Pretending to Be Healthy?

English Editorial (translated by Silvia Benso)

Abstract

We might think of nature in terms of everything that exists or, at least, is not constructed by humans; from this point of view, something like a cold or cancer are as natural as any other organic process. In the specific case of pathology though, we encounter something natural that goes against nature, against physiological processes, and hinders, interrupts, and diverts them leading the organism to destruction. Only if the concept of nature we employ allows us to think of nature’s going against nature, that is, of an opposition of nature to itself, is the concept of nature not flattened out onto the mere hodge-podge of everything that exists.

The concept of pathology forces us to consider that when speaking of nature, normality, or health we are referring not to something that is or exists out there but, rather and above all, to an ideal dimension or to an ought-to-be. This of course entails the risk that the institution of such an ideal may serve a power that uses it for its own self-consolidation while banishing to the realm of the pathological everything that escapes its control.