OK. What does all this mean for us? For me, in looking at how Iranian writers adopt the illness metaphor, it seems that we can see how the rationalist ideals of pre-1979 and post-1979 Iran continue to be plague-stricken. Abstract ideals about humanism (whether in the Pahlavi's brand of modern nationalism or in Islamist notions of right and justice) continue to hold up an "essence" of what it means to be human over and above actually existing human beings. The death and suffering of actual human beings seems not to matter if they occur in the defense of certain ideals--secular or religious. That's pathological rationalism. (And, I think Tarrou and Camus, himself, think that all rationalism is pathological.)
What about for us in the U.S.? One example: the current debate over health-care reform. People opposed to the single-payer, government controlled option make arguments about the cost of such a system; they defend things like "competition" and "choice;" they argue in favor of a free market system; and so on. But at bottom, I think they are defending a kind of American exceptionalism--an ideal, a rational notion of the essence of what it means to be American. We, they argue, are not like Canada or Spain or the U.K. We, as Americans, don't want government to control health care. We are against socialism.
I think Tarrou's definition of the "plague" fits this perfectly. This argument doesn't care about those who are uninsured or under-insured: actual people who need help and can get it. It holds up rational conceptions of America as "free" over and above the actual needs of human beings.
I think Tarrou's definition of the "plague" fits this perfectly. This argument doesn't care about those who are uninsured or under-insured: actual people who need help and can get it. It holds up rational conceptions of America as "free" over and above the actual needs of human beings.
Pathological rationalism.
