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<\/a><\/p>\nThe story starts with my sense of being a little different, odd, abnormal (I so dislike that last word). I assume many people feel this way, but since it\u2019s not the first thing they\u2019ll tell you about themselves, we\u2019re left to wonder just how relatively peculiar we are. In my case \u2013 as I wrote earlier<\/a> \u2013 it was undoubtedly this feeling that attracted me to the idea that I have a choice about how I see myself. Society may label me odd, but if I see society\u2019s values as temporary and highly contingent, then the problem is society\u2019s<\/a>, not mine.<\/p>\n But am I really free to choose? I was born and raised in a modern, Western, rational, scientific culture. My ability to think about rationality and the autonomous individual<\/a> is embedded in the very language I use to think. So ingrained, for example, is my desire to appear rational that, before talking about my Chinese horoscope, I feel a need to defend, justify, or otherwise absolve myself from appearing otherwise. <\/p>\n I consider myself a rational person. I was a math major as an undergraduate. In my freshman year I took engineering and physics. I talked an adviser into letting me take an upper-level class for which, as a freshman, I was not intellectually prepared: Philosophy 140, Introduction to Logic, taught by Willard Quine. There was a heavy emphasis on science and technology when I was in school, and I drank the Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n I had a strong desire at that age for life to be logical and for questions to have definitive answers. The humanities were too nebulous for me. Fortunately this was in the days of \u201cliberal education\u201d requirements, so I was forced — and later freely chose — to study things like literature, fine arts, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Exposure to the humanities did not immediately modify my need to maintain an unquestioning faith in rationality.<\/p>\n When I blog about medicine at The Health Culture<\/a>, I write about scientific medicine. It\u2019s true, I\u2019ve argued that medicine is not a science the way physics is a science. But that doesn\u2019t mean I think people should consult faith healers rather than medical professionals when they have cancer. No way do I think that. <\/p>\n My objections to today\u2019s medicine do, perhaps, have something to do with an excess of rationality. Scientific medicine has become reductionist to the point of excluding the living, breathing patient. Doctors have lost touch with their ability to provide the comfort and solace that were formerly an important component of the healing process \u2013 the compassionate listening that could help patients deal with the distress that accompanies illness. I\u2019ve written about the physician as humanist<\/a> and the value of a liberal education for doctors<\/a>. <\/p>\n Okay, I do have a few other criticisms of medicine, but they mainly center on things like what happens to medicine when it becomes profit-driven. Or how unfortunate it is that the medical model of disease makes it difficult to address the social determinants of health. But I don\u2019t question the scientific nature of what goes on in the laboratories of academic research centers (unless, of course, they\u2019re funded by pharma, in which case the science itself can be distorted<\/a>).<\/p>\n So, if I believe in rationality and science, how can I value something like a Chinese horoscope? Isn\u2019t that like saying I believe in astrology?<\/p>\n My Chinese horoscope was read (interpreted) by a highly respected scholar of Chinese philosophy and culture, Robert Fenwick<\/a>. I was impressed. The reading turned out to be so accurate and incisive about so many things — including something I\u2019d resisted acknowledging all my life — that I was forced to pay attention.<\/p>\n The part I\u2019ve resisted has to do with motivation. The arrangement of stars at the moment (and location) of my birth indicates that there will never be any \u201cmotive force\u201d that tells me to follow one course of action rather than another. There are zero stars in my Actions Palace. <\/p>\n Evidently this is highly unusual. Stars in the Actions Palace give people a sense of how to live their lives, and most people have something<\/em> there. Robert said things like \u201cThis requires that you think of yourself as different from most other people.\u201d And \u201cYou\u2019re somebody from a different universe, from almost everybody else you see.\u201d <\/p>\n The idea that I lacked motivation and a sense of direction to my life was not something I wanted to believe. I live in a highly competitive culture where you\u2019re supposed to be motivated, competitive, and ambitious. That\u2019s what school, work, sports, and hoping-to-be-a-celebrity-when-you-grow-up are all about. <\/p>\n And it\u2019s not as if I\u2019m a slacker. You would not be able to discern a lack of motivation from my r\u00e9sum\u00e9. But it\u2019s also true that when I heard this, I knew exactly what it referred to. It explained something I\u2019d noticed all my life: I repeatedly fall into the next episode of my life \u2013 whether it\u2019s education, employment, a relationship, or an intellectual passion — without the need for a motivating decision on my part. I change jobs, careers, and interests by instinct, not by reason. To say I \u201clack motivation\u201d fails to capture the subtlety of just what this feels like.<\/p>\n In telling me that I lacked a \u201cmotive force,\u201d Robert assured me that this was actually a good thing. I should stop fighting it and just accept it. This advice has alternately been a great relief (at least to contemplate) and a difficult thing to do. To lack drive, motivation, ambition, and a competitive nature in contemporary American culture is not ideal. <\/p>\n I\u2019d like to believe the self is flexible, contingent, and socially constructed<\/a>. And that by recognizing this, I can choose to believe that, while I may be odd by society\u2019s standards, that doesn\u2019t have to bother me. But even without the social pressure to conform \u2013 which is huge \u2013 my very ability to understand the world is so deeply rooted in my culture that it\u2019s no wonder I have trouble believing it would be okay to lack motivation. <\/p>\n I was born and raised in an American culture steeped in individualism and the rationality of science. These two things have cultural roots that go all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Western natural philosophy saw the world as composed of separate and discrete objects, categorized according to properties they had in common. In the physical world, this ultimately led to Western rationality and science. In the mental world, this led to Western psychology\u2019s concept of the self: We are each separate, discrete and independent individuals, not interrelated selves as East Asian cultures believe.<\/p>\n Cultural values get implemented through the pressure to conform socially. There\u2019s a passage in Carl Elliott\u2019s Better than Well<\/a> that I\u2019m fond of quoting. He\u2019s talking here about physical appearance, but the underlying dynamic speaks to the question I\u2019m asking: Are we free to choose how we think of ourselves independent of our socialization and acculturation?<\/p>\n You can still refuse to use enhancement technologies, of course \u2013 you might be the last woman in America who does not dye her gray hair, the last man who refuses to work out at the gym \u2013 but even that publicly announces something to other Americans about who you are and what you value. This is all part of the logic of consumer culture. You cannot simply opt out of the system and expect nobody to notice how much you weigh. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Consumer culture is the driving dynamic, yes, but on a very basic level, it\u2019s also simply a matter of being a member of a society that you inescapably imbibe from birth.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no happy ending to this story. I haven\u2019t resolved my dilemma simply by identifying and writing about it \u2013 although that\u2019s a possibility I hold out for the future. For me, a happy ending would be to accept the advice Robert gave me when he explained what it means to have no stars in my Actions Palace. The lack of \u201cmotive force,\u201d he said, the inability to feel \u201cI really want to do that,\u201d can be one of my best friends. It means I have the power, everywhere in my life, to be on vacation. No one can make me feel that I must be doing any one thing in particular. I\u2018d been assuming my problem was not accomplishing enough. It turns out my problem is just the opposite: accepting that I don\u2019t have to want<\/em> to do anything. <\/p>\n The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? (Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being<\/a><\/em>) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Related posts<\/strong>: Image source<\/strong>: Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals \/ Zodiac Heads<\/a><\/p>\n References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Alastair Matheson, Corporate Science and the Husbandry of Scientific and Medical Knowledge by the Pharmaceutical Industry<\/a>, BioSocieties, 2008, 3, pp 355-382<\/p>\nEvidence (more or less) for my rationality<\/h3>\n
No stars in my Actions Palace<\/h3>\n
An odd way to live<\/h3>\n
Inescapable cultural roots?<\/h3>\n
Becoming best friends with my stars<\/h3>\n
\nThe sociology of knowledge<\/a>
\nThe problem is you<\/a>
\nThe physician as humanist<\/a>
\nIs a liberal arts education good preparation for being a doctor?<\/a><\/p>\n