Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream

by Carl Elliott, Peter D. Kramer (Introduction)

Overview

"Elliott's absorbing account will make readers think again about the ways that science shapes our personal identities."—American Scientist

Americans have always been the world's most anxiously enthusiastic consumers of "enhancement technologies." Prozac, Viagra, and Botox injections are only the latest manifestations of a familiar pattern: enthusiastic adoption, public hand-wringing, an occasional congressional hearing, and calls for self-reliance.

In a brilliant diagnosis of our reactions to self-improvement technologies, Carl Elliott asks questions that illuminate deep currents in the American character: Why do we feel uneasy about these drugs, procedures, and therapies even while we embrace them? Where do we draw the line between self and society? Why do we seek self-realization in ways so heavily influenced by cultural conformity?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393346664
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/12/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	528 KB

About the Author

Carl Elliott is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, he is the author of Better Than Well and White Coat, Black Hat. He lives in Minnesota.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	IX
	Introduction	XV
1	The Perfect Voice	1
2	The True Self	28
3	The Face Behind the Mask	54
4	The Loneliness of the Late-Night Television Watcher	77
5	The Identity Bazaar	100
6	Three Ways to Feel Homesick	129
7	Pilgrims and Strangers	161
8	Resident Aliens	186
9	Amputees by Choice	208
10	Bringing up Baby	237
11	Second Acts	273
12	Conclusion: The Tyranny of Happiness	295
	Notes	305
	Acknowledgments	333
	Index	339

Introduction

Kramer, Peter D.

Editorial Reviews

Better Than Well is a superbly crafted book. Lucidly written, often funny, it offers a penetrating look at our self-obsessed, over-medicalized, enhancement-addicted society. But Elliott goes further than this. Better Than Well also lays the groundwork for thinking about the difficult and contentious issues surrounding gene therapy and human genetic engineering. One day, parents will be able to practice the ultimate form of enhancement, endowing their offspring with desirable genes. — Shannon Brownlee

The Washington Post

Elliott (Bioethics and Philosophy/Univ. of Minnesota) examines the American fascination with "enhancement technologies," techniques provided by medical science for transforming, improving, or even discovering one’s true self. A participant for five years in a Canadian research project examining how new technologies illuminate issues of identity, Elliott looks for answers not only in professional literature but also in conversations with the people involved: psychiatrists and other clinicians, patients, clients, and consumers. And he looks at our culture, the movies, books, television shows, and commercials that shape people’s perceptions of their world and expectations of themselves. His scope is broad, and the result is both entertaining and surprising. Opening with a discussion of Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesizer and an "accent-reduction clinic" in North Carolina, he moves on to consider drugs that reduce social anxieties or calm hyperactivity, cosmetic surgery that alters the size of appendages or changes gender, human growth hormones that increase stature, treatments that change the color of hair or skin, and cochlear implants that ameliorate deafness. He asks what these enhancement technologies mean to the people who choose them and what these choices say about Americans’ ideas of success, self-improvement, and self-esteem. The proper use of enhancement technologies and the way in which public identification and description of a condition contribute to its spread come under scrutiny in a chapter on apotemnophilia, a bizarre psychosexual attraction to the idea of being an amputee. Elliott also explores such lesser body modifications as tattooing and piercing. Shorter versions of"Amputees by Choice" and "Pilgrims and Strangers" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and the Hedgehog Review, respectively, and many other chapters have a similar stand-alone quality. An absorbing read that probes our foibles and uncertainties with gentleness, wisdom, and humor.

Kirkus Reviews

A superbly crafted book. "

An absorbing read that probes our foibles and uncertainties with gentleness, wisdom, and humor. "

An impressive achievement. "

Elliott grips the reader's attention all the way. "

A superbly crafted book.

An impressive achievement.

Elliott grips the reader's attention all the way.

"Elliott grips the reader's attention all the way."

From the Publisher