ABSTRACT

In our technologised society, Comaroff argues, science is ‘depoliticised’: the latent meanings implicit in biomedicine carry the very assertion that it is free from the influence of symbol and value. Western medicine, not surprisingly, is considered a most invasive enterprise; as such values encourage invasive technological solutions to problems. The ideology underpinning the scientific enterprise is an optimism which sees human salvation as being achieved through technology, with particular emphasis on the illusion of medical salvation. Back in 1968, Fuchs coined the term the ‘technological imperative’ to name that process within the medical tradition which gave primacy to interventions based on doing whatever was technically possible. A technological optimism, based on high hopes of achievement, a curative orientation, an underestimation of risks, a suppression of doubts and an assumption of unlimited resources provided the rhetoric and ideology driving this new raison d’etre for medical intervention.