Title: Seeds of mortality : the public and private worlds of cancer /
Authors: Justman, Stewart.
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee,
Year: 2003
Subjects: Justman, Stewart.; Justman, Stewart Health.; Justman, Stewart.; Social Perception; Attitude to Health; Neoplasms psychology; Cancer Social aspects; Rhetoric; Prostate Cancer.; Language and medicine.
Abstract: "Today's cancer patients get advice about stress, meditation, diet, exercise, journal-writing, self-grieving, and support groups. Some believe they can cure themselves by joining in five-mile walks, wearing colored ribbons, talking "through" their pain, and contributing to public "awareness" of the disease. Trends and fashions have their place in the world of cancer: in search of strength in the face of a terrifying disease, some patients look to the promise of mysticism and depth psychology. (Michael Milken, when diagnosed, studied meditation under Deepak Chopra in hope that a cure could come "with the flick of an intention.")" "But what of those who wish to deal with cancer on their own, without sharing their private pain with strangers or proclaiming their diagnosis to all who will listen? Stewart Justman takes exception to the contemporary culture of cancer. A cancer patient himself, in Seeds of Mortality he separates the experience of cancer from the publicity. He questions whether in fact the past was an age of darkness, whether silence is necessarily harmful, whether the openness of publicity is our best personal defense against cancer." "Mr. Justman argues that cancer is a much more enigmatic disease than the publicity suggests, that to those who stand in its presence humility may still have something to say. With telling references to great art and literature, he explores the cancer culture and looks into the sources of our fascination with publicity as an instrument of enlightenment and a cure for what ails us. Cancer, he observes, subverts our pride, ignores our fashions, tests our certainties. Seeds of Mortality is not simply another cancer diary; it is a fresh breeze of thinking about a subject whose public relations campaign has overshadowed its grim reality."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Preface: Cancer and cant -- Polls, statistics, forms -- Faithful plowman -- Beyond shame and guilt -- Breast and the prostate -- Conspiracy of silence -- Self and others -- Compassion -- History's children -- Belief and disbelief -- Will to transparency : Jeremy Bentham -- Calculation versus judgment -- Calculation, birth, death -- Death of Ivan Ilych : the limits of knowledge -- Small offices of kindness -- Cruel choices -- Publicity and enlightenment -- Public and the private -- Stone without a cherry.