批判預防醫學、批判健康飲食、批判正念冥想......芭芭拉艾倫瑞克的書一向如此，她就是個愛開地圖砲的憤青。你說她真的要批判什麼嗎？應該有，但與其說她在批判，或許更應該說，她在刺激我們開始批判。
原文書名Natural Causes，直譯就是「自然死亡」，芭芭拉的重點的確放在怎麼面對死亡這件事，「但今天的討論，我發現我們的重點是在如何好好地『生』。書的最後的確也回到生的討論，但這種在西方具有挑戰性的觀點，我們卻覺得理所當然。我們的社會其實從來想的就是如何好好地生、好好地老去。」
「我想，抱持著如何好好『生』的觀點，再讀一次這本書，或許會有不一樣的感覺。」最後，菁芳替那天的「中槍之夜」，下了這樣的結論。
Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer by Barbara Ehrenreich
From the celebrated author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich explores how we are killing ourselves to live longer, not better.
A razor-sharp polemic which offers an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe, Natural Causes describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. One by one, Ehrenreich topples the shibboleths that guide our attempts to live a long, healthy life -- from the importance of preventive medical screenings to the concepts of wellness and mindfulness, from dietary fads to fitness culture.
But Natural Causes goes deeper -- into the fundamental unreliability of our bodies and even our "mind-bodies," to use the fashionable term. Starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers, Ehrenreich looks into the cellular basis of aging, and shows how little control we actually have over it. We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But the latest science shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own "decisions," and not always in our favor.
We may buy expensive anti-aging products or cosmetic surgery, get preventive screenings and eat more kale, or throw ourselves into meditation and spirituality. But all these things offer only the illusion of control. How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality -- that is the vitally important philosophical challenge of this book.
Drawing on varied sources, from personal experience and sociological trends to pop culture and current scientific literature, Natural Causes examines the ways in which we obsess over death, our bodies, and our health. Both funny and caustic, Ehrenreich then tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end -- while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
