Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis and the 'age of the show': On the Expropriation of Death.

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  • Author(s): Babich B;Babich B
  • Source:
    Nursing philosophy : an international journal for healthcare professionals [Nurs Philos] 2018 Jan; Vol. 19 (1).
  • Publication Type:
    Journal Article
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Wiley Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 100897394 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1466-769X (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14667681 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Nurs Philos Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: Oxford, UK : Wiley, c2000-
    • Subject Terms:
      Attitude to Death* ; Philosophy*; Mass Media/*trends; Expropriation ; Humans ; Mass Media/ethics
    • Abstract:
      What Ivan Illich regarded in his Medical Nemesis as the 'expropriation of health' takes place on the surfaces and in the spaces of the screens all around us, including our cell phones but also the patient monitors and (increasingly) the iPads that intervene between nurse and patient. To explore what Illich called the 'age of the show', this essay uses film examples, like Creed and the controversial documentary Vaxxed, and the television series Nurse Jackie. Rocky's cancer in his last film (submitting to chemo to 'fight' cancer) highlights what Illich along with Petr Skrabanek called the 'expropriation of death'. In contrast to what Illich denotes as 'Umsonstigkeit' - grace or gift, given undeservedly, i.e., gratuitously - medical science tends to be tempted by what Illich terms scientistic 'black magic', taking over (expropriating) the life and the death of the patient in increasingly technological ways, a point underscored in the concluding section on the commercial prospects of xenotransplants using factory farm or mass-produced human-pig mosaics or chimeras.
      (© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: Film and medicine; Ivan Illich; expropriation of death; ontology; screen; xenotransplantation
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20171223 Date Completed: 20180320 Latest Revision: 20180320
    • Publication Date:
      20221213
    • Accession Number:
      10.1111/nup.12187
    • Accession Number:
      29271600