I’d say our culture, I’m in the UK but this applies to all the colonial nations, based upon strict hierarchies, resource hoarding, environmental damage, labour exploitation, have and had a system in place to make sure that people displaced, dispossessed and ruthlessly exploited, don’t complain too loudly and don’t have too much opportunity for forming solidarity.
So going back hundreds of years there has been a system in place to divide and conquer and to silence. It used to be more obviously enforced through direct violence from above.
But there’s a lot of distraction now. The direct violence is only used for people still fighting for their land and lives. For most of the population subdued by centuries, social messaging can keep people in line.
So here in the UK we have an NHS but it’s set up to provide the bare minimum, not even that at this point.
So people have just carried on relying on whatever they can get their hands on to treat themselves or to alleviate the hopelessness of suffering without treatment.
Then if people find their home remedies or mental exercises don’t work for their particular ailments, they might start telling people about this. People being told don’t enjoy hearing about this unpleasant reality, especially knowing this is glimpse of something that could possibly befall them and they’d rather not consider this possibility.
But if a person decides to keep complaining despite social distaste from their peers some pressure from above will need to be applied, to shut them down. To avoid the danger that a person complains and someone else overhears, and expectations grow among the population that meaningful healthcare is something reasonable to expect access to.
People have always had a natural fear of illness. People have always used superstitions and charms and rituals along side chemical and physical remedies in order to heal themselves and their communities. But as people are displaced they lose access to the land that heals and their ancestors knowledge base. They are exposed to new diseases.
So this is a good target a vulnerable point at which to leverage fear for control. To twist this raw material into a desired form.
The ruling class gets to control the narrative on health and healing as they do anything else. This area is key when considering feudalism and capitalism takes land from the people and makes them pay with their health and labour to get back the material means for survival, shelter fuel and food and water.
As long as there are enough healthy or healthy enough to work labourers that’s going as intended. Sometimes there is a branch of the establishment that is more concerned about maintaining the overall health of the population. Or the people gain leverage in one place or another and push back on the exploitation improving public health and healthcare. But access to good and comprehensive healthcare isn’t available to most of humanity.
There are hard limits enforced even for members of societies who’ve plundered the world’s resources and become wealthy nations at everyone else’s expense. A country’s wealth will usually healthcare at population level if there is some kind of universal healthcare system. But there are still limits. You need personal wealth for full access.
One way privatised systems profit is letting people die of preventable illnesses. One way public systems restrict spending is letting people die of preventable illness. Less often than profit driven systems, but still it’s capitalism that drives the limits to spending.
So now there’s an unmet need lots of sick people, social unrest must be avoided. Keep pushing the personal responsibility angle. Keep shovelling on the victim blame. Make being ill angry and non self blaming socially unacceptable. Then the sick person has to decide between giving and appearance of “motivation” and “positivity and “self reliance” and “problem solving ability” (be winner not a whiner!), get at least a little better (by healthied up by your bootstraps or boot licking either will do tbh) don’t make people feel awkward with your sickly self, fake it till you make it, and so we get to “be your own Dr.”
What else do we expect of each other? It isn’t really a free choice to admit failure or pretend success.
I think people accept this framework because it’s too hard not to. I think none of us exposed to it and brought up on it escape victimisation through it and most of us perpetuate it upon others to some extent or other.
Then there is a huge industry built on a very clear understanding of these dynamics and power relationships, ready to exploit our collective and individual predicament and profit handsomely from this one.
