AIDS speaks of the menace and the loss of the times: the incurable infection at a time when other infectious diseases seem to have been conquered; and the moral meaning of shame and humiliation imposed by a culture obsessed with sexuality and drugs. The affliction and death of persons with AIDS create master symbols of suffering; the ethical and emotional responses to AIDS are collective representations of how societies deal with suffering. The concept of autonomous individuals who are solely responsible for their fate, including their illness, is a powerful cultural premise in North American society, supporting concern for individual rights but also justifying the blaming of the victims. In a global context, the meaning of suffering is distinctive not only because of different beliefs about illness and treatment responses but because of the brute reality of poverty, high child and maternal mortality, routinized oppression, and suffering as a central part of existence. 33 notes.