Weekly assignment 21.11 David Clermont

Weekly assignment 21.
11 David Clermont
Draw on two quotations from

Derkatch's text (any of the chapters we looked at) that
addresses her concepts of wellness. Apply at least one of
her concepts to themes discussed in either Musselman, Dees,
or Crockford's essays.
Derkatch introduces us into the topic of wellness with the stressful time of the corona
pandemic, where a crisis led to a higher need of compensation of everyone’s wellbeing.
Therefore she argues that Wellness is omnipresent for everybody. She even shows how the idea
of wellness not only entered the world market, but overshadowed contemporary western life.
Wellness referenced by her, is “the optimization of an individual’s daily life across multiple
domains (physical, psychological, social, and spiritual), emphasizing function over dysfunction,
agency over passivity, and overall well-being over mere bodily health.” (Derkatch, introduction, 3)
She furthermore shows how wellness is used to convey the neoliberal concept of self-
responsibility with the idea of a good health citizen. In the second chapter I chose the following
quotations, where Derkatch shows the process of self-management in wellness with the logic of
restoration and enhancement, and explains how we are influenced to think of our body and
wellbeing.
“Responsibility for health has shifted globally from the state
to individuals as governments” (Derkatch, why wellness sells chapter 2, 49-50)
in this quote Derkatch describes how responsibility for health is shifted from
government to each individual. And by that logic the individual needs wellness and
natural health alternatives even more. The usual idea of a social state is that the
government enhances and supports its residences health. But a rather new neoliberal
idea of self-responsibility and less regulations support the idea that everyone is in
charge of their own health. Therefore one is also responsible for either enhancing or
decreasing each health. For the new need of medical alternatives there is of course a
rise of wellness and alternative medicine market. These bloom with cultural
commodities, false health claims and spiritual energy. With the goal of making it easy for
a broad market of individuals to make easy changes with the most beneficial health and
spiritual outcome.
“resist government and medical paternalism,” (Derkatch, why wellness sells chapter
2, 51-52)
In this part of the chapter Derkatch exemplifies the strong distrust and disconnection
between people and government or orthodox medicine and how it is used strategically
by wellness companies. She shows different examples of people taking part in the
petition against c 51 bill. The goal of this bill in connection to medicine was to regulate
the advertisement and selling of medically unauthorized products. This of course could
have had a great impact on the claims of different alternative medical products and
sparked a huge outrage in advocates of alternative medicine. Although there was no
intention to generally prohibit natural remedies or supplements, the spark of distrust
was already there and was further fuelled by the lobby of alternative medicine.
the marketing of self-responsibility was used to further increase that gap of distrust
between individuals and the government. Because of the narrow gap between
conspiracy and spiritual wellness, certain companies support a worldview of the elitist
harmful and overall bad government that is trying to harm individuals or prohibit them
from experiencing and enhancing their full potential. This exemplifies the logic of
enhancement. Which seeks to elevate human capabilities to extraordinary levels,
pushing the boundaries of what is considered normal or achievable. It is argued that
there is a right to self-care that might be violated by the new restrictions.
the government as a new enemy makes it easier to sell their alternative health and
wellness products, because they claim there only interest is everyone’s spiritual and
physical health. Furthermore, the concept of logic of restauration supports their
worldview of origin in nature. Because the idea of logic of restauration is, that there is a
need to restore an old origin of ourselves and our community. This concept often isn’t in
common with most science based school medicine. It’s based around the narrative of
our past ancestors that survived or even allegedly exceeded our modern live with an
holistic approach using only what nature gave them. In contrast the modern world gets
criticized for the use of unnatural medicine and use of chemicals. In connection to
conspiritualism, Its further argued that the pharma lobby, and therefore the government,
only wants to harm us.
In Crockford text: Live Your Best Life Now-Selling the Sacred, similar strategies can be
identified. This text shows the structure and strategies of Multi-level marketing
companies. Because some MLMS make use of the logic of enhancement and
restoration, some wellness companies even work in this structure. With wellness
companies and MLMS usually being suggested to be anti scientific, Crockford on the
contrary shows how they still make use of scientific authority for marketing. They do this
to not only include the conspiritual advocates, but also a broader market of people who
might be interested in some scientific proof.
These MLMS use “orthodox” research like peer review studies and clinical trials, but
arguing they can only be trusted when it benefits the selling of their products. Although
some companies use clinical trials or peer review studies, Crockford shows that they
are mostly not scientificly significant. These trials often lack scientific methodologies
like double blind testing, so the contestants know what they take and are already in favor
of the tested products. In some cases they even get tricked into giving positive feedback,
because they will get the tested product in the end.
Both Derkatch and Crockford demonstrate how wellness and MLM companies capitalize
on individual desires for autonomy, blending science, spirituality, and scepticism into a
powerful marketing tool. By exploiting gaps in trust between individuals, governments,
and traditional medicine, these companies create a lucrative worldview that thrives on
the promise of self-responsibility and personal optimization.
Questions
*What is one thing that you've liked about the course so
far.
I really enjoyed the practical approach of Wellness in connection to present culture.
I also really liked the meetings with authors.
**What is one thing that you'd like to see in the class, or

perhaps like to see more of? This might include spending
more time on certain topics, different activities, class
engagement, etc.

Weekly assignment 21.11 David Clermont

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Weekly assignment 21.11 David Clermont

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Weekly assignment 21.11 David Clermont

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Weekly assignment 21.

Draw on two quotations from

“Responsibility for health has shifted globally from the state

to individuals as governments” (Derkatch, why wellness sells chapter 2, 49-50)

I really enjoyed the practical approach of Wellness in connection to present culture.

I also really liked the meetings with authors.

**What is one thing that you'd like to see in the class, or

You might also like