[MD] The machine that goes bing

[Ian Glendinning]

Nice one John,

You conclued "Nowhere does SOM wield a more wicked scalpel than in the
scientific mindset of doctors and administrators of medicine.  The
ills thereof are too countless to imagine."

Ironic that the US debate on healthcare has cropped-up here. I majored
on health-care for quite a while a few years ago, (Ref Dr James
Willis) in debating the ills of SOMism - it was the first subject I
came across outside my day-job business experience - where the
consequences had been recognized as even scarier.

Regards
Ian

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 11:34 PM, John Carl<ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a lesson dear to my soul, in the greatest philosophical movie of
> all time, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.  Early on in this exploration
> of life's meaning, a young pregnant woman is being transported down
> institutional corridors and banging through the swinging doors.  As a
> metaphor for life, it's perfect.  You have the tunnel, the lights and the
> doors representing the stages of existence...
> Only she's not really appreciative of the simile, she's wincing every time
> her gurney bangs into another door.
>
> Bang.
>
> Wince.
>
> Bang.
>
> Wince.
>
> Not the sanest place to introduce a new soul to the world, but a pretty
> accurate depiction of the scientific worldview and it's treatment of birth.
>  I would marvel at the power herr Doktor wields in the hospital - the
> insanity of the place, seeing a list of patients in a row, one after the
> other, bang.  wince.  It goes on and there is no value in the experience.
>
> When the birthtime comes, the girl is surrounded by technicians and experts
> who loom over her and sedate her and do what they want, whisking the child
> away in the most professionally expedient manner and throwing her a lot of
> "happy pills" and jargon and a machine that goes bing.
>
> Now I had mentioned this in a reply to Horse on the subject of health care
> and it seemed to get cut off or accidentaly deleted but I didn't have time
> to check, had to rush out the door, with a quick pit stop on the way, and
> there, in my pit stop area where the magazines are kept where the new issue
> of Wired mag resides, I pull open to a story that feeds right into my
> "machine that goes bing"  which is really sort of a large placebo.
>
> The story in Wired is about a problem the drug companies are having these
> days with an increasing phenomena of the placebo effect.  Even for drugs
> that do really well in tests, they can't do better than the placebos because
> people are growing more and more responsive to placebo.
>
> Bang.  Wince.
>
> Do you wanna know why?  Because that is the effect that a values-free
> metaphysics has upon ordinary people.  Values and Religion and all that
> stuff is all relative and there is no ultimate reason for believing
> anything.  Just do what you like.  What feels good to your subjective self.
>  This is a values vaccum into which people plug authority - big brother, big
> momma, big whoever to take care of my childish needs and reassure me that
> the machine still goes bing and every thing is ok.  The experts.
>
> Having gone through five pregnancy/births at home with a midwife, and being
> as intensely involved in the whole process the whole way through as its
> possible for a guy to be, I know from swollen bellies.  The whole thing
> about the scientific probing of the uterus with ultra sound, it comes across
> as so important, so vital to know.  It really does nothing of use and just
> bugs the kid.  Keep your machine that goes bing.  I don't want it.  And I
> don't want it to spread.  People already trust too much to the men in the
> white coats.  So much so that they'll get well under any attention at all.
>  The chemicals aren't helping.  Looks like we'll have to try metaphysics
> instead.
>
> Bing.
>
>
>
>
>
> Nowhere does SOM wield a more wicked scalpel than in the scientific mindset
> of doctors and administrators of medicine.  The ills thereof are too
> countless to imagine.
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