Part one of three series
Have you ever heard of “The Uncanny Valley”? It’s the theory born of the field of 3D robotics stating that near-perfect human replicas, particularly androids, inspire a profound sense of revulsion in humans upon encounter. The Uncanny Valley itself refers to a violent shift in our comfort levels as we interact with certain external objects, including other humans.
Because we have no trouble differentiating our likeness from objects like plants, animals and stones, they engender no revulsion. But because objects like androids, cadavers or zombies resemble an uncanny likeness to healthy human beings, they give us the creeps.
For a while now, I’ve been using the model of The Uncanny Valley to think about how we experience people we perceive as sick — physically or mentally, visibly or invisibly.
What happens in that moment when we mark someone as sick? Are we repulsed? Concerned? Does it depend on the sickness? Do moral implications affect our prior judgment, or present reaction? What do we believe their sickness says about them, or about us?
Then, what factors into our experience of the sick? Culture? Instinct? Exposure? Prejudice? Fear? Charity? Self-sacrifice? Transcendent laws? Self-preservation? Are our emotions on rails, or on a ship set on an endless sea of possibilities?
Finally, how do our societal experiences and treatment of the sick perhaps suppress our curiosity to learn and speak freely about their sicknesses?
All of this and more will be covered and explored in this three-part series, “We See the Sick.”
Being HIV-poz (and the mouthy broad I am), lovers and new acquaintances alike have expressed mild to intense discomfort when I’ve disclosed my status. Plain ignorance or prejudice (which usually go hand-in-hand) were probably the causes of their discomfort, but assuming such pits prejudice against prejudice — accomplishing nothing.
True: the less people know about something, the more they fear it, and the stronger their emotional responses are when encountering it. But fear, like any other emotion, is a living, breathing entity that grows with us. It changes form and expression with time, making it difficult to isolate and describe the part it plays in our greater emotional theater.
As I understand it, humans share two universal fears: fear of heights and sudden loud noises. These fears function as survival mechanisms — to ward us away from dangerous heights and give us rush when hostile creatures or forces (avalanches, earthquakes, lightning, etc.) are nearby.
The same can be said for our reactions to the sick. Humans possess innate aversions to pathogens in our own species: Coughing, sneezing, visible sores, unhealthy gauntness, jerky movements, markedly incoherent responses or violent behavior all compel us to distance ourselves — physically or psychologically — from people exhibiting these pathogens.
These responses are instinctual. We cannot contend with their existence or influence. But we must be careful not to over-esteem instinct, as it is but one of many factors that impacts our reactions to the sick.
Do we not experience an equally powerful compulsion to help the sick as we do instinctually to distance ourselves from them? While we may back away from people coughing, we also desire to alleviate their sickness.
We don’t do this out of mere politeness, or custom; as it seems, we simultaneously endeavor to preserve our own health and to ameliorate the health of others.
In fact, in certain circumstances, we’ll even go as far as to risk our own health to improve or save that of another (e.g. losing sleep to keep watch over the infirmed, taking a bullet or jumping in front of a bus for someone). We might do this for people we don’t even know.
Like instinct, we must be careful not to over-esteem these ostensibly noble acts. Just because people aren’t going around taking bullets or barring buses with their carcasses all the time doesn’t mean they are ignoble; rather, it shows that everyone possesses vastly different forms of internal logic, which, like fear, and love, grow and change over time.
The idea here is to master self-understanding, not to master oneself. There’s a difference.
“Mind over matter” is platitudinous. Selfishness vs. selflessness is pejorative, black and white. We want to understand what affects our interactions with the sick, not cast aspersions: If we denigrate ourselves in the process of learning, then we sabotage our efforts, and reproach others, possibly even the very sick we are trying better to understand.
Next time, we’ll plunge deeper into the psychological and physiological foreplay that occurs when we mark someone as sick. Get ready, ’cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
We’re all in this together, folks. Now get out there and talk about it.
Aaron Stella is former editor-in-chief of Philly Broadcaster. Aaron can be reached at [email protected].