As in Judo: Apoplexy Justice

When I am reduced to burps and gurgles over some antic by Dick Cheney or by the way torture citations are lightly glossed, tossed, and reseasoned before being plated and served up as homegrown and fresh from the garden...?

And when the subterranean amoral violence that diminishes us as both a nation and a species is explained away by that particular cavernous Talking DeathHead?

When the two are intertwined by the tendrils of justification (national defense, intelligence, terror:terror:terror) then I am simply apopleptic* and can only thrash about, trying to find my voice.

Thank goodness, then, for Buckeye Surgeon and his posts on torture, and his refusal to let Cheney off the hook.

I officially became a fan of the Buckeye Surgeon last May, when he published the post: Baudrillard and the Hyperrealism of the Parathyroidectomy

This is going to be a bizarre post; I'm just warning you.

I've been reading from Jean Baudrillard recently. Baudrillard is a post modernist French thinker/philosopher who writes about the preponderance of images, signs and representations in our technologically-driven, post modern lives. A lot of what he writes is almost deliberately obscure and esoteric. You find yourself re-reading entire chapters two or three times because nothing makes sense and you get pissed off thinking hey I'm not a moron, I have advanced degreees why is this guy being so intentionally obtuse? I sort of hate Baudrillard, actually, for that reason. But he does have some interesting takes on the nature of reality that are rather illuminating.

I believe the exact wording of my thought at the time was... chouette! [True, I had to put aside the whole Forget Foucault (Oublier Foucault) nonsense... which was submitted to Foucault, himself, for publication in Semiotext(e) and to which Foucault, himself, never replied. Which is to say, don't miss Sylvère Lotringer's interview, Forget Baudrillard. In short, what must be acknowledged is the impossibility of participating in a field of study or in its criticism, without complicity.] Buckeye Surgeon plays on the subject/object shenanigans chez Baudrillard, and, oddly enough, chez super-specialized endocrine surgeons, as well. Actually, not odd at all, given consumerism à la Baudrillard. Hyperreality and this consumerism mark the Baudrillard of the 70s, the on-again, off-again marxist "thinker" in evolution as provocateur.

There are precious few medical bloggers who could pull that off, and even fewer that one would want to. I found myself wanting to hear Baudrillard on Abu Ghraib (war porn), among other things, through the filter of this particular midwestern general surgeon.

So recently, when he decided to beg all questions, in To blog or not to be, I was bummed, and responded snarkily.

I know, I know. [Like Frank Drackman -- which is a phrase I never ever thought I'd write -- I have a framed Master's of My Domain upon the office wall...]

I am so happy he continues to blog, even happier to know that he does so with his young daughter in mind.

Who else is going to keep that upstart, Atul Gawande, in check?

* At those moments, I am at such a remove from the inane boggle-headed chirping about how "il faut cultiver notre jardin" that I am, to overestimate myself, dangerous. I nod along with Jean-Luc and pump my cold, purple fist at his "Je me contenterai d'ajouter qu'il y a aussi sans doute un peu de malice chez Voltaire..."


“As in judo, the best answer to an adversary maneuver is not to retreat, but to go along with it, turning it to one’s own advantage, as a resting point for the next phase.”

— Michel Foucault