Ills are of Our Own Making

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said that “ills are of our own making” (Rousseau 84). By this he means that most of the illnesses we come to know today are the results of our extreme inequality: “excessive idleness and labor, overly refined food, overwhelming indigestion, bad food, mental exhaustion, sorrow and infliction” (Rousseau 84). He further substantiates this claim by raising the question why then are there no solid observation that shows that countries “where the art of medicine is most neglected, the mean duration of man’s life is less than in those where it is most cultivated?” (Rousseau 84). Take the United State for instance, despite the fact that it is one of the most advance medical countries in the world, it is also the origin of the various newest illness known to man.

Though I agree with Rousseau that “ills are of our own making” resulting from extreme inequality, I would also add that today, illness can also come from insecurity and dissatisfaction the media fictitiously created. One of many fictitious illness that causes the most stir in the media is Motivational Deficiency Disorder and Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. This illness and its advertised drug, Havidol (Have it All) that supposedly cure it are created by artist Justine Cooper in attempt to create a campaign to mock the drug industry tactic in promoting prescribe drugs. The illness consisted of “slight reluctance to get out of bed on Monday morning” or even “unmotivated to breath.” Despite how ridiculous and absurd these symptom sounds many people thought it was real. This parody does not only depict the immense influential power of the media but also our desire to constantly doubt ourselves and persistently believe that there is always room for improvement.

This parody makes me question whether the illnesses I have come to know are the result of the illness I feel in my body or the insecurity and dissatisfaction the media created. I wonder if I did not learn that there are such thing as depression would I still perceive it the same way. In a way, I think that what I learned from the media and what I feel as a result of my senses are inseparable. Therefore though many may argue that the people who believe these fictitious illnesses are absurd, the reasoning they use in believing that these illnesses are not that much different from ours. Take headache for instance, I believe that headache is real for simply three reasons: I can feel the pain in the head, other can also feel it and that when I go to the hospital, the doctor believes that I have a headache. Therefore I prove to myself that an illness is real on my senses, the people around me and some sort of authority or expert. Unless someone can tell me the difference between the reasoning of having the fictitious illness and a “real” illness, I cannot really distinguish them. Because I can definitely say that I do have a “slight reluctance to get out of bed on Monday morning” and that other around me shares the same feeling. And since this fictitious illness is backed up by a fake doctor dressed in a white coat with a tie similar to all the medical advertisement, I have my reasons to believe. Despite what other might say, I believe that fictitious illness and “real” illness is barely indistinguishable.

Though government and agencies are trying to control drugs advertisement, I believe they have to enforce rather stricter rules. As it has been illustrated over and over again how truly terrifying it is to create a new disease and how very little effort it takes to generate a whole new area of anxiety and the possibility of people convincing them that they are ill. My Theory of Knowledge professor in high school once asked us whether we realize that all human beings are born with at least one disease that is still incurable --- that disease is age, that once we are born, we are dying. Therefore I believe that what is illness is, is rather a matter of how we perceive them.