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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1989)
"Apocalypse from now on" AIDS and Its Metaphors challenges the entire construct of AIDS in language and thought BY ANN DEE HOCH MAN applied in turn to syphillK and tuberculosis, likens disease to a foreign invader, an “ other.” Not only does this metaphor isolate and stigma veryone who has anything to do with tize those with the disease, but it can serve as AIDS — policy makers and home-care official license for drastic and zealous measures nurses, people with ARC, and designers of (“ war-time emergency acts” ) in response. condom ads — should read Susan Sontag’s “ We are not being invaded, ” Sontag book. AIDS ana I is Metaphors. And then. responds. “ The body is not a battlefield The ill are neither unavoidable casualties nor the enemy. We — medicine, society — are not authorized to fight back by any means what ever . . . ” it is the military metaphor, with its extremist and divisive results, that Sontag finds when they're finished, they should lend their most objectionable. But she examines others as copies to every body else. well — including the interpretation of AIDS as Doctors who give patients an HIV-positive a form of moral and natural “ judgment” and as diagnosis might even hand over a paperback one version of apocalypse. copy with advice to “ read this and call me Epidemic diseases once described as “ divine in the morning.” Not because of its palli- retribution" acquired a different interpretation atiave effects, not because it is uplifting; after the discovery of bacterial and vjral causes. it isn’t. Sontag’s purpose isn’t to make us feel The sense of retribution shifted from society to better — about AIDS or anything else. Her goal the individual — disease as punishment for a is to make us think clearer. dissolute lifestyle, low in exercise or calcium, AIDS, as a medical, social, and political high in cholesterol or promiscuous sex. AIDS issue, has moved so fast and changed so often, revives parts of the earlier interpretation, we’ve had to invent language to keep up with it. inviting blame of individual behavior, Often, our inventions use metaphor — a name certain “ risk groups” and society’s general that belongs to something else — to put moral laxity. unfamiliar ideas in household terms, to make Visions of AIDS as the natural result of new information comprehensible. So we moral decline, Sontag points out, come not describe AIDS as an “ invasion,” as a only from predictable fundamentalist quarters. “ plague,” the cells of its sufferers as As a result, “ not only does AIDS have the being “ under assault.” unhappy effect of reinforcing American In a dense 95 pages, Sontag unpacks these moralism about sex; it further strengthens metaphors and others, taking down the the culture of self-interest. . . . (which) receives language of AIDS piece by piece and holding an added boost as simple medical prudence.” it up for scrutiny. She presses beyond routine Sontag’s book provides a solid history lesson questioning of the words we use to write and in the language of disease; read it, and you talk about AIDS, words like “ victim” and will learn why d<x>rknobs were replaced with “ innocence.” This book challenges the swinging doors on U S Navy ships in the early entire construct of AIDS in language and part of century. But its most provocative and thought. valuable achievement lies in the last two chap ters, in which Sontag suggests that AIDS fits Sontag rakes her fine intellect through the use of military metaphors to describe AIDS and neatly into an end-of-the millenium context. In other diseases, the connection of disease with this vision, apocalypse in the form of nuclear threat, environmental pollution and, now, foreignness and the links between AIDS epidemic disease, has become a constant language, a capitalistic society, and the apocalyptic vision. presence. Not “ Apocalypse Now,” she suggests, but “ Apocalypse from Now On . . . That sounds like a heady menu, and it is — that future which is already here and always AIDS and Its Metaphors is the kind of book you before us, which no one knows how to refuse.” pick up, read ten pages of, then put down and Clearly this book is about Western think about for an hour. The eight untitled metaphors for illness, and no reader should chapters follow each other in tight, logical open it expecting a multi-cultural education. sequence, and Sontag’s straightforward writing By confining her arguments to the tradition she propels the book steadily ahead. knows best, Sontag is able to achieve both First, she explains why she wrote it. After depth and clarity in a relatively short space. being diagnosed with cancer more than ten Only one piece of her argument rings sour. In years ago, and experiencing the shame and dis renouncing the application of metaphor to gust with which many cancer patients viewed disease, she also renounces all models but the the disease. Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor. purely medical, all treatment but the most This book was intended, she said, to dissolve conventionally allopathic (s opposed to naturo the fears that prevented people from seeking pathic or homeopathic). About cancer, she early, medical treatment. says. “ The metaphors, I was convinced, kill. “ I hoped to persuade terrified people who (For instance, they make people irrationally were ill to consult doctors, or to change their fearful of effective measures such as chemo incompetent doctors for competent ones . . . to therapy, and foster credence to thoroughly regard cancer as if it were just a disease — useless remedies such as diets and psycho a very serious one, but just a disease. Not a therapy.)” curse, not a punishment, not an embarrass These statements may come from the zeal of ment. Without ‘meaning’ ” she writes. the cured (two-and- one-half years of chemo A decade later, she says, cancer no longer therapy eliminated Sontag’s cancer), but they carries the terrifying stigma it once had. There’s sit at odds with the documented success of a new disease on the block “ whose charge of some alternative treatments and the proven stigmatization, whose capacity to create links between mind and body. spoiled identity, is far greater.” AIDS, she AIDS and Its Metaphors challenges the way says, “ has provided a large-scale occasion for we think about AIDS. And while Sontag may the metaphorizing of illness.” not believe in the connection, may not intend In rigorous, clear argument, Sontag traces the result, changing our language and thought the sense of doom and blame surrounding about this disease may ultimately alter the AIDS to its roots in Western attitudes about way we feel about it, too. ^ disease and health. The military metaphor. E On Saturday, Larry Thomas did something about AIDS. he sat on the floor and listened. He was being a PAL to Lonnie, who has AIDS. Sometimes all Lonnie needs is som eone to talk to. Someone to be there while he sorts it out for himself. Making a real difference in the life of som eone with AIDS can be that simple. Listening. Reflecting. Helping them gain control. The next PAL Training is July 7-9 and 14-16. Deadline for applications is June 16. Call CAP today at 223-5907 and w e’ll mail you an application. For more information, ask for the Volunteer Coordinator. G4SC4DE /4IDS PROJECT 408 Southwest Second. Suite 412 Portland. Oregon 97204 (503) 223-5907 just out V 21 ▼ May I9H9