Natasha Brown
Fullmer
English 102
04/02/07
Ewen and Brody
Sometimes when scientists and philosophers discuss human nature, they forget that they are also analyzing themselves. In Brody’s essay “Social Power of Expert Healers” he talks about how experts abuse their power by giving examples of how doctors can harm their clients’. Brody gives an example, where Dr. Walsh makes some poor decisions: “Dr. Walsh withheld frank discussions about prognosis because she felt that her patient was not ready to hear them”(122) which leads to deaths of two people. Ewen, an author of another essay “Chosen People”, defines how people with power are seen in our society and how those without power try to make it seem like they have power. Within their discussions of power, Brody and Ewen both analyze the nature of expert power as well as unintentionally pointing out their individual uses and abuses of that specific power.
In his essay, Ewen, “Chosen People” uses the generality that every individual belongs to the middle class, while Brody uses the same generality but applies it to every expert. Do all the experts abuse their power and do all of the middle class pretend that are elite? Brody tries to show readers that they should not trust experts due to differing abuses of power. He says that, “No expert has to own responsibility for making any value-laden judgments”(116). By examining this quote we Brody’s use of expert power as he attempts to change people’s mind.
In comparison, Ewen puts people in categories which define them by what they have. He attempts to prove that people’s personalities and lives are defined by their belongings. This demonstrates that a person’s purpose in life is built around making money just so they can get more “stuff” and have higher social status. Ewen simply forgets or ignores the fact that there are many people with other values that do not revolve around money and possessions. In the begging of the essay he uses the example when a Gold Card application arrives articulating how important and prestige it is to be an owner of such card. By using this example Ewen shows that everybody wants to be special and that everybody wants to be aristocratic without ever mentioning that in fact a lot some people are simply motivated by happiness and personal success, as we see, which Ewen attributes only to the middle class.
Ewen says, “The middle class have the strongest motives for never making any parade or public complaint of their poverty. To advertise one’s self destitute, is to be without credit,”(192) This quote shows that people impoverished try to show that they are not poor due to the way they will be perceived. Being in the middle class is different than being impoverished and is more acceptable. That’s why the middle class does not publicly complain about their position; they have no reason to. The middle class man is the one who is comfortable in the position he is, doesn’t struggle for basic needs and has an opportunity to get higher status by working hard.
It’s hard to disagree that people in general assume other person’s position in society by what belongs to him, but it’s not true that everybody’s main focus is to make themselves look richer than they really are. Ewen states, “a rise to a notion of class defined, almost exclusively, by patterns of consumption.”(187) this means that Americans more and more care about their appearance then their substance. Ewen focuses on the American style and on the American Dream, however he cannot really prove his point without giving an example from another nation, which would show whether or not the American way of life does in fact stand out. Brody does the same by not mentioning how without doctors and their power, people would be in a very difficult situation. Brody’s second part of the essay starts as: “it’s a little use to analyze the power of the healing experts in our society if the only consumption is that the experts are bad people (or else that the society is bad)” (116). by telling us that it’s pointless to discuss the expert powers. However after this quote he tells the Dr. Walsh story and her improper decisions, which argues what he said previously. This confusion points out his misconception of power.
Everybody has their own power, and all people depend on each other in one way or another. There have to be different groups and classes of people in society. For instance, some people own a company and that gives an opportunity to others to have a job like a designer, an engineer, a janitor. However it is common knowledge that the CEO and the janitors will not make the same amount of money. It’s not because one job matters less than another but because that’s just how it works in today’s society. Social classes could be compared to the animal world where poverty is at the bottom of the food chain. Ewen states, “producing icons of material abundance for some, [and] bringing misery into lives of many others.”(186) this quote supports that there are poor and rich sides in society that always existed, just like there always have been predators and prey; without one there is no other. Changes could be made only on individual basis. For example, a person that cannot afford to pay for higher education can still get it by hard working, earning scholarships and financial aid. So “if there is a will there is a way”, just like in nature your way of life depends on your intelligence. We can use our owned power to make changes in our lives. In Brody’s essay the decisions are made by sides, the doctor and the couple of potions. However, in the end who gets blamed is the one with more expert power and, possibly, bigger salary.
As we come to the conclusion it’s clear that these essays have a very little purpose because Brody and Ewen bring out some specific problem but do not make a clear solution. In a way both authors tell us what we already know; some times experts make mistakes and that there are differences between classes in society. As we have seen, being an expert in some field makes a person see a situation from one a single point of view, and the essays by Brody and Ewen demonstrate. Just like doctors don’t always believe in magic and priests in evolution, Brody and Ewen try to argue their bias point of view by explaining why some situations occur without fully explaining or understanding their individual abuses of power.
Works Cited