Health paternalism applies to bodies but never to minds or culture
Evidence
There’s no doubt that late capitalism certainly articulates many of its injunctions via an appeal to (a certain version of) health. The banning of smoking in public places, the relentless monstering of working class diet on programs like You Are What You Eat, do appear to indicate that we are already in the presence of a paternalism without the Father. It is not that smoking is ‘wrong’, it is that it will lead to our failing to lead long and enjoyable lives. But there are limits to this emphasis on good health: mental health and intellectual development barely feature at all, for instance. What we see instead is a reductive, hedonic model of health which is all about ‘feeling and looking good’. To tell people how to lose weight, or how to decorate their house, is acceptable; but to call for any kind of cultural improvement is to be oppressive and elitist. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 150
Categorization
- XREF: Strongly echoes the immodesty essay’s pattern where class/identity signaling hides inside putatively neutral conduct norms — here the line between acceptable (weight, decor) and elitist (culture) interventions. — connects to: Health-based paternalism applies only to consensual lifestyle targets, never to cultural improvement. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 150
- SEED: The asymmetry — we accept being told how to eat but not how to think — is a ready essay angle on modern paternalism’s scope.
Related
- Health-based paternalism applies only to consensual lifestyle targets, never to cultural improvement. (similarity 0.91)
Broader Connections
- Health-based paternalism applies only to consensual lifestyle targets, never to cultural improvement.
#contradicts(0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 150