AIDS IN CULTURAL CONTEXT
We asserted at the outset that the way in which a person, a family, or
a community responds to AIDS may reveal a great deal about core
cultural values. Robert's story underlines our reliance on technolog
ical answers to moral and medical questions. "Americans love
machines more than life itself," asserts author Philip Slater in a
compelling analysis of middle-class North American culture. "Any
challenge to the technological-over-social priority threatens to expose
the fact that Americans have lost their manhood and their capacity to
control their environment."6 One of the less noticed but perhaps one
of the farthest-reaching consequences of the AIDS epidemic has been
the weakening of North America's traditional confidence in the
ability of its experts to solve every kind of problem. In the words of
one person with the disorder, "The terror of AIDS lies in the collapse
of our faith in technology."7