I am sure that if I had three months of free time, plus access to a research library, I could write a short, but detailed, essay on the ways in which my interchange yesterday with a visiting nurse was unnatural and undemocratic. I am sure that it must have been a perverse conversational exchange in at least a dozen ways.
In effect, the authoritarian, hierarchical nature of the workplace was imported into my home. (Essentially, this is my parent's home; but I live here too, and I am their son, so it is my home too.)
The nurse complained at one point that I had "invaded"her personal space because I attempted to speed up a conversation by taking her (work-supplied I assume) cell phone into my hand.
That remark was disturbing because I had no evil intent. My action was mis-represented by her as something it was not.
(And this was much akin to her tendency to complain about me to her Supervisor because I had dared to complain that her visit---and other visits like hers---- was /were interfering with my life. In other words, I was being censored. She was trying to shut me up.)
Visiting Supervisory Nurses Appear to be Machines, Drones, lacking Reason and Emotion
But even as merely a human being (and not a "nurse") she could spare me a few minutes of her time to hear me out. That is all it would have taken. And, indeed, a nurse in the true sense should be capable of such minimal human compassion and sympathy. This point illustrates perfectly how so-called nurses mostly exhibit the qualities of machines, drones, lacking in intelligence and emotion.
I am well aware of the pseudo-objective, pretend-clinical nature of the language she used. However, I would remind the reader that Paul Ekman (in his dialogues with the Dali Lama) once commented that his anger at injustice was often confused with a desire to be violent. They are distinct things. And, so too, in my own case, a desire to speed up the conversation was not an attempt to cause injury.
In alternative language, I am protesting that the Visting Nurse mis-read my face and my body language. There has been in the scholarly literature (above all Ekman and his followers) an excessive tendency to suppose that facial expression are univocal. Corrections to this can be found, e.g., in the work of Aneta Pavlenko, or James Russell.
(Russell makes a point connected to mine above (parallel to Ekman's point) in his "Emotions are not Modules", page 59 where he puts the point pithily by saying one can have "anger without fight".)
https://www2.bc.edu/james-russell/
Entering my home, this woman wanted certain unspoken and unwritten rules to be followed. This became clear as the visit continued. My job was to be passive, to shut up and let her decide how the conversation would proceed. And, of course, the high point of the conversation (or the low point) was when she became bossy, issuing orders, and suggesting how I might engage in minor carpentry to improve my parents' home.......(Clearly, the fact that the "successful" (from the Supervisory Nurses's point of view) conversation led to her dominance was already in the cards from the moment she entered the door. I have seen it before---Every god damn time a so-called Nurse performing supervisory functions enters our home! And yes I am angry because it is insulting.--EVERY TIME!
In colloquial English that presumption is called "fascism". A more elegant or neutral expression might be "top down determination of conversational content".
No deviations from the Medicare-decided questions was allowed. (But where and when am I allowed to complain about the idiocy of those questions? OR: The intrusive manner in which they are introduced at too-frequent intervals into the peace and harmony of my home????)
And I do protest and object to the abandonment of democracy and free speech which occurs every time a visiting nurse pleads: I don't make up the questions. , OR: I am just following orders., OR: it is what the "government" wants.....All said with the resignation one might have previously heard behind the words, "The KING wants it..."
Moral of the story: To accept help from Medicare means becoming a slave to such idiotic and intrusive interrogation at regular intervals. To accept help from Medicare means you become a slave to drudges and invisible bureaucrats who claim to know better than you do what is good for you.
It is insulting and authoritarian----fascist in a colloquial sense.
Oh, how I rue the day that I first met one of these visiting phantoms in human form.....
And by the way, what was at stake in this disruptive visit----apart from its disruptive effects?
Actually, we had plans for my mother to get a new pair of glasses. And her friend who works at the store won't be available tomorrow. So, the cost of the visit is my mother's comfort, as well as my own. You see, the visit was preceded by a phone call thirty minutes in advance.........I might have insisted they postpone the visit, but,in fact, Medicare demands these visits, and they take priority......
How can I explain that six or twelve things need doing in this house every day---things with no predictable order, occurring at no predictable-in-advance time, and when these assertive Nurse-drones insert themselves into that chaos they do not help us one tiny iota?
I am well aware of the pseudo-objective, pretend-clinical nature of the language she used. However, I would remind the reader that Paul Ekman (in his dialogues with the Dali Lama) once commented that his anger at injustice was often confused with a desire to be violent. They are distinct things. And, so too, in my own case, a desire to speed up the conversation was not an attempt to cause injury.
In alternative language, I am protesting that the Visting Nurse mis-read my face and my body language. There has been in the scholarly literature (above all Ekman and his followers) an excessive tendency to suppose that facial expression are univocal. Corrections to this can be found, e.g., in the work of Aneta Pavlenko, or James Russell.
(Russell makes a point connected to mine above (parallel to Ekman's point) in his "Emotions are not Modules", page 59 where he puts the point pithily by saying one can have "anger without fight".)
https://www2.bc.edu/james-russell/
Entering my home, this woman wanted certain unspoken and unwritten rules to be followed. This became clear as the visit continued. My job was to be passive, to shut up and let her decide how the conversation would proceed. And, of course, the high point of the conversation (or the low point) was when she became bossy, issuing orders, and suggesting how I might engage in minor carpentry to improve my parents' home.......(Clearly, the fact that the "successful" (from the Supervisory Nurses's point of view) conversation led to her dominance was already in the cards from the moment she entered the door. I have seen it before---Every god damn time a so-called Nurse performing supervisory functions enters our home! And yes I am angry because it is insulting.--EVERY TIME!
In colloquial English that presumption is called "fascism". A more elegant or neutral expression might be "top down determination of conversational content".
No deviations from the Medicare-decided questions was allowed. (But where and when am I allowed to complain about the idiocy of those questions? OR: The intrusive manner in which they are introduced at too-frequent intervals into the peace and harmony of my home????)
And I do protest and object to the abandonment of democracy and free speech which occurs every time a visiting nurse pleads: I don't make up the questions. , OR: I am just following orders., OR: it is what the "government" wants.....All said with the resignation one might have previously heard behind the words, "The KING wants it..."
Moral of the story: To accept help from Medicare means becoming a slave to such idiotic and intrusive interrogation at regular intervals. To accept help from Medicare means you become a slave to drudges and invisible bureaucrats who claim to know better than you do what is good for you.
It is insulting and authoritarian----fascist in a colloquial sense.
Oh, how I rue the day that I first met one of these visiting phantoms in human form.....
And by the way, what was at stake in this disruptive visit----apart from its disruptive effects?
Actually, we had plans for my mother to get a new pair of glasses. And her friend who works at the store won't be available tomorrow. So, the cost of the visit is my mother's comfort, as well as my own. You see, the visit was preceded by a phone call thirty minutes in advance.........I might have insisted they postpone the visit, but,in fact, Medicare demands these visits, and they take priority......
How can I explain that six or twelve things need doing in this house every day---things with no predictable order, occurring at no predictable-in-advance time, and when these assertive Nurse-drones insert themselves into that chaos they do not help us one tiny iota?
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