Top down or bottom up
This morning, January 12, 2016, I was listening to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Ted talk entitled “Soon we cure disease with a cell, not a pill.”
First, a confession. It was not only the subject which interests me, but it was the name Siddhartha which is the name of the kind and talented son of a friend of mine, Sandhya Mheshwari-Gregor. Thinking of this lovely family made me smile and, I must admit, probably helped to set up positive expectations. Of course those who read this blog regularly know that I get excited about most Ted Talks.
At any rate I was not surprised by Dr. Mukherjee’s positing the theory that it is time that we consider “reframing our thinking about medicine.” He is suggesting that although we need to continue to be grateful for and make use of such discoveries as penicillin and other pills which allow us to often cure pneumonia and other illness, it is time that we quit thinking that a similar approach has to work for all diseases. He and others have been very active in exploring a paradigm shift such as going back to the bottom so to speak and exploring changing “the metaphor to growing something.”
Thus it is that he and a number of others are excited by such new approaches as stem cell research. I do not, of course want to herein repeat what the reader can read in more depth for himself or herself about this exciting field. I am more interested in the fact of Dr. Mukherjee’s statement:
“And perhaps more interesting, and more importantly, the question is, can you apply this model more globally outside medicine? What's at stake, as I said before, is not killing something, but growing something.”
It seems as if we humans think in terms of killing in approaching many situations or problems. We are daily confronted with the many ways we humans have of using violence as a response to violence. We use guns and other physically violent weapons. We use emotional and psychological violence in our prison system. Too often even in marriage and other family relationships we use control as a means of dealing with our fears. All of these methods work short term. None work long term if the goal is creating more loving, safe and just relationships and healthy individuals.
Dr. Mukherjee is clear than no matter what we do, we humans have a time limited life span – that the ability of the body to heal will, of course, diminish with age. At some point we will also die. We might be one of those rare individuals who lives to be mentally and fairly physically abled until we are 112, but as many of us are realizing, it does not take long to reach that point in age no matter how far away it seems when we are very young. Thus, our approach to growing rather than killing as an approach to illness needs to be tempered with the knowledge that there are limits even to this approach. Dr. Mukherjee reminds us that talk therapy, perhaps in combination with the use of pills, is a very effective approach to such illnesses as depression This is because depression affects the thinking process which affects what messages are sent to rest of the body’s operating system. It is postulated that placebos work because when the brain thinks it is getting something healing it will start sending healing messages to the rest of the body and the body will physically heal.
If we apply this growing paradigm to issues of crime, terrorism, and other societal ills, we will create new ways of thinking. New ways of thinking lead to new ways of behaving This seems so simple that we may be prone to suggest that it is overly simplistic Yes, as I recall, when someone offered a course in philosophy to a group of homeless individuals, they began to change their lives. Philosophy explores our basic dance of life – how we approach life. Those who were inviting others to take this course were inviting them to think differently about their basic life dance. To be homeless one has to think that:
One does not have options or one does not have acceptable options.
It is better to live free than to be controlled by rules which someone imposes.
It is not safe to trust others.
I cannot live without alcohol.
My mentally ill way of thinking is the right/accurate way of thinking.
I am sure that I could list many other “truths” of those who are homeless just as I could list many other truths of the terrorists, right wing thinkers, or those who see stealing or other hurtful ways of behavior as the only possible way of thinking and behaving.
Let us, for a moment, consider someone who lives as a criminal. He or she may be thinking:
My rights are the only ones which are important.
No one is capable of being trusted. Every person is just out for themselves no matter how much they pretend otherwise.
I have the right to take from those who have more than there share of the wealth.
The lives of others do not affect me. I does not matter if I kill others.
I need to show the world who is boss.
No one really cares.
Is our current judicial system designed to change or reinforce these thoughts or does our current system say to the “criminal”:
You are a piece of crap/garbage.
Your rights are not important.
I do not trust you and, thus, it is fair to lie to you. You are a low life criminal.
My life and the life of those I am sworn to protect are important. Your life is not important.
I have a right to take from you. You deserve only what I allot you.
What happens to you does not affect me. The world would be better off without you.
I need to show you who is boss.
I don’t care about you.
How is the basic thinking different? The system is not designed to change the thinking of the so-called criminal. Punishing is intended to be the pill which is to cure the thinking. The “pill” is the same as the “illness.”
If we want to have less crime, fewer terrorists, and a more just and loving world perhaps we need a paradigm shift. Perhaps we need to focus on growing and not proscribing a pill of punishment.
I am not suggesting that we have the answers any more than we have all the answers for dealing with the various types of cancer. I am suggesting that we begin by entertaining the possibility that the pill of punishment which is “designed” to kill the person literally or figuratively is not always or even usually an long term cure.
The goal of the cancer is to kill. The goal of the treatment is to kill. Perhaps the treatment needs to be to focus on a more positive approach.
Certainly penicillin and other drugs have been a miracle but that approach is very limited and, as we can see, the body builds new defenses. There comes a time when antibiotics quit working.
We need to be constantly exploring new paradigms – new approaches – rather than using new variations of the same approach. It is easy for we humans to think that we can always kill off the problem.
Written January 12, 2016
This morning, January 12, 2016, I was listening to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Ted talk entitled “Soon we cure disease with a cell, not a pill.”
First, a confession. It was not only the subject which interests me, but it was the name Siddhartha which is the name of the kind and talented son of a friend of mine, Sandhya Mheshwari-Gregor. Thinking of this lovely family made me smile and, I must admit, probably helped to set up positive expectations. Of course those who read this blog regularly know that I get excited about most Ted Talks.
At any rate I was not surprised by Dr. Mukherjee’s positing the theory that it is time that we consider “reframing our thinking about medicine.” He is suggesting that although we need to continue to be grateful for and make use of such discoveries as penicillin and other pills which allow us to often cure pneumonia and other illness, it is time that we quit thinking that a similar approach has to work for all diseases. He and others have been very active in exploring a paradigm shift such as going back to the bottom so to speak and exploring changing “the metaphor to growing something.”
Thus it is that he and a number of others are excited by such new approaches as stem cell research. I do not, of course want to herein repeat what the reader can read in more depth for himself or herself about this exciting field. I am more interested in the fact of Dr. Mukherjee’s statement:
“And perhaps more interesting, and more importantly, the question is, can you apply this model more globally outside medicine? What's at stake, as I said before, is not killing something, but growing something.”
It seems as if we humans think in terms of killing in approaching many situations or problems. We are daily confronted with the many ways we humans have of using violence as a response to violence. We use guns and other physically violent weapons. We use emotional and psychological violence in our prison system. Too often even in marriage and other family relationships we use control as a means of dealing with our fears. All of these methods work short term. None work long term if the goal is creating more loving, safe and just relationships and healthy individuals.
Dr. Mukherjee is clear than no matter what we do, we humans have a time limited life span – that the ability of the body to heal will, of course, diminish with age. At some point we will also die. We might be one of those rare individuals who lives to be mentally and fairly physically abled until we are 112, but as many of us are realizing, it does not take long to reach that point in age no matter how far away it seems when we are very young. Thus, our approach to growing rather than killing as an approach to illness needs to be tempered with the knowledge that there are limits even to this approach. Dr. Mukherjee reminds us that talk therapy, perhaps in combination with the use of pills, is a very effective approach to such illnesses as depression This is because depression affects the thinking process which affects what messages are sent to rest of the body’s operating system. It is postulated that placebos work because when the brain thinks it is getting something healing it will start sending healing messages to the rest of the body and the body will physically heal.
If we apply this growing paradigm to issues of crime, terrorism, and other societal ills, we will create new ways of thinking. New ways of thinking lead to new ways of behaving This seems so simple that we may be prone to suggest that it is overly simplistic Yes, as I recall, when someone offered a course in philosophy to a group of homeless individuals, they began to change their lives. Philosophy explores our basic dance of life – how we approach life. Those who were inviting others to take this course were inviting them to think differently about their basic life dance. To be homeless one has to think that:
One does not have options or one does not have acceptable options.
It is better to live free than to be controlled by rules which someone imposes.
It is not safe to trust others.
I cannot live without alcohol.
My mentally ill way of thinking is the right/accurate way of thinking.
I am sure that I could list many other “truths” of those who are homeless just as I could list many other truths of the terrorists, right wing thinkers, or those who see stealing or other hurtful ways of behavior as the only possible way of thinking and behaving.
Let us, for a moment, consider someone who lives as a criminal. He or she may be thinking:
My rights are the only ones which are important.
No one is capable of being trusted. Every person is just out for themselves no matter how much they pretend otherwise.
I have the right to take from those who have more than there share of the wealth.
The lives of others do not affect me. I does not matter if I kill others.
I need to show the world who is boss.
No one really cares.
Is our current judicial system designed to change or reinforce these thoughts or does our current system say to the “criminal”:
You are a piece of crap/garbage.
Your rights are not important.
I do not trust you and, thus, it is fair to lie to you. You are a low life criminal.
My life and the life of those I am sworn to protect are important. Your life is not important.
I have a right to take from you. You deserve only what I allot you.
What happens to you does not affect me. The world would be better off without you.
I need to show you who is boss.
I don’t care about you.
How is the basic thinking different? The system is not designed to change the thinking of the so-called criminal. Punishing is intended to be the pill which is to cure the thinking. The “pill” is the same as the “illness.”
If we want to have less crime, fewer terrorists, and a more just and loving world perhaps we need a paradigm shift. Perhaps we need to focus on growing and not proscribing a pill of punishment.
I am not suggesting that we have the answers any more than we have all the answers for dealing with the various types of cancer. I am suggesting that we begin by entertaining the possibility that the pill of punishment which is “designed” to kill the person literally or figuratively is not always or even usually an long term cure.
The goal of the cancer is to kill. The goal of the treatment is to kill. Perhaps the treatment needs to be to focus on a more positive approach.
Certainly penicillin and other drugs have been a miracle but that approach is very limited and, as we can see, the body builds new defenses. There comes a time when antibiotics quit working.
We need to be constantly exploring new paradigms – new approaches – rather than using new variations of the same approach. It is easy for we humans to think that we can always kill off the problem.
Written January 12, 2016
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