A nurse must portray a sincere sense of caring, but more than that, a calm, unemotional competence. They want to create the impression that everything is under control, even when death is certain. The job of apalliative care worker is to create the illusion of health for those who are dying, to make the symptoms of death as invisible as possible right to the end. Indeed, palliative comes from the Latin word palliare, meaning “to cloak.” Today, pain management is done with drugs. But drugs do not simply take away pain, they numb the capacity to feel anything. A death where nothing is felt, nothing at all, is considered desirable in our culture.
There are palliative care workers everywhere in our society, ready to create the illusion of health and vibrancy, but they don’t all work in healthcare. Many of them work in the US government and in the media. They know the country’s economy is doomed to permanent degrowth. They know the country’s finances are a ponzi scheme. Like all good bureaucrats, they maintain an unemotional, distanced professionalism. Their drugs of choice include low interest rates, permanent war, media circuses, and gigantic deficits – all to keep the patient calm and sedated for a controlled and managed descent.
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