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Physician, philosopher, medical ethicist Giovanni Maio about the cult of health successfully imposed on oneself and what concept of man is behind it.
Giovanni Maio is a physician, philosopher and professor of medical ethics at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
Human optimization seems to be the main goal of our society. Why?
Giovanni Mayo: Because we have adopted such an attitude towards ourselves, generated by the neoliberal consciousness. Economic thinking forces modern man to consider himself and his body as a biocapital where he must invest. He does not know peace, all the time he worries that he is not getting enough profit from this capital.
But the pursuit of self-improvement is not new, is it?
J.M.: Back in the 80s, the philosopher Michel Foucault, with his idea of ”governor mentality,” described neoliberal consciousness, as well as Jurgen Habermas, with his “colonization of life” by an external system. But it is only now that this mindset has surfaced. Many people treat themselves like a stock they go public with, and every day it has a new price, every day you can go bankrupt.
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And how to stop this race?
J.M.: No way. We are told every day that we could invest more and will never be good enough. Therefore, we no longer listen to the inner voice, only to other people’s expectations. Only the façade matters. It only works because it’s packaged with slogans that celebrate personal responsibility and freedom.
A kind of dictatorship.
J.M.: Dictatorship is not established by the state, a person turns himself into a slave. After all, no politician has yet made self-optimization a law. Everything is much thinner. We talk about freedom and human dignity, and in the meantime we are moving briskly towards self-alienation.
Passion for biometrics is also part of this process?
J.M.: There are people who first of all measure their lung function and heart rate in the morning. This is where the imperative of control meets the passion for optimization. Man spends his time trying to bring the body to its maximum capacity, while forgetting to live. And here we are dealing with an increase in efficiency, the body is modeled in accordance with the requirements and standards. And we are not talking about aesthetics, here the body is a symbol of efficiency.
But after all, a crochet nose still does not mean a lack of efficiency?
J.M.: No, however, it is understood that only an attractive body will ensure success, so everyone rushes after the ideal, and as a result, not attractiveness is formed, but pure conformity.
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But doesn’t this contradict the social trend of individualism?
J.M.: We model our body according to other people’s expectations and at the same time claim to be free. But like a sword of Damocles, this fear hangs over us all the time: you are a loser! And we are looking for recognition from the outside. We don’t realize that we’re under the pressure of conformism, and we think we’re so special and individual.
In other words, stay with us or lose?
J.M.: We must be able to recognize this ideology and resist it. There are signs of a protest movement, but in ordinary life they are not yet noticeable. Although the media is already writing more critically about this, the mood of the expert community has also changed: the former defenders of imaginary freedom have realized that there is something else under this name.
Let us all be a prisoner of economic thinking: but what role does business itself play here?
J.M.: They understand that people can be forced to participate in the race for self-optimization if competitive thinking is internationalized as much as possible. Think about where Microsoft’s desire to blur the line between “work” and “home” and force a person to work all the time, at any time, is leading. But following the principles of such an efficiency strategy leads to inner devastation. The more a person runs like a squirrel in a wheel, the more cruelly he pays for it with unproductiveness – diseases.
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How to find a balance between “I’ll give my all” and “Enough, it’s time to stop”?
J.M.: Here it is impossible to give a recipe for how to find a balance between efficiency and return. People must realize that everyone is unique and irreplaceable, each has its own potential. We need to become smarter. And doctors, instead of prescribing regular antidepressants and anti-aging drugs, should have asked the patient a question: are you sure that you really should work here and in this way?
But doctors themselves advertise anti-aging products …
J.M.: … and thus spur that very culture of self-optimization – to profit from it. It would be better to explain to patients who are sure that Botox is indispensable, that beauty comes from within.
Maybe it goes away with age?
J.M.: No, it is the elderly who think that they will be accepted by society only if they remain alert, active, as in middle age. They are the most vulnerable, because they are terribly afraid of their fragility, they are afraid of becoming useless. We live in a ruthless society that recognizes only the winners and does not tolerate weakness.
See more at издания Neue Zuercher Zeitung.