NAFTA and the Food and Agricultural Industries
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect on January 1, 1994. Ethical controversies arising fromNAFTA policies, rules, and procedures reflect its character as more than a regional trade agreement designed to lower barriers to trade across US, Canadian, and Mexican borders. It offers far-reaching guarantees to the rights of foreign investors across NAFTA member state borders, including rigorous protection of intellectual property rights – exceedingWorld Trade Organization (WTO) standards. In particular, NAFTA prohibitions and sanctions against a variety of “nontariff barriers” have raised ethical concerns about a threat to national sovereignty and democratic control in promulgating and enforcing domestic health and environmental regulations, including food safety standards. Ethical concerns raised by NAFTA may best be framed as a failure of “moral imagination,” which Patricia Werhane (1999) defines as “the ability to perceive that a web of competing economic relationships is, at the same time a web of moral relationships” (p. 5). From this absence of moral imagination arises the all too common phenomenon of “moral amnesia,” which Werhane defines as “an inability to remember or learn from one’s own and others’ past mistakes and to transfer that knowledge when fresh challenges arise” (p. 7). As a consequence, “mental maps” or “cognitive scripts” that shape business decisions within the narrow confines of economic “rationality” tend to prompt a “setting aside of moral considerations in the pace of business activities” (p. 11).
Digesting the nineteenth century: Nietzsche and the stomach of modernity
This is a variation on a familiar theme of decadence, or decadent self-reflection – too much, but of that too little. Here, a plethora of forms leads to a lack of formation, the prestissimo of modernity paralyzes its subjects, sensory overload produces numbness. There’s too much to act on, and hence no action – the paradoxes of the anti-Hegelian anti-dialectic in which Aufhebung is no longer possible. But why all this under the sign of digestion? The theme pervades Nietzsche’s writing, and like many of Nietzsche’s important terms, it metamorphoses, accrues different implications, and serves various functions. The remainder of the fragment cited above – which recapitulates many themes that occur from Nietzsche’s early writings on – makes it clear that the stomach of modernity is an organ of the long nineteenth century, at least as Nietzsche perceives it: A sort of assimilation to this inundation of impressions occurs: man unlearns to act; he only reacts to external excitements. ... Deep weakening of spontaneity: the historian, the critic, the analyzer, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader – all reactive talents: all science! Artificial arrangement of his nature into a mirror: interested, but quasi only epidermally interested [...] (XII, p. 464)
Cambodian refugee health care beliefs and practices.
Since 1975, when refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia first began coming to the United States, many articles have been written about Southeast Asian or Indochinese refugees and health care. A careful review of the literature shows that most of these articles have one thing in common: they are written primarily about Vietnamese and do not address the unique health care beliefs and practices of Lao or Cambodian refugees.1 Although some beliefs and practices are common to most Southeast Asians, many are not. Understanding at least that differences exist, and hopefully what some specific differences are, will allow nurses and others to give better care to the various people commonly grouped together as Southeast Asians. This article will introduce readers to some Cambodian beliefs and practices related to health care. Of the principle refugee groups admitted to the U.S. since 1975, the Cambodians are presenting the greatest challenges to health care providers. Cambodians are usually poorly understood by Americans, their health status statistics are hidden among the broad category of "Asian-Pacific Islanders" or "Indochinese Refugees," and cultural and institutional barriers combine to make access to care an overwhelming problem. The end results, of course, are more problems and more expense for the Cambodians, increased stress placed on an already terribly overstressed people, and ultimately greater demands and expense placed on the health care system. One of the most common misunderstandings about Cambodians is that they (and Lao) are basically the same as the Vietnamese. "They speak the same dialect don't they?" There are some similarities, but there are also very significant differences.