The Baffler No. 26: Sickness & Pelf

How are you feeling? “Sickness and Pelf” features the perspectives of those stuck in the waiting-forever room of medical culture, dogged by symptoms unassimilable to diagnostic manuals or public policy prescriptions, and baffled by the offerings of both the medical establishment and alt-medicinal quackery.

Follow William Giraldi, an uxorious young father who receives paternity leave, only to turn this gift of time into alcoholism. Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s ethnography of the decision-making cells in the human body. Stumble along with George Scialabba through a lifetime of therapy for chronic depression. Marvel at Jerome K. Jerome, the student who opens a medical encyclopedia and catches hypochondria, or June Thunderstorm’s vanguard of acronym-drunk disability-rights activists who sport the latest stylings in class privilege. Learn all about the stupid tech that Steven Poole knows won’t save our faltering bodies and minds.

The distinctly American disorder of narcissism comes sharply into focus in several pieces here: Suzy Hansen reviews Lunbeck and Lasch, Astra Taylor and Joanne McNeil reveal the mansplainy underbelly of Tech Dads, and Natasha Vargas-Cooper skewers the rich kids of Instagram. Meanwhile, Chris Lehmann trains his microscope on David Brat, and Jacob Silverman considers the Tayloristic tyranny of crowdsourced labor.

As for undigested collective traumas, both those America has inflicted and those it has suffered, we have them covered too. Here’s a field report on occupational health and safety among workers at New York University’s campus in the United Arab Emirates by Andrew Ross, on the profits of American war nostalgia here at home by Andrew J. Bacevich, and a piece by Siddhartha Deb on life in Bhopal, India, after the worst industrial disaster in the history of the world.

Feeling amnesiatic? We can prescribe some archives and excerpts from Lisa Dierbeck and Paul Goodman. We’ve also got on offer some fiction by Mikhail Zoshchenko and Paul Maliszewski and J. Wagner, and poetry by Mario Alejandro Ariza, Debora Kuan, Jill McDonough, and Afaa Michael Weaver. Finally, visual art by Brad Holland, Ralph Steadman, Mark Dancey, Shawn Huckins, and Stephen Kroniger will help cure what ails you—well, for a while at least.

Contents:

Complications

All in Yer Head
John Summers

Star-Spangled Spam
Andrew J. Bacevich

Blips for Brains
Steven Poole

Pills: Your Personal Pamphlet
Lisa Dierbeck

This Brat’s for You
William Giraldi

Possibility of Infection
Jerome K. Jerome


Sickness and Pelf

America’s Long Holiday: When narcissism attacks
Suzy Hansen

The Endlessly Examined Life: A most chronic depression
George Scialabba

Terror Cells: Ain’t no cure for dystopian biology
Barbara Ehrenreich

Able-Bodied Until It Kills Us
June Thunderstorm

Degrees of Danger: In the United Arab Emirates
Andrew Ross


Soul Searching

The Worst Industrial Disaster in the History of the World
Siddhartha Deb


The Dollar Debauch

The Christ Nexus and Professor David Brat
Chris Lehmann


Stories

Story of an Illness
Mikhail Zoshchenko

For Yama Is the Lord of Death
Paul Maliszewski and J. Wagner


Poems

Instructions in the Art of Filming Atomic Bombs
Mario Alejandro Ariza

American Mammal
Debora Kuan


Do What You Love
Jill McDonough

The Invisible Man’s Electric Bill—after Ralph Ellison
Afaa Michael Weaver


Futuroids

The Crowdsourcing Scam: Why do you deceive yourself?
Jacob Silverman


The Dads of Tech
Astra Taylor and Joanne McNeil

The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self
Natasha Vargas-Cooper


Ancestors

Pull It Like You Mean It: A note on masturbation
Paul Goodman


Exhibitions

Brad Holland
Ralph Steadman
Mark Dancey
Shawn Huckins
Stephen Kroninger