this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I see the same kind of flawed thinking in modern health advice.
Doctors: Eating too much is putting you at statistical risk for conditions X, Y, and Z.
Patients: It's normal to want to eat!
Doctors: We didn't say it wasn't normal, we said it will hurt many of you.
Patients: Having X, Y, or Z doesn't make us bad people!
Doctors: We didn't say you're bad, we said eating too much is bad.
Patients: You shouldn't use normative good/bad judgements to describe health risks!
Doctors: We didn't do that, now lose some weight you dinks or yer gonna die!
... etc. ad infinitum.
Or, take the dialog around sexual assault, or abortion, or... almost any human activity. The human tendency to take objective fact (as much as anything can be considered objective) and convert it to subjective value judgements underlies, and undermines, everything.
Yes, this is classic anthropological theorizing, in fact. Claude Levi-Strauss touched upon these issues, and they continue to be interesting questions to think about. He didn't frame it in the medical field, but it's the same question that plagues sociological and anthropological research. Your elaboration actually highlights something very important: the straight-up medical field could learn from medical anthropology and seems to pay little attention to it. The two fields have so much to talk about together and collaborate. It happens sometimes, but not often enough.