5-28 Go over Barbara Ehrenreich’s argument in her essay “Why I’m Giving Up Preventative Care.” Homework #18: Based on the following content, develop an argumentative thesis about the role of technology and social media creating a surveillance state. Read Judith Shulevitz’s “Alexa, Should We Trust You?”; Zeynep Tukekci’s “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine”; Siva Vaidhyanthan’s “The Three Major Forces of Surveillance on Facebook.” You can also consult the video “Safe and Sorry--Terrorism & Mass Surveillance.”
5-30 If we have time, we will cover a Hasan Minhaj essay topic. We will cover Judith Shulevitz’s “Alexa, Should We Trust You?”; Zeynep Tukekci’s “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine”; Siva Vaidhyanthan’s “The Three Major Forces of Surveillance on Facebook”; and video “Safe and Sorry--Terrorism & Mass Surveillance.”
6-4: Peer Edit
6-6 Essay #5 due on turnitin; Portfolio 2 Grade Check in class
Essay 5 Due 6-6-18
This is your Capstone Essay. It requires 3 sources for your Works Cited to get credit.
Option A
Read Jelani Cobb’s “Black Like Her” and "I Refuse to Rubberneck Rachel Dolezal’s Train Wreck" by Kitanya Harrison and write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the contention that it is morally objectionable for white woman Rachel Dolezal to fabricate an identity to pass as being black. Also consult the parody of Rachel Dolezal in the Atlanta episode “B.A.N.” in which Paper Boi discusses “trans-racial” issues with Montague. You can also consult Netflix documentary The Rachel Divide.
Option B
Take yet another topic we haven’t yet covered from Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act and develop an argumentative thesis.
Option C
Read Jessica McCrory Calarco’s essay “‘Free-Range’ Parenting’s Unfair Double Standard” and support or refute her claim. See Washington Post and Reason’s “The Fragile Generation.”
Option D
Read Brendan Foht’s “The Case Against Human Gene Editing” and write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that gene editing poses moral and political problems that we cannot handle. For a contrary opinion, see "A case against a moratorium on gene editing" in The Conversation. Consult NYT "Why Are Scientists So Upset About the First CRISPR Babies?" See Vox account of "terrifying new chapter" in CRISPR. Also consult Jennifer Kahn Ted Talk video.
Option E
Read David Brooks’ “How We Are Ruining America” and support, refute, or complicate the contention that Brooks has written a misleading, stupid, deceptive, and grossly wrong-minded essay.
Option F
Read Paul Bloom’s “Against Empathy” and address the claim that Bloom, trying to sell lots of books, is writing a disingenuous argument, relying more on semantics and trickery than substance, to write a sensationalistic, hyped-up thesis.
Option G
Read “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt and write an argumentative essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the authors’ claim that a certain type of coddling is destroying young people’s mental health.
Option H
Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay “Giving Up on Preventative Care” and support, refute, or complicate her thesis that we should resist the preventive care of America’s medical establishment.
Option I
Based on the following content, develop an argumentative thesis about the role of technology and social media creating a surveillance state. Read Judith Shulevitz’s “Alexa, Should We Trust You?”; Zeynep Tukekci’s “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine”; Siva Vaidhyanthan’s “The Three Major Forces of Surveillance on Facebook”; and video “Safe and Sorry--Terrorism & Mass Surveillance.”
Option J
In the context of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams" and Hasan Minhaj's Netflix 72-minute comedy special "Homecoming King," compare and contrast the chimera of social status as a chimera between a white man, Dexter Green, and a self-described member of the "New Brown America," Hasan Minhaj. What special challenges do immigrants of color face as they try to find belonging, acceptance, and social status in America? How do these immigrants struggle to fit in with their American peers and fit their parents' expectations at the same time? How does this conflict add pressure to their quest to find status and belonging in America?
Option K
In the context of Madeleine Pape's Guardian essay "I was sore at losing to Caster Semeyna," develop an argumentative thesis about the controversy surrounding Semeyna's desire to compete in women's sports. You can also consult the NYT editorial "The Myth of Testosterone," "The Controversy Around Caster Semeyna Explained," and "The Caster Semeyna Ruling Is a Disgrace to the Sporting World." See PBS video. Also see Vox article "'I am a woman and I am fast.'" Also see Washington Post on the debate on what is scientific or not about gender.
Option L
Develop an argument that supports or refutes Chris Hughes' claim that Facebook should be broken up into smaller parts as presented in his essay, "It's Time to Break Up Facebook." Consult NYT's 5 Takeaways from Hughes' editorial and Alexis Madrigal's "We Don't Want to Know How Powerful Mark Zuckerberg Is" in The Atlantic. Also watch Chris Hughes' video. For counterarguments, consult Nick Clegg's NYT's piece "Breaking Up Facebook Is Not the Answer." Also see NYT editorial "Can Facebook Be Fixed? Should It Be?"
Option M
Read Conor Friedersdorf’s “In Defense of Harvey Weinstein’s Harvard Lawyer” and agree or disagree with the contention that representing someone as monstrous and diabolical as Harvey Weinstein performs a civic good. Also consult David French's "Harvard Launches an Attack on the Culture of Liberty." Also see NYT editorial "Harvard Betrays a Law Professor--and Itself."
Option N
Justin Peters' essay "Joe Rogan's Galaxy Brain," published in liberal-slanting Slate magazine, presents an argument that Joe Rogan and his podcast guest philosopher Sam Harris are wrong to believe in giving a platform to hateful voices. In the words of Peters, Rogan and Harris are morally wrong in their following premise: "[Liberals and progressives holding] people accountable for what they say and what those words do is an offense far worse than saying cruel, racist, and divisive things in the first place. The reputational damage done to the utterer is the real social problem, not the more diffuse damage done by the utterance."
Joe Rogan defends giving a platform to Alt-Right "crackpots" while talking to comedian Neil Brennan in this podcast segment published on You Tube under title "Why Joe Rogan Has Right Wing Guests on His Show." Rogan argues that deplatforming is dangerous to American democracy and freedom of speech. This notion of deplatforming is under further controversy by democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren refusing to go on Fox News because she argues that Fox News is a "hate-for-profit racket." But others, like Megan Day in her essay "Elizabeth Warren Should Have Gone on Fox News," argue that Warren's virtue signaling is actually misguided and shows she is too interested in showcasing her moral purity than she is in engaging people with contrary ideas to her own. Even liberal MSNBC's "Morning Joe" criticizes Warren for not going into enemy territory to argue her message.
In the context of the deplatforming controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and Elizabeth Warren, develop an argumentative thesis about deplatforming: Is engaging in conversations with opposing voices a way of giving harmful platform to hate and moral bankruptcy or is this cross-cultural conversation a way of shedding light on evil and finding opportunity to persuade one's opponents?
There can be a middle-ground in this debate. For example, one could justify having Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson on their show while eschewing a complete troll like Alex Jones.
Also consider that if you have strong opinions, they should be worth fighting for. Joe Rogan, who does MMA training and fighting, is a fighter. He doesn't mind going into the belly of beast and fighting the battles of the day. Elizabeth Warren, some might argue, is a pacifist who is eager to showboat her virtue to her crowd of the already converted but too cowardly to engage in battle with the enemy. If she can't fight, is she a worthy candidate? Some say no. Others say her moral purity is precisely her appeal. Frame the debate under your own terms.
Homework #18: Based on the following content, develop an argumentative thesis about the role of technology and social media creating a surveillance state. Read Judith Shulevitz’s “Alexa, Should We Trust You?”; Zeynep Tukekci’s “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine”; Siva Vaidhyanthan’s “The Three Major Forces of Surveillance on Facebook.” You can also consult the video “Safe and Sorry--Terrorism & Mass Surveillance.”
"Why I'm Giving Up on Preventative Care" by Barbara Ehrenreich
One. Is BE committing a Straw Man in the first paragraph? ("You don't have to get sick and die." Who promised that?)
In the last few years I have given up on the many medical measures—cancer screenings, annual exams, Pap smears, for example—expected of a responsible person with health insurance. This was not based on any suicidal impulse. It was barely even a decision, more like an accumulation of micro-decisions: to stay at my desk and meet a deadline or show up at the primary care office and submit to the latest test to gauge my biological sustainability; to spend the afternoon in faux-cozy corporate environment of a medical facility or to go for a walk. At first I criticized myself as a slacker and procrastinator, falling behind on the simple, obvious stuff that could prolong my life. After all, this is the great promise of modern scientific medicine: You do not have to get sick and die (at least not for a while), because problems can be detected “early” when they are readily treatable. Better to catch a tumor when it’s the size of an olive than that of a cantaloupe.
No one promises you won't get sick and die. Rather, the probabilities are in your favor if you get early detection and pursue preventative care.
Two. Is BE committing an either-or fallacy and non sequitur in second paragraph? (Does responsible preventative care exclude testing for lead? Are the two problems even related or is BE posing a non sequitur?)
I knew I was going against my own long-standing bias in favor of preventive medical care as opposed to expensive and invasive high-tech curative interventions. What could be more ridiculous than an inner-city hospital that offers a hyperbaric chamber but cannot bestir itself to get out in the neighborhood and test for lead poisoning? From a public health perspective, as well as a personal one, it makes far more sense to screen for preventable problems than to invest huge resources in the treatment of the very ill.
That BE's clinic offers dubious services such as a hyperbaric chamber and is not addressing lead poisoning in the community is a good point for an essay, but not this essay. She seems to be using a non sequitur that does not support her thesis, which is that preventive care is overrated and based on false promises.
Her thesis suffers in several ways. Here are two:
One, not all preventative care is the same.
Two, some people need more preventative care than others based on their family history.
Three. Does BE commit fallacies of ad hominem and Straw Man in third paragraph, and if so, what happens to her ethos? (Are people responsible for their preventative care "boasting" and delusional about living forever?)
I also understood that I was going against the grain for my particular demographic. Most of my educated, middle-class friends had begun to double down on their health-related efforts at the onset of middle age, if not earlier. They undertook exercise or yoga regimens; they filled their calendars with upcoming medical tests and exams; they boasted about their “good” and “bad” cholesterol counts, their heart rates and blood pressure. Mostly they understood they the task of aging to be self-denial, especially in the realm of diet, where one medical fad, one study or another, condemned fat and meat, carbs, gluten, dairy, or all animal-derived products. In the health-conscious mind-set that has prevailed among the world’s affluent people for about four decades now, health is indistinguishable from virtue, tasty foods are “sinfully delicious,” while healthful foods may taste good enough to be advertised as “guilt-free.” Those seeking to compensate for a lapse undertake punitive measures like fasts, purges, or diets composed of different juices carefully sequenced throughout the day.
BE uses some logical fallacies here: Not all health seekers behave the same. Some behave stupidly; others behave smartly. BE shouldn't lump them altogether with a few caricatures. For example, I exercise and watch what I eat, but I don't boast about my amazing healthy lifestyle. Nor do I think I will defy death.
Four. Does she commit another non sequitur in paragraphs four and five with her fatalism about death? (Since we are going to die and since there is so much we can do about the aging process, are we just supposed to say "the hell with it?" Does it follow that the inevitability of death compels us to give up on preventative medical care at some point?)
I had a different reaction to aging: I gradually came to realize that I was old enough to die, by which I am not suggesting that each of us bears an expiration date. There is of course no fixed age at which a person ceases to be worthy of further medical investment, whether aimed at prevention or cure. The military judges that a person is old enough to die—to put him or herself in the line of fire—at age 18. At the other end of life, many remain world leaders in their seventies or even older, without anyone questioning their need for lavish continuing testing and care. Zimbabwe’s former president, Robert Mugabe, recently turned 90, and has undergone multiple treatments for prostate cancer.
If we go by newspaper obituaries, however, we notice that there is an age at which death no longer requires much explanation. Although there is no general editorial rule on these matters, it is usually sufficient when the deceased is in their seventies or older for the obituary writer to invoke “natural causes.” It is sad when anyone dies, but no one can consider the death of a septuagenarian “tragic,” and there will be no demand for an investigation.
Just because BE feels "old enough to die," doesn't mean her position is embraced by everyone else. Her personal decision, in other words, is not some universal wisdom to be imposed on the rest of us. If you're done, BE, that's your business.
Five. While I see flaws in the beginning of the essay, there is a point where BE begins to win me over.
BE seems to be advocating a balance of quality of life and common sense vs. hyper vigilance or fanatical attention to one's health, which becomes oppressive.
BE makes the correct observation that there is a point where invasive medical procedures compromise our quality of life and offer little in the bargain; in fact, some procedures may present even more harm than good and cause us to question the medical establishment's financial incentives.
Once I realized I was old enough to die, I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance, or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life. I eat well, meaning I choose foods that taste good and that will stave off hunger for as long as possible, like protein, fiber, and fats. I exercise—not because it will make me live longer but because it feels good when I do. As for medical care: I will seek help for an urgent problem, but I am no longer interested in looking for problems that remain undetectable to me. Ideally, the determination of when one is old enough to die should be a personal decision, based on a judgment of the likely benefits, if any, of medical care and—just as important at a certain age—how we choose to spend the time that remains to us.
Six. BE raise important question: Are health providers basing procedures on profit motive?
At the same time I had always questioned whatever procedures the health care providers recommended; in fact I am part of a generation of women who insisted on their right to raise questions without having the word “uncooperative,” or worse, written into their medical records. So when a few years ago my primary care physician told me that I needed a bone density scan, I of course asked him why: What could be done if the result was positive and my bones were found to be hollowed out by age? Fortunately, he replied, there was now a drug for that. I told him I was aware of the drug, both from its full-page magazine ads as well as from articles in the media questioning its safety and efficacy. Think of the alternative, he said, which might well be, say, a hip fracture, followed by a rapid descent to the nursing home.
Seven. Is health care industry wrongly calling natural conditions of old age "disease"?
So I grudgingly conceded that undergoing the test, which is noninvasive and covered by my insurance, might be preferable to immobility and institutionalization. The result was a diagnosis of “osteopenia,” or thinning of the bones, a condition that might have been alarming if I hadn’t found out that it is shared by nearly all women over the age of 35. Osteopenia is, in other words, not a disease but a normal feature of aging. A little further research, all into readily available sources, revealed that routine bone scanning had been heavily promoted and even subsidized by the drug’s manufacturer. Worse, the favored medication at the time of my diagnosis has turned out to cause some of the very problems it was supposed to prevent—bone degeneration and fractures. A cynic might conclude that preventive medicine exists to transform people into raw material for a profit-hungry medical-industrial complex.
My first major defection from the required screening regimen was precipitated by a mammogram. No one likes mammography, which amounts to a brute-force effort to render the breasts transparent. First, a breast is flattened between two plates, then it is bombarded with ionizing radiation, which is, incidentally, the only environmental factor known for sure to cause breast cancer. I’d been fairly dutiful about mammograms since having been treated for breast cancer at the turn of the millennium, and now, about 10 years later, the gynecologist’s office reported that I’d had a “bad mammogram.” I spent the next few anxious weeks undergoing further tests, in the midst of which I managed to earn a ticket for “distracted driving.” Naturally I was distracted—by the looming decision of whether I would undergo debilitating cancer treatments again, or just let the disease take its course this time.
It turned out, after I’d been through a sonogram and fought panic in a coffin-like MRI tube, that the “bad mammogram” was a false positive resulting from the highly sensitive new digital forms of imaging. That was my last mammogram. Lest this seem like a reckless decision, I was supported in it by a high-end big-city oncologist, who viewed all my medical images and said that there would be no need to see me again, which I interpreted as ever again.
After this, every medical or dental encounter seemed to end in a tussle. Dentists—and I have met a number of them in my moves around the country—always wanted a fresh set of X-rays, even if the only problem was a chip in the tip of a tooth. All I could think of was the X-ray machines every shoe store had offered in my youth, through which children were encouraged to peer at the bones of their feet while wiggling their toes. The fun ended in the 1970s, when these “fluoroscopes” were eventually banned as dangerous sources of radiation. So why should I routinely expose my mouth, which is much more cancer-prone than the feet, to high annual doses of roentgens? If there was some reason to suspect underlying structural problems, okay, but just to satisfy the dentist’s curiosity or meet some abstract “standard of care”—no.
In all these encounters, I was struck by the professionals’ dismissal of my subjective reports—usually along the lines of “I feel fine”—in favor of the occult findings of their equipment. One physician, unprompted by any obvious signs or symptoms, decided to measure my lung capacity with the new handheld instrument he’d acquired for this purpose. I breathed into it, as instructed, as hard as I could, but my breath did not register on his screen. He fiddled with the instrument, looking deeply perturbed, and told me I seemed to be suffering from a pulmonary obstruction. In my defense, I argued that I do at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, not counting ordinary walking, but I was too polite to demonstrate that I was still capable of vigorous oral argument.
Eight. BE makes convincing argument that in many cases medical industry subjects us to dangerous equipment and procedures that pose more risk than the very thing they're supposedly trying to find. This problem is explored in graphic detail in the Netflix documentary The Bleeding Edge.
It was my dentist, oddly enough, who suggested, during an ordinary filling, that I be tested for sleep apnea. How a dentist got involved in what is normally the domain of ear, nose, and throat specialists, I do not know, but she recommended that the screening be done at a “sleep center,” where I would attempt to sleep while heavily wired to monitoring devices, after which I could buy the treatment from her: a terrifying skull-shaped mask that would supposedly prevent sleep apnea and definitely extinguish any last possibility of sexual activity. But when I protested that there is no evidence I suffer from this disorder—no symptoms or detectable signs—the dentist said that I just might not be aware of it, adding that it could kill me in my sleep. This, I told her, is a prospect I can live with.
As soon as I reached the age of 50 physicians had begun to recommend—and in one case even plead—that I have a colonoscopy. As in the case of mammograms, the pressure to submit to a colonoscopy is hard to avoid. Celebrities promote them, comics snicker about them. During March, which is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, an eight-foot-high inflatable replica of a colon tours the country, allowing the anally curious to stroll through and inspect potentially cancerous polyps “from the inside.” But if mammography seems like a refined sort of sadism, colonoscopies mimic an actual sexual assault. First the patient is sedated—often with what is popularly known as the “date rape drug,” Versed—then a long flexible tube, bearing a camera on one end, is inserted into the rectum and all the way up through the colon. What repelled me even more than this kinky procedure was the day of fasting and laxatives that was supposed to precede it, in order to ensure that the little camera encounters something other than feces. I put this off from year to year, until I finally felt safe in the knowledge that since colon cancer is usually slow-growing, any cancerous polyps I contain are unlikely to flourish until I am already close to death from other causes.
Then my internist, the chief physician in a midsized group practice, sent out a letter announcing that he was suspending his ordinary practice in order to offer a new level of “concierge care” for those willing to cough up an extra $1,500 a year beyond what they already pay for insurance. The elite care would include 24-hour access to the doctor, leisurely visits, and, the letter promised, all kinds of tests and screenings in addition to the routine ones. This is when my decision crystallized: I made an appointment and told him face-to-face that, one, I was dismayed by his willingness to drop his less-than-affluent patients, who appeared to make up much of the waiting room population. And, two, I didn’t want more tests; I wanted a doctor who could protect me from unnecessary procedures. I would remain with the masses of ordinary, haphazardly screened patients.
Of course all this unnecessary screening and testing happens because doctors order it, but there is a growing rebellion within the medical profession. Over-diagnosis is beginning to be recognized as a public health problem, and is sometimes referred to as an “epidemic.” It is an appropriate subject for international medical conferences and evidence-laden books like Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health by H. Gilbert Welch and his Dartmouth colleagues Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin. Even health columnist Jane Brody, long a cheerleader for standard preventive care, now recommends that we think twice before undergoing what were once routine screening procedures. Physician and blogger John M. Mandrola advises straightforwardly:
Rather than being fearful of not detecting disease, both patients and doctors should fear healthcare. The best way to avoid medical errors is to avoid medical care. The default should be: I am well. The way to stay that way is to keep making good choices—not to have my doctor look for problems.
With age, the cost/benefit analysis shifts. On the one hand, health care becomes more affordable—for Americans, anyway—at age 65, when a person is eligible for Medicare. Exhortations to undergo screenings and tests continue, with loved ones joining the chorus. But in my case, the appetite for medical interactions of any kind wanes with each passing week. Suppose that preventive care uncovered some condition that would require agonizing treatments or sacrifices on my part—disfiguring surgery, radiation, drastic lifestyle limitations. Maybe these measures would add years to my life, but it would be a painful and depleted life that they prolonged.
As it is now, preventive medicine often extends to the end of life: 75-year-olds are encouraged to undergo mammography; people already in the grip of one terminal disease may be subjected to screenings for others. At a medical meeting, someone reported that a 100-year-old woman had just had her first mammogram, causing the audience to break into a “loud cheer.”
One reason for the compulsive urge to test and screen and monitor is profit, and this is especially true in the United States, with its heavily private and often for-profit health system. How is a doctor—or hospital or drug company—to make money from essentially healthy patients? By subjecting them to tests and examinations that, in sufficient quantity, are bound to detect something wrong or at least worthy of follow-up. Gilbert and his coauthors offer a vivid analogy, borrowed from an expert in fractal geometry: “How many islands surround Britain’s coasts?” The answer of course depends on the resolution of the map you are using, as well as how you are defining an “island.” With high-resolution technologies like CT scans, the detection of tiny abnormalities is almost inevitable, leading to ever more tests, prescriptions, and doctor visits. And the tendency to over-test is amplified when the doctor who recommends the tests has a financial interest in the screening or imaging facility that he or she refers people to.
It’s not only a profit-hungry medical system that drives over-testing and over-diagnosis. Individual consumers, that is, former and potential patients, may demand the testing and even threaten a malpractice suit if they feel it is being withheld. In the last couple of decades, “patient advocacy” groups have sprung up to “brand” dozens of diseases and publicize the need for screening. Many have their own celebrity spokespersons—Katie Couric for colonoectal cancer, Rudy Giuliani for prostate cancer—and each sports its own distinctive colored ribbon—pink for breast cancer, purple for testicular cancer, black for melanoma, a “puzzle pattern” for autism, and so on—as well as special days or months for concentrated publicity and lobbying efforts. The goal of all this is generally “awareness,” meaning a willingness to undergo the appropriate screening, such as mammograms and PSA tests.
There are even sizable constituencies for discredited tests. When the US Preventive Services Task Force decided to withdraw its recommendation of routine mammograms for women under 50, even some feminist women’s health organizations, which I had expected to be more critical of conventional medical practices, spoke out in protest. A small band of women, identifying themselves as survivors of breast cancer, demonstrated on a highway outside the task force’s office, as if demanding that their breasts be squeezed. In 2008, the same task force gave PSA testing a grade of “D,” but advocates like Giuliani, who insisted that the test had saved his life, continued to press for it, as do most physicians.
Many physicians justify tests of dubious value by the “peace of mind” they supposedly confer— except of course on those who receive false positive results. Thyroid cancer is particularly vulnerable to over-diagnosis. With the introduction of more high-powered imaging techniques, doctors were able to detect many more tiny lumps in people’s necks and surgically remove them, whether surgery was warranted or not. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of thyroid cancer surgeries performed on US, French, and Italian women in the first decade of the 21st century are now judged to have been unnecessary. In South Korea, where doctors were especially conscientious about thyroid screening, the number rose to 90 percent (Men were also over-diagnosed, but in far lower numbers.) Patients pay a price for these surgeries, including a lifelong dependence on thyroid hormones, and since these are not always fully effective, the patient may be left chronically “depressed and sluggish.”
So far I can detect no stirrings of popular revolt against the regime of unnecessary and often harmful medical screening. Hardly anyone admits to personally rejecting tests, and one who did—science writer John Horgan in a Scientific American blog on why he will not undergo a colonoscopy—somewhat undercut his well-reasoned argument by describing himself as an “anti-testing nut.” Most people joke about the distastefulness of the recommended procedures, while gamely submitting to whatever is expected of them.
But there’s a significant rebellion brewing on another front. Increasingly, we read laments about the “medicalization of dying,” usually focused on a formerly frisky parent or grandparent who had made clear her request for a natural, nonmedical death, only to end up tethered by cables and tubes to an ICU bed. Physicians see this all the time—witty people silenced by ventilators, the fastidious rendered incontinent—and some are determined not to let the same thing happen to themselves. They may refuse care, knowing that it is more likely to lead to disability than health, like the orthopedist who upon receiving a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer immediately closed down his practice and went home to die in relative comfort and peace. A few physicians are more decisively proactive, and have themselves tattooed “NO CODE” or “DNR,” meaning “do not resuscitate.” They reject the same drastic end-of-life measures that they routinely inflict on their patients.
In giving up on preventive care, I’m just taking this line of thinking a step further: Not only do I reject the torment of a medicalized death, but I refuse to accept a medicalized life, and my determination only deepens with age. As the time that remains to me shrinks, each month and day becomes too precious to spend in windowless waiting rooms and under the cold scrutiny of machines. Being old enough to die is an achievement, not a defeat, and the freedom it brings is worth celebrating.
Sample Thesis Statements
Supporting BE
While BE's essay has a rocky beginning with some logical fallacies, her essay eventually makes the convincing case that the medical industry profits from promising unrealistic expectations about aging, subjecting us to invasive procedures that compromise the quality of our life, and packaging their "preventative care" to veil their true motive: profit.
Another Support of BE
While some medical care is invasive and unsafe, we can, like BE, do our due diligence to find the sweet spot of preventative care that works for us and repel those procedures that BE correctly observes are unsafe and profit-driven.
Refuting BE
While BE has resigned herself to dying and old age, it is irresponsible for her to play doctor and determine what procedures work and do not work for her and to then argue that we should follow her reckless behavior.
Recommended Sources
Bleeding Edge Review in Variety
Bleeding Edge Review in New York Times
Option M
Read Conor Friedersdorf’s “In Defense of Harvey Weinstein’s Harvard Lawyer” and agree or disagree with the contention that representing someone as monstrous and diabolical as Harvey Weinstein performs a civic good. Also consult David French's "Harvard Launches an Attack on the Culture of Liberty." Also see NYT editorial "Harvard Betrays a Law Professor--and Itself."
Harvard Betrays a Law Professor — and Itself by Randall Kennedy
I have been a professor at Harvard University for 34 years. In that time, the school has made some mistakes. But it has never so thoroughly embarrassed itself as it did this past weekend. At the center of the controversy is Ronald Sullivan, a law professor who ran afoul of student activists enraged that he was willing to represent Harvey Weinstein.
Mr. Sullivan is my friend and colleague. He is the director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and the architect of a conviction-review program in Brooklyn that has freed a score of improperly convicted individuals. He is also a sought-after lawyer who has represented plaintiffs (including the family of Michael Brown, whose death at the hands of a police officer fueled the Black Lives Matter movement) as well as defendants (including Rose McGowan, the actress who faced drug charges and is, ironically, one of Mr. Weinstein’s accusers).
In addition to his work as a professor and a lawyer, Mr. Sullivan, with his wife, Stephanie Robinson, has served for a decade as the faculty dean of Winthrop House, an undergraduate dormitory where some 400 students live.
As a faculty dean, Mr. Sullivan is responsible for creating a safe, fun, supportive environment in which students can pursue their collegiate ambitions. Winthrop House is meant to be a home away from home; faculty deans are in loco parentis. Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson are expected to attend to the students as counselors, cheerleaders, impresarios and guardians.
Enraged by Mr. Sullivan’s work on behalf of Mr. Weinstein, a cadre of students at Winthrop, and in other parts of the university as well, demanded the lawyer’s ouster, asserting that his choice of client undermined their confidence in his ability to be properly attuned to their thoughts and feelings. Some said that Mr. Sullivan’s choice was nothing less than “trauma-inducing.”
From the outset of the dispute, which began in January when Mr. Sullivan joined Mr. Weinstein’s team of lawyers (he has recently withdrawn from active participation), Harvard authorities have evinced sympathy with the position voiced by the student dissidents. “I take seriously the concerns that have been raised from members of the College community regarding the impact of Professor Sullivan’s choice to serve as counsel for Harvey Weinstein on the House community that he is responsible for leading as a faculty dean,” the dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, remarked in an email to students in February.
A few weeks later, after protests that included vandalism (spray-painted graffiti on university buildings included the slogans “Our rage is self-defense” and “Whose side are you on?”), Dean Khurana initiated a review of “the climate” at Winthrop House, including asking students in a questionnaire whether they found the dormitory “sexist” or “non-sexist.” Some onlookers saw the move as a predetermined predicate for wrangling Mr. Sullivan’s resignation or dismissal.
They were right. On Saturday, Dean Khurana announced that Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson would no longer be deans of the college, citing their “ineffective” efforts to improve “the climate” at Winthrop.
Although Dean Khurana declared that his decision was “informed by a number of considerations,” he said nothing in his announcement about the issue that lay at the heart of the controversy: the claim that Mr. Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein was in and of itself inconsistent with his role as a faculty dean. No wonder the students who campaigned for his dismissal on that basis celebrated the administration’s action.
The upshot is that Harvard College appears to have ratified the proposition that it is inappropriate for a faculty dean to defend a person reviled by a substantial number of students — a position that would disqualify a long list of stalwart defenders of civil liberties and civil rights, including Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.
Student opposition to Mr. Sullivan has hinged on the idea of safety — that they would not feel safe confiding in Mr. Sullivan about matters having to do with sexual harassment or assault given his willingness to serve as a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein. Let’s assume the good faith of such declarations (though some are likely mere parroting). Even still, they should not be accepted simply because they represent sincere beliefs or feelings.
Suppose atheist students claimed that they did not feel “safe” confiding in a faculty dean who was an outspoken Christian or if conservative students claimed that they did not feel “safe” confiding in a faculty dean who was a prominent leftist. One would hope that university officials would say more than that they “take seriously” the concerns raised and fears expressed. One would hope that they would say that Harvard University defends — broadly — the right of people to express themselves aesthetically, ideologically, intellectually and professionally. One would hope that they would say that the acceptability of a faculty dean must rest upon the way in which he meets his duties, not on his personal beliefs or professional associations. One would hope, in short, that Harvard would seek to educate its students and not simply defer to vague apprehensions or pander to the imperatives of misguided rage.
Now, of course, Harvard authorities are dredging up various supposed delinquencies on Mr. Sullivan’s part. An exposé in The Harvard Crimson refers to allegations that he and his wife were highhanded in their dealings with the staff at Winthrop House. No one is perfect; perhaps there is something to these claims.
But these dissatisfactions, if relevant at all, were not what provoked the student protests that led to Mr. Sullivan’s ouster. The central force animating the drama has been student anger at anyone daring to breach the wall of ostracism surrounding Mr. Weinstein, even for the limited purpose of extending him legal representation. They want to make him, a person still clothed with the presumption of innocence, more of an untouchable before trial than those who have been convicted of a crime. There was no publicized protest at Winthrop House when Mr. Sullivan successfully represented a convicted murderer, Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star, who was acquitted of a separate double murder before killing himself in prison.
Harvard officials are certainly capable of withstanding student pressure. This time, though, they don’t want to. Some high-ranking administrators have clearly been guided by an affinity for the belief that Mr. Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein constituted a betrayal of enlightened judgment. Others have simply been willing to be mau-maued.
In March, when it seemed that the administration was getting ready to do what it’s now done, 52 members of the Harvard Law School faculty, myself included, signed a letter supporting Mr. Sullivan’s “dedication to the professional tradition of providing representation to people accused to crimes and other misconduct, including those who are most reviled.” We called upon Harvard “to recognize that such legal advocacy in service of constitutional principles is not only fully consistent with Sullivan’s roles of law professor and dean of an undergraduate house, but also one of the many possible models that resident deans can provide in teaching, mentoring and advising students.”
The rejection of that advice has now led to an alarming impasse. Friends of academia should insist that Harvard answer the question: Why is serving as defense counsel for Harvey Weinstein inconsistent with serving as a faculty dean?
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