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Hybridization

By Constance Laymon


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(((((((((Originally written in 2000 for Dr. Brian Massumi's Textural Practices II class)))))))))
 

“As for the human masses that have been made to multiply as a result of the virtues and vises of medicine and economics . . .”(50).

Latour, Bruno.  We Have Never Been Modern.  Trans.  Catherine Porter, 1993.  4th printing.  Cambridge, Massachusetts:  Harvard University Press, 1997.

        I am a complex hybrid of nature and the science of medicine.  I am undoubtedly human:  biological, yet it is systems of medical sciences that prolong the life of my biology.  As I swallow manufactured components every four hours that I am awake, I become a link in a chain of acceptable commodification.  Culture reveres the unbiased authority of the doctor as sovereign over the body.  Doctors know the body: each component has a specialty, an expert's expert from Cardiology, Urology, Nephrology, Orthopedics, Neurology, Gastroenterology, Endricinology, Dermatology, Pulmonary, Infectious Disease [relating to chronic infection] – each of these delineations affect me, my health or non-health, and there are several other specialties still to name.  In particular, Pharmacology hybridizes me as a subject . . . the Prozac that I take each morning to maintain my chronic depression has redefined my psyche.  I am functional through the neurotransmitter adjustment that the drug provides on a sub-molecular biological level.  I am considered dysfunctional by society for corrective biological adjustment through the unnatural, the engineered, the corporate pharmaceutical monolith of Prozac as distributed through the networks of doctors who are tools for Dista Labs who reap economic profit at the expense of general culture.  The Baclofen, Soma, Propranolol, Rythmol, Ultram, Ditropan, Tagamet, Demulin, Coalace and Florinef create my hybridization as well, maintaining muscle spasms, heart rate, chronic pain, bladder spasms, reflux, birth control, stool consistency and hypotention.  Is there a demarcation between these medications and the Vitamin C, cranberry concentrate tablets, multivitamin, potassium, garlic, Echinacea and goldenseal ingested that are within a natural realm in comparison to the manufactured isotopes of the previous medications?  These are manufactured by transnational corporations as well, pressed into attractive swallow-able pills that will maintain urine acidity, electrolight balance and improved immunity.  This second group is hybrid as well within the constrains of culture though are defined as natural-er.


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