely? And it puts the onus on religious spokespeople, instead of banging on about 'militant atheists' and 'aggressive secularism', to respond intelligently to some of these questions, and rather than retreating into a defensive ghetto, try to present a vision of faith that makes sense to thoughtful, twenty-first century seekers after truth.

Don't worry be happy

There was a terrific article by Darian Leader in the Guardian the other day, about the current vogue for the 'quick fix' of cognitive behavioural therapy. Leader argues that CBT is based on a view of the personality as 'a set of skills that we can learn and modify' and he draws parallels with the promises of transformation held out by reality TV:

CBT promises change just as swiftly. Unwanted character traits or symptoms are no longer seen as a clue to some inner truth, but simply as disturbances to our ideal image that can be excised. Instead of seeing a bout of depression or an anxiety attack as a sign of unconscious processes that need to be carefully elicited and voiced, they become aspects of behaviour to be removed.

The market has triumphed here, as our inner worlds become a space for buying and selling. We pay experts such as life coaches to teach us how to change in the desired way. Aspects of ourselves, such as shyness or confidence, become commodities that we can pay to lose or amplify.

Leader bemoans the popularity of CBT with government agencies and is critical of Lord Layard, the so-called 'happiness tsar', for persuading ministers to divert resources from more traditional therapies based on rather more complex views of the human psyche. He compares this development with government plans to regulate mediums and spiritualists:

It will not longer be up to us to believe in them or not, but a higher power will tell us who is legitimate and who is not. Just as a new rhetoric of 'science' tells us  that CBT is the best treatment, so it will arbitrate the 'other side'.

If you've been longing for a comprehensive riposte to 'positive' psychology and the government-backed 'happiness' industry, you can read the whole thing here.

We're all doomed

Another inspired pairing from the Guardian: Madeleine Bunting on Oliver James. One cultural pessimist reviewing another. In fact, Bunting is less fulsome about James' latest prophecy of doom than one might have expected, though she doesn't dispute his central thesis that people are generally less happy than they were a generation ago and that modern liberal capitalism is to blame. 

I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about Oliver James' ideas that I find so deeply annoying. Perhaps it's the de-contextualised positivist psychology which assumes that 'happiness' is an objective and quantifiable 'something' that you can measure scientifically, and with an unchanging meaning that means you can compare surveys taken 50 years apart in very different social circumstances. Or it could be the hint of class condescension - perhaps more evident in James' supporters such as Bunting - that seeks to deny the huge improvements in physical and emotional well-being experienced by the mass of the population, as a result of the material and social advances of recent times. (When members of my grandparents' generation told researchers they were 'happy' with their lot, they may have simply been reflecting the limited expectations that had been bred into them in an unequal society.) But it's probably just my irritation at hearing James recycle his non-analysis of the supposed sins of 'Blatcherism' (geddit?) in every interview, like a schoolboy repeating a joke that he's ever so proud of but which nobody else finds funny or original.

Anyway, it was heartening to see James' theories finally getting the drubbing they deserve from Oliver Kamm here.

Materialism and the mystical

Nick Cohen takes aim at the 'pseudo-science' of homeopathy here, and his opinions tend to be shared by bloggers whose views I normally find sympathetic. If my own attitude is more equivocal, it's partly because (as I reported here and here) I've recently turned to homeopathy in pursuit of a non-invasive cure for a persistent health problem. Has it worked? Well, my homeopath would say it's too soon to tell. There have been some positive signs, but sceptics would probably attribute these to the placebo effect.

I've been surprised, though, by how many acquaintances whom I had categorised as progressive, materialist types (and with whom I had been shy about admitting my own indulgence in alternative medicine) have confessed to using homeopathy, and to believing in its efficacy. In other words, a rational, scientific world-view doesn't necessarily translate into scepticism about alternative therapies.

It's a reminder that the materialist and the mystical have always been curious bedfellows in the history of the contemporary left. The 'moment' that gave birth to the New Left - the events of 1968 or thereabouts - also gave rise to the New Age, and the two have been closely intertwined ever since, with rational political currents not easily disentangled from more mystical, spiritual trends. (All of this is dealt with brilliantly in Sheila Rowbotham's memoir of the Sixties, Promise of a Dream.)

Does the current argument over alternative therapies bear any relation to the renewed debate about 'faith' on the left? Is there a connexion between those progressives who have a new-found respect for belief - and a tolerance of new age therapies? Conversely, does scepticism about 'pseudo-science' coincide with a suspicion of renascent religiosity and a robust secularism?

I'm not sure it's quite so simple. Even among those of us of a secular cast of mind, there's a longing for therapies that offer a more holistic view of mind and body, self and the world, to be 'true', even as our scepticism nags away at us to dismiss them, as Cohen and others do, as mere quackery.

Homeopathy update

I promised to provide regular updates on my encounter with homeopathy. Well, I had my first appointment this week and apparently I'm a 'phosphorus' personality. Normally I'm extremely sceptical of any talk of psychological types - whether astrological or pseudo-scientific, as in Myers-Briggs and the like - but some of this is perhaps just a little bit like me:

Tall, slender persons, narrow chested, with thin, transparent skin, weakened by loss of animal fluids, with great nervous debility, emaciation, amative tendencies, seem to be under the special influence of Phosphorus. Great susceptibility to external impressions, to light, sound, odors, touch, electrical changes, thunder-storms.

Or maybe I'm fooling myself. Anyway, I've taken my first dose of phosphorus and await results...

Homeopathy: science or magic?

Homeopathy has been in the news this week, with some senior doctors campaigning to stop it being funded on the NHS. I heard one of them on Radio 4 yesterday morning deriding homeopathy as 'magical thinking' - the astrology to medicine's astronomy, as it were. Shuggy is on their side and normally I would be too, as a fairly rational sort of person, the kind who doesn't regard 'Enlightenment fundamentalist' as necessarily a term of abuse.

But by coincidence, this is also the week that I've had my first personal encounter with homeopathy. I was recently diagnosed as suffering from chronic tonsillitis and told by a consultant that the only alternative to repeated bouts of the disease was tonsillectomy. For various reasons I've delayed making a decision about this, and was persuaded by a colleague (also usually a reasonable, sceptical type) to give homeopathy a go before submitting myself to the surgeon's knife. After months of feeling pretty awful, I'll try anything.

So I've become one of those people who scour the internet for alternative cures for their condition. I've started taking a couple of over-the-counter remedies that seemed to be quite widely recommended and yes, I have begun to notice a difference. Of course, it's too soon to tell, and it may just be the dreaded placebo effect that the senior medics see as the only benefit of alternative medicine. I've also made my first appointment with a homeopath for a couple of weeks' time. I'm not putting myself forward as a clinical trial here, but I'll keep you posted on how it pans out.