Mind/body dualism

'Debates about the true nature of the body have a long history, dating back beyond a time when scholars such as Descartes and Rousseau began to talk about the mind as distinct from the body (i.e. a mind/body dualism). This idea has tended to privilege the mind as that which defines human 'being', while the body has been treated, at least in intellectual life, as a sort of excess baggage of human agency... the body's importance has been perceived in the main, in terms of the necessity of its careful management in order to enhance, or to avoid distracting from, either mental or spiritual effort...'


'The human body can 'dis-appear' in two senses. The first is non-appearance as background dis-appearance (e.g. some part of our body can be 'put out of play' because it is completely irrelevant to what we are focused on" we can 'lose' our legs if we are typing at a keyboard)... There is also the 'dysappearance' of the body when the body appears as 'Other' to the self, as an 'alien presence'(such as in a time of pain), arguing that this common experience has served to support the mind/body dualism of an essential non-material mind and an all too material oppositional body'

Interesting reading from Week 8 Epidemiology and the Social Determinants of health.
------------

'To study 'best practice' is always to study what is contingent, complex, fragile and often unruly. This does not license idiosyncrasy or serendipity in the provision of health care. The point is to account more fully for the lived experienced of participants engaged in health care as an embodied and culturally constituted performance.'

I wish I could write like that, to be able to express human-moments (like the alien body experience) in words with such clarity and succinctness. 'Best practice' is contingent, complex even unruly. But this does not license idiosyncrasy or serendipity. Ahhh, words of wisdom written with such flair.....