CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 399
Rosenblum, a sociologist and breast cancer patient, notes the excess of
signification in the cancer experience: "When you have cancer, you are
bombardedbysensationsfromwithinthatarenotanchoredinmeaning.
.. Words and their referents are uncoupled, uncongealed, no longer
connected" (Butler and Rosenblum 138). The cultural history of cancer
provides ample evidence of its having too many and and, at the same
time,toofewmeanings.
Inthisdoublysemioticsense,then,cancerhasnotonlyamedicalbut
alsoasocialandculturalhistory,ahistorywhich,intheUnitedStatesat
least, has in most instancesnotevolved in ways parallel to the medical
history of the disease. And this cultural history of cancer(s) is as partial
and skewed as the biomedical one: the ingrained societal and cultural
disposition of viewing cancer as a portentous presence^91 in the lives of
people (healthy or sick) opens the genetic disease to ideological uses.
Speakingofthelatter,proclamationsofa"WaronCancer"(forexample
by President Nixon^92 in 1971, then by Presidents Clinton in 1998 and
Obamain2009,respectively)evoke,foramoment,inmilitarytermsthe
solidarityoftheimaginarycommunityofthenationwiththecommunity
ofsufferers.Asidefromthat,suchappealshavelimitedpracticalvalue^93
andhaveaboveall becomeapolicyroutine.In his"ProgressReportfor
Sceptics," Reynold Spector, an award-winning professor of medicine,
pharmacology, and biochemistry, arrives at rather sobering conclusions
concerningtheoutcomeofthis"war":
(^91) Byusingthatterm,Iseektoevadethe,inmyview,fruitlessdebatewhetheror
not cancer is a metaphor, which evolved in the wake of Susan Sontag's 1978
essay"IllnessasMetaphor"whichwillbediscussedbelow.
(^92) In Susan Sontag's unsympathetic account, all this was just "Nixon's bid to
match Kennedy's promise to put Americans on the moon.. ." and the National
Cancer Act of 1971 was the equivalent of the space program (Illness as
Metaphor68).
(^93) Of course, such moments when attention is paid to the presence of cancer
among "We, the People" are also fundraisers. The initial declaration by
President Nixon channeled 1.5 billion dollars into cancer research during the
next three years and marked the foundation of the American Cancer Society
(Mukherjee180-88).