As Time Goes on …
Barbara Ehrenreich has taught me some important lessons about how western society works, or doesn’t. I particularly appreciated her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), because she allowed me to vicariously experience what life is like for those who are precariously employed, for example.
When I encountered a review of her latest book, Natural Causes: The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, I was eager to read what the reviewer had to say. I was not disappointed, even though the topic of Ehrenreich’s book is not my first choice of reading material.
At one point Victoria Sweet, a medical doctor herself, writes about Ehrenreich’s take on our attitudes:
“In her new book, Barbara Ehrenreich ventures into the fast-growing literature on aging, disease, and death, tracing her own disaffection with a medical and social culture unable to face mortality. She argues that what “makes death such an intolerable prospect” is our belief in a reductionist science that promises something it cannot deliver—ultimate control over our bodies. The time has come to rethink our need for such mastery, she urges, and reconcile ourselves to the idea that it may not be possible.”
Check out the full review of Natural Causes, as printed in The Atlantic, at:
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