Reading Foucault’s various archaeology’s of the human sciences in Madness and Civilization and The Birth of the Clinic I have become even more aware of the veneration of doctors in society. Prior to reading these books I have always found it interesting to consider the way that the United States is a classed system, a fact that many would like to believe is not true, but is very much a key operational reality of this country. If we are to consider our country classed then it is hard to argue that at the top of that system would be the occupation of medical doctor. Not only are they paid handsomely which is of the utmost importance to asserting some sort of dominance over others, but their occupation is perceived to be the most important and enlightened work that one can perform.

Foucault makes an important connection in The Birth of the Clinic that doctors bear a striking similarity in their historical context to the clergy. Whereas priests were the protectors and healers of the soul, the body was the dominion of the medical professional. Having this mastery, equally mystical in its practice to the layman and often founded in just as fictional of techniques and cures, doctors were regarded as being on the same revered level of society. As the western world has increasingly leaned towards the valuation of the body over the soul doctors have naturally usurped the religious worker in respect and attention. Just think about all the people you encountered in your schooling up to and through college that claimed they were going to become doctors (but of course are now managing a Toys ‘R Us).

The trust between the doctor and patient, given this history, is also so profound that I would contend doctors are viewed as not only superior in the class system but beyond human. When one enters the medical space, the doctor becomes an oracle of knowledge and such a trusted source that they seem beyond scrutiny or human fallibility. Whatever they say you must do becomes entirely acceptable. This trust extends insofar as they provide what is or is perceived to be healing. I am continually surprised by how, in the presence of a doctor, my self-consciousness erodes when, in all reality, it is absolutely unreasonable to let my guard down. Doctors, even with all their training, are still capable of gazing at my body and thinking the same things any other human being would.

It is this exemption from traditional social norms that interests me. Doctors, through their exalted position as simply knowing more than the rest of us or rather having such highly trained perception that they can read signs of the body that to us are unintelligible, escape what we would consider the boundaries of human fallibility. We trust doctors to do some incredibly bizarre and socially unacceptable things with that singular hope that their knowledge can aid us. We cling to this even in the midst of malpractice, medical hopelessness in the face of new and old diseases that confound them, and privacy paranoia. My point is not that this is foolish, but to illustrate the very real and immensely significant ways in which our class system operates to fashion a persona of the doctor that, within the medical space, is deified.

In conjunction with this view, we also are very quick to dismiss the reality of medical science, and all science for that matter, as socially constructed and thus susceptible to manipulation towards the ends of sexism, racism, or other dangerous agenda. The scientific method, while viewed by many as our most trustworthy paradigm, is still wielded by real people and subject to their biased and politically charged gaze. Throughout history science, particularly medicine, has been under constant revision not only due to a lack of information but due to its continued journeys into a racist or sexist discourse—phrenology anyone?

Manipulating medical science has been an effective way of not only determining what race or sex might be “scientifically” superior but also who or what is not “normal” or sick as well as who is unfit for treatment. But as one of my professors pointed out, we have a tendency to think of our current historical moment as so erudite and our league of doctors as so advanced that such politically obscured gazes and perspectives cannot possibly be at work. Thus, while we as a society do have our share of self-diagnosing fanatics via pharmaceutical commercials, we still interact with doctors and with medical science with far less scrutiny than we should.