Abstract
The author examines the politics of pain through various examples and stories that illustrate the overlapping of biopolitics and bioethics. Animal experimentation presents a contradiction between framing suffering as necessary while limiting unnecessary pain. The Tuskegee experiment in the US and the Guatemala study exemplify how decision-makers have used vulnerable populations for scientific purposes without regard for their well-being. The psychological inflexibility of individuals in high-income societies has contributed to a reliance on prescribed drugs and inadequate medical practices for pain management. These issues highlight how material progress and the politics of pain intersect, perpetuating a society of winners and losers.
TopThe Lab
The best lab to study the politics of pain is the lab itself, namely those where research with ‘victims of science’ is being performed (Ryder, 1983, pp. 66–68). Even the real practices of exemplary researchers as Pavlov were ethically fishy sometimes (Todes, 2000, pp. 39–40, 77). In the experiments with animals, biopolitics and bioethics mutually overlap. Framing animal suffering as a necessary evil while ensuring the experimentation doesn’t involve unnecessary pain makes the living lab a contradictory facility.
A society focused on material progress (and that relies on it for almost anything else) works like a giant lab where the decision-makers are scientists trying to know how to put to work a lot of guinea pigs. Many experiments like the labyrinthine malls or the colour discrimination during a soccer match on TV doesn’t seem like a mess. Others are obvious politics of pain, like the drones’ wicked game in the Cover Predator War in Pakistan (Williams, 2010) or the public health expenditure cuts in Spain with a polemic alleged death toll of more than a half a million people from 2011-2015 (Gerrard, 2018).
Modern politics of pain came from the multiplication of forces that industrialization put in a coalition of politicians and industrial captains (aka baron robbers). This superhuman power for shaping the Earth’s crust and dictating the schedule of billions brought reckless ambitions around the globe that ended in genocidal late colonialism and two World Wars. The philosophical background of the politics of pain is the over-rationalization of the top decision-maker righteousness. It happens most times under the pretext of greater good or lesser evil. For example, Hiroshima bombing fits into a scheme in which the Enola Gay pilots were the lab technicians, Washington the research director and the big experiment was the Pax Americana. The Hiroshima civilians nuked were the rats (sic). It was sold as a necessary evil for the greatest good. Of course, preventing the Japanese from seeing Hirohito’s true face and his role in Japanese army war crimes was part of this new and bigger imperial experiment with a new American research director (Pye, 2000; Bergamini, 1971; Harada, 1946; Bix, 2008).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pain: Unpleasant physical or emotional sensation caused by injury, illness, or distress.
Capitalism: An economic system where individuals own wealth and can grow it through satisfying real or fabricated needs along with favourable government interventions.
Biopolitics: The regulation of human populations through politics focused on fostering and maintaining control upon life.
War Crime: Causing unnecessary harm or mistreatment of civilians or prisoners.
Politics: Actions and strategies aimed to obtain and exercise power over a country, society, or organization.
Inflexibility: Refusing to recognize own mistakes or alter one's ways or mindset.
Clinical Practice: The application of medical knowledge and treatment to provide care for patients in a healthcare setting.