23
" The survival of an older person is of no evolutionary consequence since that person can no longer reproduce—unless one wants to argue for the role of grandparents in prolonging the lives of their descendants. It might even, in a Darwinian sense, be better to remove the elderly before they can use up any more resources that might otherwise go to the young. In that case, you could say that there is something almost altruistic about the diseases of aging. Just as programmed cell death, apoptosis, cleanly eliminates damaged cells from the body, so do the diseases of aging clear up the clutter of biologically useless older people—only not quite so cleanly. And this perspective may be particularly attractive at a time, like now, when the dominant discourse on aging focuses on the deleterious economic effects of largely aging populations. If we didn’t have inflammatory diseases to get the job done, we might have to turn to euthanasia. "
― Barbara Ehrenreich , Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
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" [N]o matter how much effort we expend, not everything is potentially within our control, not even our own bodies and minds.
[...] The body - or, to use more cutting-edge language, the "mindbody" - is not a smooth-running machine in which each part obediently performs its tasks for the benefits of the common good. It is at best a confederation of parts - cells, tissues, even thought patterns - that may seek to advance their own agendas, whether or not they are destructive of the whole. "
― Barbara Ehrenreich , Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
25
" We may imagine that the mind houses a singular self, an essence of "I-ness," distinct from all other selves and consistent over time. But attend closely to your thoughts and you find they are thoroughly colonized by the thoughts of others, through language, culture, and mutual expectations. The answer to the question of what I am, or you are, requires some historical and geographical setting. "
― Barbara Ehrenreich , Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer