The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

From a medical perspective Joel Bakan’s comment about the pathology metastasizing could not be more apt. If in the body a cell begins to multiply at the expense of the entire organism, destroying tissues nearby and spreading to other organs, robbing the host of energy, disabling its defenses, and eventually threatening its very life, we call that unchecked growth a cancer. Such abnormal and malignant transformation is now besetting our world, run by a system that seems rigged against life. The abnormal has become the norm; the unnatural has become the inescapable. In the logic of profit, greed is creed, and health nothing but collateral damage. “It’s not that they want you to die,” the endocrinologist Rob Lustig told me in a tone of mock reassurance. “They only want your money. They just don’t care if it kills you.”