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1-Page Summary of Pathologies of Power
Overall Summary
Paul Farmer is an anthropologist and physician who studies global health. He has made many observations about the world’s most vulnerable populations, focusing on human rights issues that have yet to be resolved. His work in Russia, Peru, and Haiti has given him a unique perspective on these problems. Based on his experience with those countries’ impoverished people, he believes that the struggles of those groups are humanity’s most pressing issue.
Pathologies of Power is a compilation of essays that cover the global epidemic of human suffering. The topics range from brutal conditions in Russian prisons to remote communities in Haiti and Chiapas that lack access to proper hygiene. Farmer bases his theory on interviews with actual people who suffer as a result of social injustice, economic hardship, and political corruption, among other things. HIV represents a decades-long epidemic that cannot be understood simply as a disease affecting the body; rather it has infected every aspect of society—social, political, and economic—and continues to spread across the globe.
Farmer believes that new technologies will help with global health, but they alone won’t be enough. There are many ways to improve health and reduce violence, but we have to look at the complex history of inequality. Public health is a good way to study these inequalities because it helps us understand why some people live better than others in the world.
Farmer argues that the modern medical industry is driven by profit. He says pharmaceutical companies are not altruistic, and they don’t test all their drugs before selling them. Consumers are complicit in this process because they continue to buy these products even though they may be harmful. A better approach would be to embrace pragmatism and solidarity with those who are suffering and marginalized from society. This view involves paying attention to others, recognizing we’re all part of the same global systems, and holding those systems accountable for serving people rather than profits.
Farmer also investigates the meaning of “structural violence”, a term developed by Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung. It refers to the passive harm inflicted on people through unequal systems, and most often affects poor people. Human rights violations are therefore the effects of oppressive “pathologies of power”. This means that there is hope for these problems since they can be studied empirically and treated with focused treatment.
The author’s book is a description of the violence in the world, and how it can be resolved. The technologies available to us now allow us to solve our problems.
