The New Republic

A powerfully moving piece, Tim.

- Tristan

February 3, 2012 at 12:56pm

I think this is a fine article about the agony of our mortality. My millionaire "Chinese cousin" Joanna, a brilliant and compassionate woman, died of breast cancer, tragically early. A good friend of mine died of breast cancer. My wonderful neighbor is battling breast cancer, with considerable success so far. In terms of the urge to sentimentalize death, I think of Dylan Thomas' great poem,"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" which begins "Do not go gentle into that good night,/Old age should burn and rave at close of day;/Rage, rage against the dying of the light." http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

- skahn

February 3, 2012 at 1:01pm

I am sick of all this pink crap! Thank you, Timothy, and thank you, Barbara Ehrenreich. (And if we can disassociate the color pink from woman, and girls, altogether, I'll be a happy camper.)

- Claris

February 3, 2012 at 1:06pm

Again, Timothy, I offer my condolences on the passing of your talented wife. I can't even imagine how hard that had to have been for you. The "cancer journey" card that Marjorie received was just incredibly thoughtless. I have long leaned against that Nietzsche aphorism. But at the same time, I am a qualified optimist, and I don't think that taking the Ehrenreichian road is often that great, either. I have always tried to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of pessimism and a Candide-like optimism. I have long had a very odd malady which keeps me from traveling. It is even hard for me just to go down the street in front of my house. It has gotten much worse over time and I certainly don't sugercoat it. But my life in many ways is great. I got married to my incredibly wonderful wife, Sheena, almost three years ago; I - we - have everything we need and we have each other, which is the most precious gift ever. So I can't go to Italy, but I get to read all the great stuff in The New Republic, not least the work of one Mr. Timothy Noah, and I get to read so many good and great books, 171 of them last year alone, and I get to watch C-Span with my beloved Sheena. She herself struggles with things; she lost the sight in her right eye when she was eight and the doctors couldn't even figure out why. She also suffers from insomnia and sometimes she gets terrible headaches. But we are together, here, and it sure beats living in fear of the Janjaweed in Darfur. If I were Ehrenreich, I would probably be pissing and moaning about my circumscribed life. Instead, I am incredibly appreciative of what I have and I wish to extend heartfelt greetings to everyone here, to you, Timothy, of course, and to all the commenters, even - or especially - the ones who I cross swords with. May you all prosper.

- liberalref

February 3, 2012 at 1:18pm

skahn, I too thought of Thomas as I was reading this. But I have always understood Thomas' poem to be a plea from a child to parent to not leave - he is angry as much with his father for potentially acquiescing in his own end, as with old age itself. I think the case of cancer victims, at least those not already old and near their last days, is different. I do not think I should regret the inevitable end of a life well-lived, but I do rage against the premature end of a life not yet fully lived. But to the broader point in the article - disease sucks, and while we may find ennobling elements in an individuals response to it, they are nonetheless, I hope, ennoblement of what health remains, and we ought not ennoble disease just because it may reveal these better thoughts. It is foul, and something we ought to strive only to suppress and defeat, never to ennoble.

- IowaBeauty

February 3, 2012 at 1:19pm

Y'all are just seeing the tip of the iceberg of recent Komen problems. As one example, BPA, used in the manufacture of, and released from, many hard and clear type plastic items, has been known to have estrogenic activity for decades. [It was, in fact developed as a synthetic substiture for 17-beta-estradiol, one of the mammalian female hormones. ] Most Reproductive Biologists view the data are extremely concerning. The American Chemical Council (ACC) and/or its members say "no problema". The ACC and/or various members have recently donated to Komen. Komen now says no problema for babies and pregnant females and concerns are scientific hyping. Correlation is not causation, but.....??? Can anyone say Oil Companies and no climate change effect for carbon dioxide by a rather small set of OC-funded scientists or politicians?? Correlation is not causation, but...??

- drofnats1

February 3, 2012 at 2:14pm

A good post, and right on the money in calling out the way breast-cancer "awareness" can and has been used (like most forms of suffering) to push facile enthusiasm together with vague consumerism. (See also, the ProductRED fad from a few years back). It is a real shame, however, that Nietzsche remains so misunderstood in the public mind that intelligent people can think his ideas of the eternal recurrence and the will to power are in anything close to the same vein as this contemporary type of bland self-affirmation. Nietzsche's perfectionism, like all perfectionism, is vulnerable to co-option by more superficial forms of self-affirmation; but those more facile forms of self-affirmation are one of Nietzsche's most consistent targets for ridicule throughout his writings. He would laugh at the understanding of "what does not kill me makes me stronger" which Hitchens imputes to him. (Hitchens, bless him, did not understand Nietzsche). What Nietzsche had in mind was not some variant on "suffering makes you a spunkier, more evolved sort of person". He meant rather that the experience of life, as such, is so immensely valuable that an honest individual should recognize there is no experience of suffering which could completely destroy the value of being alive. One is free to disagree with this, but it is not at all the same thing as encouraging someone to value their experience of unspeakable suffering because it has "made them a better person".

- NR030059

February 3, 2012 at 2:15pm

Cancer screening (for breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer) is another example of the perverse attitudes people have about cancer: for those diagnosed with these "preventable" cancers, they are faulted for their own failure, failure to get screened. Yet, the likelihood of screening "preventing" a cancer is about the same as the likelihood of winning the lottery; timing, of course, being the deciding factor in the case of screening. I suppose it's American to believe all bad things can be prevented or avoided if one takes the necessary precautions, screeing being one, not eating french fries, smoking, or walking along the freeway being others; and for those who have the misfortune of a bad thing, it's their fault.

- rayward

February 3, 2012 at 2:21pm

One sordid element here is a certain type of foundation which, via a highly-advertised veneer of 'good-doing', exists primarily to serve itself -- converting donor dollars to high-rent fund-raisers, first-class travel and executive compensation. Komen may be in the minority, but a few bad apples can cause real rot. Aggressive cancers are tragedies upon tragedies, affecting loved ones and the stricken. That millions of people waste their money, time and good intentions on "charitable organizations" like Komen only compounds the heartbreak. Excellent cancer research charities exist. Potential donors, choose those with low administrative overhead, so more money goes to science, not executives.

- Wonderland

February 3, 2012 at 2:34pm

rayward, Screening is can not, and is not intended to, prevent cancer. It is used to detect cancer at an early enough stage so that treatment can be provided and worse outcomes avoided. When implemented properly, it is a vital public health tool when used for diseases that are detectable in their early stages and that reasonably effective forms of treatment can be used after detection. The Komen Foundation is often guilty of encouraging earlier and more frequent screening of to the point of diminishing returns, going against the suggestions made through research and averting dollars away from other possibly more effective uses of funding. Though the frequency, timing, and types of cancer screening should be discussed and debated; the merits of proper screening are well established and screening should continue until a true "cure" or "prevention" of cancer is established.

- colinmurf

February 3, 2012 at 2:39pm

I have never ever encountered anyone who has equated Friedrich Nietzsche's will to power with "bland self-affirmation." It is great to stumble upon a hermenutician who "knows" what Nietzsche really meant, though. And yes, there are people who have definitely misunderstood Nietzsche, or perhaps in some cases, they have understood him all too well and they realize that he was a volatile thinker and they have tried to neuter his more incendiary passages somewhat. The late Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote a great essay entitled "The Gentle Nietzscheans," which appeared in The New York Review of Books in the November 5, 1970 issue, about those who have endeavored to sand down the rough edges of Nietzsche. Some of the names who come to mind when I contemplate this phenomenon are the late philosopher, Walter Kaufmann, the late philosopher, Robert Solomon, and his wife, Kathleen Higgins. Also, it is great to see a reality-based post from Mr Dro, who constantly hallucinates about the effectiveness of the Bully Pulpit and who radically mischaracterizes his opponents (he has repeatedly called me a Blue Dog), and who - in general - confuses ideology with reality. As an analogous phenomenon, I am reminded of what the late Martin Gardner said about the reception of his highly popular book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. He had readers write to him that they loved how he trashed fallacy or fad x, but how dare he tread on their sacred cows. Life, as ever, is hilarious.

- liberalref

February 3, 2012 at 2:57pm

Thank you, liberalref, for sticking up for Nietzsche's complexity. The quotation, from Twilight of the Idols, if I remember correctly, is actually slightly longer and more relativized: "From the soldier's school of life: that which does not kill me makes me stronger." There are lots of ways to read that that aren't just macho simplifications - as a critique of militaristic attitudes, for instance. But Nietzsche said a lot of things, and I did find Hitchens's last reflections quite moving. Where Nietzsche is particularly penetrating, I think, is in understanding the not-at-all-attractive psychology that is often at work in charitable organizations. Color-coding our vague collective sympathies - pink, yellow, purple - would probably have struck him as a symptom of nihilism. And pity for the weak is a paradigm of will-to-power. I personally would like a society well enough organized not to need private charity. But until then....

- rmutt

February 3, 2012 at 3:54pm

Thank you for your comment, rmutt. Yours is a nice reflection on Friedrich Nietzsche. I too found Christopher Hitchen's words moving.

- liberalref

February 3, 2012 at 4:17pm

I echo praise of this piece which is good writing with intense emotion.

- Nusholtz

February 3, 2012 at 5:14pm

".....seems to have caught an early dose of syphilis, very probably during his first-ever sexual encounter, which gave him crushing migraine headaches and attacks of blindness and metastasized into dementia and paralysis. This, while it did not kill him right away, certainly contributed to his death and cannot possibly, in the meanwhile, be said to have made him stronger." What right (or left)thinking human being with an ounce of sense ever took these words literally?

- arnon

February 3, 2012 at 6:06pm

Wow, not many people can get Barbara Ehrenreich & Christopher Hitchens linked together in the same story. Probably two of the bithciest iconclastic writers that had little in common.

- CRS9TNR

February 3, 2012 at 7:25pm

Beautiful writing, great reporting too - thank you.

- WandreyCer

February 4, 2012 at 8:35am

It's worth remembering that Nietzsche's "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" (Twilight of the Idols, 8) occurs in the context of a military maxim. In that context, it make sense -- if the enemy fights you an fails to win decisively, the other side often sees gains in experience, morale, and tactical iknowledge. Cf Borodino, Bunker Hill, and any number of other examples. And the German is perhaps closer to "destroy" than "kill."

- JohnEMack

February 4, 2012 at 10:08am

@liberalref: "I have never ever encountered anyone who has equated Friedrich Nietzsche's will to power with "bland self-affirmation." It is great to stumble upon a hermenutician who "knows" what Nietzsche really meant, though." You will note that the phrase "I know X about Nietzsche" does not appear anywhere in my comment. I did not feel the need to preface my interpretation with "this might be wrong; please don't take it too seriously!"; but obviously I am not claiming that mine is the only viable interpretation. Perhaps you have your own that you would like to explain? Or perhaps you'd like to address my interpretation of Nietzsche instead of just implying that offering one at all is an act of arrogance? You might also note that the referent of my phrase "bland self-affirmation" was clearly meant to be the type of all-suffering-is-self-affirming attitude that Noah is criticizing. If it helps here, I can point out further that "bland" was meant to be *my* characterization of this attitude as it stands in contrast with Nietzsche's own perfectionism (bland because boring in comparison). I was not claiming that the people marketing breast cancer as a rite of passage are themselves marketing its transformative power as stemming from a "bland self-affirmation". Regardless of the adjective, however, this contemporary view of suffering as vaguely life-affirming is (I'm claiming!) a fairly serious corruption of Nietzsche's "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger", and Hitchens is in the quoted passage undeniably perpetuating the idea that it was what Nietzsche actually meant. This is my point. Thus, we've furthered both your problems -- you've now met someone who claims that Nietzsche promoted what I referred to as "bland self-affirmation" -- Hitchens -- and we've stumbled upon another hermenutician who claims to "know" what Nietzsche meant -- Hitchens. But it's great to stumble upon a hermenutician who is incapable of reading another's writing sympathetically.

- NR030059

February 4, 2012 at 11:04am

Uh oh, lib. What now? Bravo, NR030059.

- roidubouloi

February 4, 2012 at 12:09pm

very sad and moving post Tim.

- blackton

February 4, 2012 at 1:27pm

JohnMack - I agree with your interpretation. I've always wondered how influenced Nietzche was by Machiavelli's phrase "when you strike at a King, you must kill him," which is surely true in any context, but especially in war.

- WandreyCer

February 5, 2012 at 9:48am

Mr. Noah, this is the kind of honest, gritty writing that TNR needs more of. The pink-ribbon campaign is an offshoot of the I'm-Okay-You're-Okay school of thought. I'm a positive person myself, but positive thinking should be confined to individuals, not broadened into a movement. If it does expand into the social network arena, it tends to, as you note, dismiss the suffering that the sick endure as something almost irrelevant. Of course, this ties into the inordinate fear of death that we Americans have. By denying suffering, we also deny death. Nietzsche, too, tried to deny death. Not long before his illness rendered him incapable of writing, he was telling us how to philosophize with a hammer. The pink-ribbon people are like that in one respect--they hammer their message of positivity into our culture. My favorite messengers are NFL players during certain days of the football season. They hammer each other on the gridiron--while wearing pink.

- magboy47.

February 5, 2012 at 2:46pm

Mr. Noah's essay hits the nail on the head. I'd like to add the thought that much of the "pink ribbon" enthusiasm is simply a way for people who are not facing the disease to imagine that they are actually "doing" something for those who suffer, even if it's the very thin gruel of consuming specially identified goods or going for a run/walk. My girlfriend, a two-time cancer survivor (one time was breast cancer), and I were discussing the latest Komen fiasco and her comment was "It's too bad, I'm not a big fan of Komen, but my family just really enjoys the Race for the Cure because they think it's helping me." The truth, of course, is that the only way you are truly helping a loved one is by supporting her or him when the chips are down and allowing yourself to accept some of her/his pain through the basic human emotion of empathy (and certainly not through anything smacking of pity). The Komen brand of "support" is essentially pain-free and thus evades the difficult truth of cancer, that it is about all of our's fundamental fragility and that it is always a form of loss, even when one survives. My girlfriend's family was there to support her when it counted (it was before we met), and her mother and two of her sisters were especially supportive, but they too would rather think in terms of pink ribbons, with all those positive emotions, than remember what they felt as they held her hand during chemo and thought they might lose her, although that counted for far more than any number of pink ribbons. Mr. Noah is brave enough to remember his own time with his wife for that lesson, and it's his appreciation of what is not added, but taken from us, that makes his voice so valuable here.

- dlevin23

February 5, 2012 at 6:22pm

Thank you for this wonderful essay. My father died 30+ years ago of a cancer that was, in his doctors' belief, attributable to his exposure to radiation and heavy chemicals over the course of his worklife. (He died just short of his 65th birthday, after, in a time when much less sophisticated and effective treatments were available, 10 years of fighting the disease. His four siblings, who did not have such exposure, have, so far, all lived healthy lives well into their 90s.) People who think cancer patients have "invited" their cancer are VERY quick to change the subject when this kind of "invitation" is the issue. As someone who has been successfully treated for breast cancer (I refuse to call myself a "breast cancer survivor" because I refuse to embrace a past incidence of disease as part of my identity for the rest of my life) I found little in the Komen approach to "support" that was helpful -- during treatment or after. The fact is that illness, and the harsh treatments often required to treat cancer, have consequences. For someone struggling with the real after-effects of treatment, the often used, and mostly deceptive, image of beaming patients running 10ks is dishonest and irksome. Recovering from the damage inflicted by chemotherapy, radiation and surgery does not happen quickly, in fact can take years. And, for many, these treatments will hand out losses to their health and well-being that are permanent.

- esmense

February 6, 2012 at 12:26pm

Thank you Mr. Noah. I am so sorry about your wife. Thank you for the article. My mom died young too, possibly from chemical exposure due to her work. Nobody knows for sure; one thing is a fact, she didn't "deserve it." Nor does my friend who is dying of the same disease. There is nothing pretty about it. And yes both women were/are tremendously courageous - but, they didn't choose nor did they deserve this battle. They wanted to live. I agree with comments above; what we can and should do is be there, hold the hand, share the journey as far as we can even if it is terrifying. And we should grieve. There is nothing good about it, about a life cut short. People dying at 90, that's one thing. In childhood, youth, middle age - no, nobody invited the duck hunters. And it isn't a test, it wasn't sent to test your ability to overcome, period. People are scared, anybody who's got two brain cells is afraid of the process of dying, of losing our grip on this world, and of losing our loved ones. So we invent ways to deal; prettifying it, pink ribbons, making it a "journey," dreaming of heaven too; it's all another way of trying to cope. But, the really important point should be to drum up money to help people pay for treatment and its aftermath and even better, to try and find cures. I read that Komen defunded stem cell research; is this true? If so that is another politically motivated assault on the living in supposed defense of religion and/or zygotes. Also, pink gun or no pink gun (I apologize for having cited it in another post on the birth control/Komen thread, having believed the assertion to be true) it's clear this has become a corporate/political conglomerate, it makes one nervous particularly when the religious elements are considered, and the fact that environmental poisons may be increasing cancer rates. Plus, one wonders at how much money is going for "overhead," ie big salaries, so forth, and how much is going to actually help victims and their families. I have also read that Komen has sued OTHER CHARITIES for used of certain phrases, such as "for the cure," and also the color pink? This is particularly maddening when one considers various political, industrial and religious positions that refuse to acknowledge the harm being done to the environment and its effect on real living beings including people. These are often the same groups attacking Planned Parenthood and now, the use of contraceptives, the funding of which through insurance is being called Obama's War On Religion. No amount of pretty pink bows can hide this sludge forever.

- Sophia

February 6, 2012 at 1:42pm

Your comment is very eloquent, es.

- liberalref

February 6, 2012 at 2:09pm

Let' see: " Since its inception in 1982, Komen has invested nearly $2 billion[2] for breast cancer research, education, advocacy, health services and social support programs in the U.S.,[3] and through partnerships in more than 50 countries.[4][5] Today, Komen has more than 100,000 volunteers[6] working in a network of 124 affiliates worldwide. Komen mission doesn't include funding abortions. And its funding of Planned Parenthood is minuscule Just because someone doesn't like killing babies doesn't mean they are bad. No doubt if Komen had doubled their funding of abortions liberals would have been cheering. do liberals have souls?

- mr_rationale

February 6, 2012 at 2:24pm

Does the Heritage staffer have a brain? For many years I have marveled at the truculent anti-abortion sentiment on the right. Don't these people realize that they probably wouldn't have seen a Republican presidential victory in the last twenty years if all those black and brown babies had been born? And further in the brain department, Komen is very unimpressive concerning the percentage of what they take in that they actually ladle out to fight breast cancer. Is there affirmative action for fatuousness at Heritage? It wouldn't at all surprise me.

- liberalref

February 6, 2012 at 4:51pm

mr_rationale - Planned Parenthood applied to Komen for funding for breast cancer screening, a service which is part of Komen's stated, well-advertised mission. Planned Parenthood provides these services to many, many poor women for whom such services would not otherwise be available and has done so and will continue to do so with or without Komen's very minor contribution to their effort. If Komen's mission now is abortion prevention, rather than women's health and serving the needs of women around the issue of breast cancer, they should say so. If they aren't interested in funding efforts to serve poor women for whom resources for screenings and mammogram referrals are limited, that's their choice. But calling people who think that serving poor women in this way is important, and who appreciate and support Planned Parenthood's efforts to do so, "souless" is uncalled for. The issue isn't abortion. The issue is supporting an important resource for women who otherwise might not have access to potentially life saving screenings.

- esmense

February 6, 2012 at 6:38pm

Maybe it's the purer north of the 48th latitude air up here in Canada but I don't think I've ever experienced anyone who held that that disease is ennobling. I without question believe Noah when he says that someone sent his wife the card he describes "congratulating" her, heaven help us, on her journey. I'm scratching my head to remember but I don't think I've ever met someone that fucking dumb or insensitive and I've known more dufusses than you could shake a stick at. I've always had an unreflective sense of the benignity of the pinking of Breast Cancer as a harmless and effective way of harnessing energy and attention and donations to the cause of counter acting and dealing with the disease, which has struck people I'm related to and know. So given an organization which is devoted to the counter acting of breast cancer, like Komen, is its pink trope altogether such a bad thing? So I guess I'm wondering how serious and pervasive is this notion of cancer as ennobling and perhaps a virtue by testing one and making one better by dint of enduring and prevailing? And so are we being too tough on this organization whose apparent good works seems so laudable, its brushes with PP notwithstanding, on the ground of such an absurd idea as disease as ennobling? As to the what makes me stronger thing, I found the posts of NR030059 impressively trenchant. Who are you Sir or Madam, if you don't mind sacrificing your anonymity?

- basman

February 6, 2012 at 8:08pm

Well the pink thing had appeared to be benign, and good in that people recognized and became more aware of the toll and suffering caused by breast cancer. Heck even NFL players wore pink shoes, gloves, etc, early in the season. However, it has become political now and cannot be seen again in the same light. Romney has entered the fray declaring Komen correct to defund Planned Parenthood. Rolls eyes. What on earth has this got to do with women's health or with helping cancer victims or with screening for early detection? NOTHING is what. Plus, talk about another case of tone-deafness on Romney's part. OMG.

- Sophia

February 7, 2012 at 12:39pm

Way to bring it home, Sophia!

- GSpinks

February 10, 2012 at 11:43am