I am so surprised that he did not express some engagement with Ivan Illich! Ivan Illich was a Catholic priest who identified the religious elements in a variety of institutions, including most famously medicine (Medical Nemesis, Life as Idol...), and education (Deschooling Society). His influence led to other great thinkers continuing these kinds of exploration. For example, John McKnight (Careless Society, the Abundant Community), and Thomas Szaz (The Manufacture of Madness, about psychiatry).
I would encourage anyone interested in the highlighted pattern overlap of religion and medicine (and extension to other institutions) to look into Ivan Illich. His thinking is so nuanced and insightful that it goes far beyond simply drawing up some plain comparisons. His interviews with David Cayley are a great entry to his thinking, and can be found on Cayley's website in audio and transcript, and are also in books. Cayley wrote an incredible intellectual biography of Illich which brings together so much of Illich's thought into a format which is faithful to Illich and yet also offers more context and connections which help to understand Illich's sometimes erudite and subtle thinking.
Wholeheartedly agree. Illich would and did disagree with the sentiment of "Personal responsibility for ones health" His essay on that very subject is difficult but profound
Unbekoming, I invite you hopefully to engage these thinkers, especially Illich and McKnight, if you have not already done so. So many of your topics could gain so much more depth, and benefit from the frameworks of inquiry that they could offer to you, and to readers.
I played around with an argument that any public health policy made without full data transparency in the underlying science violates the idea of separation of church and state in requiring citizens to have blind faith. Maybe I'm getting too cute with it but I do think at the very least one could argue the full data transparency is necessary when it comes to public health policy.
"Medicine, then, has become the new world religion. The specific myths, beliefs, and rites of Christianity have been unconsciously projected into medicine since Pasteur. As I explain in detail in the next chapters, we can establish very close parallels between Christianity and modern medicine."
This was the very concept of renowned pediatrician, Robert Mendelshon, in 1979's 'Confessions of a Medical Heretic'.
What people have done with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the resultant parallels between one manmade construct and another are no accurate reflection of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
They are only a comparison between manmade constructs. No different than comparing one style of architecture with another. Nothing more.
No disrespect but are your illustrations AI produced? I’m an artist and retired graphic designer and I just get annoyed first thing. Sorry. I enjoy your stack although “enjoy” is not the first word I would pick. Highly interesting to alarming may be better. 😏
Agreeing with Mr. Clerc. Interesting his name is one vowel removed from "cleric".
Medicine has become the Catholic Church branch of Scientism. Though I think Scientism is the "new god" that medicine serves, promoting no god at all in the big bang, evolution, etc., as well as the altar of medicine.
It's obvious that if there were no God, why would there be vast resources devoted to replacing Him with science?
I also find interesting the connection to Marshall Rosenberg and NVC. Words DO have meaning. I lived and worked for some years within an educational community which based its practices of communication and conflict resolution on NVC. Over time I have developed a fundamental question as to the possible displaced meaning-making effected by translating ourselves through the NVC medium. Notable is the use of "needs" as a foundational, ritual, and formative concept. The word "Need" carries within it, for example, the precept of a lack, incompleteness. It is within the meaning of the word and is used as such: "when you X, I feel Y. I *need* Z."
A good discussion of the societal creation, usage, and effects of "needs" can be found in John McKnight's book "The Careless Society," though he makes no over application to the realm of NVC. I have yet to encounter someone exploring this issue in application to NVC, and I would very much like to see this exploration with the help of many inquisitive minds.
John McKnight is also from the intellectual lineage of community of Ivan Illich, and is well worthwhile. He is a beautiful writer and expresses his ideas quite compellingly, and so would be a pleasure for anyone to look into. He also has interviews accessible through David Cayley's website from his CBC Ideas series.
Yes, Rosenberg bore his choice of the word “need” as a bit of a burden in the later years, as it correlates so easily to “needy” - not an expansive or inspiring angle on ourselves and one another. I have come to use “longing”, “valuing”, “aspiration”, hoping to relate more closely to, say, a need arising from the soul as opposed to from the wounded ego. The actual words of the needs themselves are much more elevating than the word “need”. My experience of nearly 20 years as a certified trainer has afforded me a deepest conviction of the power of shifting our focus to this dynamic layer of one’s experience and how much it can foster agency, creativity and togetherness. Thanks for the link to McKnight’s book, I was not aware of it.
Thank-you both. This coincidentally came to my attention today "the AMA moved to monopolize the medical industry by doing things such as establishing a general medical education council (which essentially said their method of practicing medicine was the only credible way to practice medicine) which allowed them to then become the national accrediting body for medical schools. This in turn allowed them to end the teaching of many of the competing models of medicine such as homeopathy, chiropractic, naturopathy [etc.]" from https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/dermatologys-disastrous-war-against
This energy that has polluted our minds and caused humans to do the most heinous things to their bodies and to others and our environment, uses the same tactics they've always used. This article is very insightful, the parallels are quite convincing. But we mustn't think that ANY religion is worth our time, that is the ultimate disease that separates us from reality which is sovereignty, not supremacy/inferiority. We need to get out of this mindset because that is what is killing us. And when we do this insidious energy will no longer have roots.
I am so surprised that he did not express some engagement with Ivan Illich! Ivan Illich was a Catholic priest who identified the religious elements in a variety of institutions, including most famously medicine (Medical Nemesis, Life as Idol...), and education (Deschooling Society). His influence led to other great thinkers continuing these kinds of exploration. For example, John McKnight (Careless Society, the Abundant Community), and Thomas Szaz (The Manufacture of Madness, about psychiatry).
I would encourage anyone interested in the highlighted pattern overlap of religion and medicine (and extension to other institutions) to look into Ivan Illich. His thinking is so nuanced and insightful that it goes far beyond simply drawing up some plain comparisons. His interviews with David Cayley are a great entry to his thinking, and can be found on Cayley's website in audio and transcript, and are also in books. Cayley wrote an incredible intellectual biography of Illich which brings together so much of Illich's thought into a format which is faithful to Illich and yet also offers more context and connections which help to understand Illich's sometimes erudite and subtle thinking.
Good stuff, thank you. I'll definitely pay some attention to them.
Wholeheartedly agree. Illich would and did disagree with the sentiment of "Personal responsibility for ones health" His essay on that very subject is difficult but profound
Unbekoming, I invite you hopefully to engage these thinkers, especially Illich and McKnight, if you have not already done so. So many of your topics could gain so much more depth, and benefit from the frameworks of inquiry that they could offer to you, and to readers.
I played around with an argument that any public health policy made without full data transparency in the underlying science violates the idea of separation of church and state in requiring citizens to have blind faith. Maybe I'm getting too cute with it but I do think at the very least one could argue the full data transparency is necessary when it comes to public health policy.
"Medicine, then, has become the new world religion. The specific myths, beliefs, and rites of Christianity have been unconsciously projected into medicine since Pasteur. As I explain in detail in the next chapters, we can establish very close parallels between Christianity and modern medicine."
This was the very concept of renowned pediatrician, Robert Mendelshon, in 1979's 'Confessions of a Medical Heretic'.
What people have done with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the resultant parallels between one manmade construct and another are no accurate reflection of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
They are only a comparison between manmade constructs. No different than comparing one style of architecture with another. Nothing more.
Iván Illich published Medical Nemesis in 1975. I cannot help but imagine a contemporary influence.
No disrespect but are your illustrations AI produced? I’m an artist and retired graphic designer and I just get annoyed first thing. Sorry. I enjoy your stack although “enjoy” is not the first word I would pick. Highly interesting to alarming may be better. 😏
Indeed they are Janet.
yep. spot on.
Agreeing with Mr. Clerc. Interesting his name is one vowel removed from "cleric".
Medicine has become the Catholic Church branch of Scientism. Though I think Scientism is the "new god" that medicine serves, promoting no god at all in the big bang, evolution, etc., as well as the altar of medicine.
It's obvious that if there were no God, why would there be vast resources devoted to replacing Him with science?
I’m honored to have played a small role in this. Clerc’s book has been a catalyst to a lot of the way I think about the new world religion we face.
I also find interesting the connection to Marshall Rosenberg and NVC. Words DO have meaning. I lived and worked for some years within an educational community which based its practices of communication and conflict resolution on NVC. Over time I have developed a fundamental question as to the possible displaced meaning-making effected by translating ourselves through the NVC medium. Notable is the use of "needs" as a foundational, ritual, and formative concept. The word "Need" carries within it, for example, the precept of a lack, incompleteness. It is within the meaning of the word and is used as such: "when you X, I feel Y. I *need* Z."
A good discussion of the societal creation, usage, and effects of "needs" can be found in John McKnight's book "The Careless Society," though he makes no over application to the realm of NVC. I have yet to encounter someone exploring this issue in application to NVC, and I would very much like to see this exploration with the help of many inquisitive minds.
John McKnight is also from the intellectual lineage of community of Ivan Illich, and is well worthwhile. He is a beautiful writer and expresses his ideas quite compellingly, and so would be a pleasure for anyone to look into. He also has interviews accessible through David Cayley's website from his CBC Ideas series.
Yes, Rosenberg bore his choice of the word “need” as a bit of a burden in the later years, as it correlates so easily to “needy” - not an expansive or inspiring angle on ourselves and one another. I have come to use “longing”, “valuing”, “aspiration”, hoping to relate more closely to, say, a need arising from the soul as opposed to from the wounded ego. The actual words of the needs themselves are much more elevating than the word “need”. My experience of nearly 20 years as a certified trainer has afforded me a deepest conviction of the power of shifting our focus to this dynamic layer of one’s experience and how much it can foster agency, creativity and togetherness. Thanks for the link to McKnight’s book, I was not aware of it.
Thank-you both. This coincidentally came to my attention today "the AMA moved to monopolize the medical industry by doing things such as establishing a general medical education council (which essentially said their method of practicing medicine was the only credible way to practice medicine) which allowed them to then become the national accrediting body for medical schools. This in turn allowed them to end the teaching of many of the competing models of medicine such as homeopathy, chiropractic, naturopathy [etc.]" from https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/dermatologys-disastrous-war-against
https://alignact.com/go/fcc-wireless-exposure-guidelines
That's because EVERYTHING in the world of man, is owned and run by the forces that prevail when good men do nothing.
This energy that has polluted our minds and caused humans to do the most heinous things to their bodies and to others and our environment, uses the same tactics they've always used. This article is very insightful, the parallels are quite convincing. But we mustn't think that ANY religion is worth our time, that is the ultimate disease that separates us from reality which is sovereignty, not supremacy/inferiority. We need to get out of this mindset because that is what is killing us. And when we do this insidious energy will no longer have roots.