Bruce Dickson – July 2023
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Can we in 2023 voice a more workable whole truth of germs, infection and contagion? Yes, I think we can. — Will it be 100% aligned with medical schools or any book I know? No. I wish it were more common. If this is useful pioneering, feel free to use it. If someone else saying this, please share with me.
Here’s what I believe is a more whole way to conceive of human physical health and wellness; and, how to explain it to clients, including children over the age of seven. The story of our evolving healthcare paradigm starts back in the 1850s. Pasteur and the Big Pharma of his day promoted and popularized a child’s myth, based on the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood: “Humans, good, Germs, bad,” a fairy tale of good and evil. ALL disease came from germs,Germs as Big Bad Wolf.
WWI recruitment posters tell us the exact same simplistic fairy tale demonizing was used to demonize the Germans in WWI.
Even in Germany the same good vs. evil, us vs them, children’s myth was used to demonize communism (bolshevism).
By the end of WWI this myth put on a nice, clean, white lab coat and evolved into, “We can now make a drug to suppress every bug, every disease, every pathology.” The one-sided 100% againstness towards the possibility of microbes having any place in Nature was denied. As of 2023, in conventional, drug-surgery hospital medicine, things haven’t changed much. A simplistic version of germs, immunity, infection and contagion still dominates.
The GAPS book (2004)
In mainstream medicine drug-surgery-hospital medicine’s war against all microbes didn’t begin to change until our microbiome began to be valued. This began when the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) book was first published in 2004. By 2014, a good number of webinars, attended by hundreds of researchers, promoting the benefits of human-friendly bacteria, mostly lacto-bacillus, made the benefits of healthy microbiome a mainstream topic. For serious study, the updated, expanded second edition of GAPS text is now preferred.
For Western culture going forward, can we now voice and promote a more true representationof health and disease? I believe we can. What’s more true is dynamic tension exists betweensets of factors. TWO pie chart graphs represent these these two sets of factors. These two charts apply equally to both individuals and to humans as a whole.
Pie chart graph C: causative disease factors
SLIDE 12 pie chart C
Causes listed are in no particular order:
– Fear and all other unresolved mental-emotional disturbances
– Environmental toxins, glyphosate, et al,
– Parasites
– Heavy metals
– Opportunistic germs, fungus
For self-healing and for clients, each of these will need a scale. Each person will have their own somewhat unique measure (number) for each factor. These numbers can be added up for an aggregate score. Contact me if you wish discussion of scales and measures.
An alternative list of causes of illness. Notice these are mostly microbes and toxins. Chart C uses more comprehensive categories.
Pie chart graph I: immune health factors
SLIDE 14 pie chart I
Resiliency factors listed are in no particular order:
– Consistent clean and nourishing diet
– Clean microbiome in rear part of small intestine (GAPS book)
– Consistent effort to get physical movement-exercise
– Consistent drinking of adequate water as determine day urine color (RBTI)
– Consistent effort to keep lymph pH within pH range of 6.4 to 6.8 (rest of Reams’ 6 numbers also relevant; yet, slightly less so than lymph pH)
– Balance of sterols and essential fatty acids (EFAs) (Dr. Emanuel Revici)
– Balance of copper, iron and magnesium-from-plants (Morley Robbins)
– At least some conscious effort to get energy from oils not carbs (ketogenic diet)
– Deep sleep
For self-healing and for clients, each of these will need a scale. Each person will have their own somewhat unique measure (number) for each factor. These numbers can be added up for an aggregate score. Contact me if you wish discussion of scales and measures.
Our physical health balances between these TWO charts in the same way yin~YANG is a dynamic balance of opposing factors. The stronger our resistance-resilience factors are, the less influential illness factors will be.
This brings us to the topic of “terrain.”
The terrain discussion
On his deathbed Pasteur said, “It’s not the germs; it’s the terrain.”
How does this apply to our two pie charts? It means our second pie chart graph takes the measure of the health of our internal, physical-material terrain. WE could call this one chart, the Terrain Health Chart. If its numbers are high, very few pathogenic microbes will bother you. If your Terrain Health Chart numbers are low, multiple pathogenic microbes can and will bother you—no matter how good your diet is.
This is the clarity I do not see other functional medicine terrain discussions coming to. If I am re-inventing the wheel, please inform me is saying something similar.
Terrain health as creative tension
With two charts it’s more clear how our physical health is a creative tension, a tug-of-war, between two opposed sets of factors. Notice this differs significantly from human immune wellness as peace, rest-relaxation; and, stress-reduction. Better I believe, is to educate people to the inherent tension between health and illness. Each of us is responsible, on a daily basis, for making choices to main and increase this healthy tension.
Q: Why is this a better concept?
A: The old germ myth simply encourages victimhood and dependency on doctors in white lab coats. The new concept empowers clients to be active Choosers of healthy choices, day by day.
Q: Are no drugs or surgery ever useful?
A: Drugs will remains useful in all emergency medical and trauma-accident medicine. I don’t expect this to change much for another 50 years. A big issue with drugs is they are non-nutritive. They are not food. They are generally designed to repress physical symptoms, not to replenish what the body is deficient in and needing.
This brings us to another relevant topic, the most famous paradox in germ pathology.
The most famous paradox of germ pathology
Everyone has a few cancer cells in their body; and yet, not everyone comes down with cancer. Same with TB. Why? Back to SLIDE OF BOTH CHARTS Does this make sense now why I say, for any individual, it is the dynamic tension between these two charts which deserves attention?
Q: Why can’t we focus only on the one chart, the chart of health, forget the chart of illness factors?
A: It’s a good question. Unfortunately this is thinking back in antiquated Pasteur terms of “kill all germs.”
Q: Why was Pasteur’s initial famous conclusion immature thinking?
A: It was immature because it was arrogant. It assumed microbes have no place in nature. It assumed no intelligence exists in what we call disease factors. It assumes intelligence exists only in the human realm of medical technology and research. Prior to WWII; or, to 1975, this is how many men preferred to think. Men assumed Nature has no native intelligence; Nature does not know what She is doing when she send her Demolition crew to sub-par cells, tissues and organs—especially when they are my cells, tissues and organs.
Q: What is the intelligence within Nature’s Demolition Crew?
A: The old question goes like this. Why are not today up to our eyeballs in dinosaur toenails? The answer is Nature has a Demolition Crew of bacteria, virus and parasites who break down any organic substance into its component parts. To what end? So something new can be born which will at least start off with excellence in Nature’s eyes.
Creative tension East and West
This brings us to the differences between Chinese view of yin~YANG and Western view of yin~YANG. The two views of yin~YANG are NOT identical. The West’s view of yin~YANG is highly colored by the Western value of “creative tension.”
Western view of creative tension
“Creative tension Definition & Meaning” Dictionary.com: noun. a situation where disagreement or discord ultimately gives rise to better ideas or outcomes (2018).
Starting with Greek theatre, creative tension served the goal of the narrative impact of revelation (the “reveal”). A problematic situation is set in motion by an initial misunderstanding or poor choice. As characters are drawn deeper and deeper into the consequences of the initial misstep, tension builds, sustaining audience attention, keeping them following the story. . . .
For Aristotle, the best plot-structure is the one in which the initial mistake sets in motion events which continue to spiral out of the characters’ control. Narrative tension building inexorably until the moment of release, the pivot-point in the action, when a sudden reversal (peripeteia) — generally meaning somebody’s fortune rises, somebody’s falls — makes clear the significance of the fateful first misstep. Following swiftly for audiences, a moment of illumination, of recognition (anagnorisis), of understanding comes. – “Narrative insights: notes from Aristotle on storytelling” (2016) by Odile Sullivan-Tarazi –https://medium.com/@odile_sullivan/narrative-insights-what-aristotle-can-teach-us-about-storytelling-239d1b878e74
Starting in the 1990s, creative tension was folded into business consulting wisdom. Peter Senge coined the term “creative tension” in his 1990 book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (2019). In it he describes the gap between where a group is and where it wants to go — between vision and reality or desired results – “Five Team Attributes That Are Killing Your Creative Tension” Forbes – https://www.forbes.com
In the West, Creative tension is significant at the individual level. “When you clearly articulate your vision; and, your current reality, Creative tension is produced in the gap between your vision and current reality. This gap creates an emotional and archetypal tension which seeks to be resolved” – “A User’s Guide To Creative Tension” (2010) by Productive Flourishing.
Let’s pause and recollect how creative tension is generally lacking everywhere in Chinese culture and philosophy. They are taught Confucianism; their focus is, behaving as if the collective social good is everyone’s highest concern. In great contrast, in the West, we glorify and lift up the individual’s unique perspective as valuable.
In traditional Chinese medicine, disease is diagnosed and treated based on the balance of yin and yang in the body. In Chinese philosophy, if a balance of yin and yang energy is not achieved, then we have disharmony. This can lead to anxiety, lack of focus, worries about the future, depression, stress, and over or underweight, etc. Stress and illness are nature’s way of telling you that you’re out of balance – Wikipedia. In Chinese healthcare and philosophy, yin and yang are opposite forces, which complement each other, forming a greater whole. Everything contains both yin and yang in an always-changing balance. For example: hot and cold, day and night, and health and disease. In this way TCM view of yin~YANG is wedded to dualism–and only dualism. While in the West, yin~YANG connotes BOTH dualism AND creative tension.
The Appendix of this paper has two examples from Chinese social philosophy, where wisdom of the tension between the individual and collective society (family, neighborhood, town, nation) is discussed.
Western view of “creative tension” is a new, uncommon idea in Chinese culture
Evidence for this can be found online. In 2023 Mr. Google has 300,000 pages for the phrase “creative tension”. When I go to the main Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, all search results for “creative tension” are either Western pages; or, Chinese pages trying to incorporate the Western idea of “creative tension” into the Chinese Confucian framework.
Creative tension and leaky gut syndrome
If there is no tension between these two forces, then, black can trickle into white and white can trickle into black. What malady is this a picture of in the West? Leaky gut syndrome.
dg-boundary intrusions in volcanoes
This picture of lava intruding into multiple layers is the best image I could find to represent the lack of healthy internal boundaries. For optimal terrain health, clear boundaries, consistently nourished and refreshed.
Creative tension and children’s health
Where is the illness factor of germs and cleanliness greatest? With young children who have yet to learn habits of bodily cleanliness. Once past puberty or age 15 or 18, adult’s physical health and vitality is about what we are doing—and not doing—to keep our measures of immune wellness consistently high.
Creative tension in the generation gap 1960s-1970s
What I believe is true here, online search says is not possible to prove. My personal recall is in the 1970s-1980s, Macrobiotics on the East Coast of the US, exposed a large fraction of Cultural Creatives—including myself—to yin~YANG. Raised as we were in Western thought and culture, it was natural for us to perceive yin~YANG thru the Western lens of “creative tension.” To be clear, Western Boomer youth perceived yin~YANG having natural “creative tension” where Chinese and Japanese TCM teachers did not.
This was not just a philosophic disagreement. For Boomer youth in the 1960s-1970s, this was daily, lived experience. The tension between “people under 30 years old” and “don’t trust anyone over age 30” was constant, ever-present and widely discussed. To Cultural Creatives of this era, turning destructive tension into creative, productive tension was an obsession. A great deal of pop culture, created by Cultural Creatives in the 1970s-1980s flowed from trying to create a more workable Nature-friendly, eco-culture to bridge the best of over-30 culture with the visionary healthy ideals and values of the “under 30” crowd. This kind of generational divide never occurred in China.
Your comments invited. Bruce Dickson ~ HealingToolbox@gmail.com
APPENDIX
History is a big part of Confucian beliefs. For Confucius, the key to an ideal society was in the past. Confucius (551-479 BCE) was an educated man born to a wealthy family. But he was very troubled by the political turmoil he observed. Confucius lived during the Eastern Zhou dynasty when different states were fighting to gain more power. It was an unstable time with frequent wars. Motivated to ease these problems, he developed a sophisticated moral framework. His teachings would make a huge impact on Chinese culture and government . . . . how do you practice virtues, and how do you enforce them in others? That’s where rituals and rules come in. It’s one thing to you say you’re virtuous, but when the whole community adopts rules and practices rituals meant to encourage specific virtues, people are more able to adjust to this ethical life. . . . . n order to attain this moral refinement, according to Confucius, people had to constantly reflect upon their behavior. In The Analects, this is described as follows: “Master Zeng said: Each day I examine myself upon three points. In planning for others, have I been loyal? In company with friends, have I been trustworthy? And have I practiced what has been passed on to me?”
Confucian ideas appealed mostly to everyday folks. But over time, his philosophy gained popularity in the political sphere and became the official belief system of the Chinese state. Confucianism also became a big part of the educational system. So much so that officials had to master Confucian principles in order to pass the civil service exams for government employment. Because of this, Confucian ideas influenced Chinese government for centuries. . . .
Guide them with virtue and align them with li [traditions and virtues of the Zhou] and the people will have a sense of shame and fulfill their roles…” As this passage suggests, Confucianism called for a kind of moral training which strengthened the correct social order. It was less about punishing wrongdoers and more about making people want to be good [to avoid feeling shame. Note this differs greatly with the West’s emphasis on maturing-up mere thinking-feeling into “independent critical thinking”]. . . . .
squaredThe Confucian social order was centered on relationships, and in particular “five key relationships”. Importantly, these relationships were generally unequal but complementary, which means that they worked in harmony2 . Fathers were above sons, husbands above wives, older siblings above younger ones, and rulers above their subjects. (One relationship—friend to friend—was not unequal). . . .
Confucian family structures were also very hierarchical when it came to gender. Though filial piety called for respecting all elders, men came first. Women’s roles were primarily to care for the family and manage the household. They typically did not have formal roles outside of the home. This was truer for women of the upper classes than it was for lower class women, who sometimes had to work outside of the home to support their families. In the cosmic balance between yin and yang, women were seen as passive, soft, and inferior. . . . .
Confucianism was therefore a belief system that was distinctly political, focused on maintaining order in relationships at many levels. But it was less concerned with the divine and the mystical. Confucius is said to have claimed that because humans have yet to understand this life, they can’t really know anything what’s beyond it. Little thought was given to concepts like heaven, hell, and reincarnation. Instead, Confucius and his followers focused on practical, worldly affairs, like maintaining harmony in family, government, and the community.
As close as Chinese philosophy comes to “creative tension”
From an online paper. A wise metaphysician is advising a Chinese duke who advises the Chinese king: The wise philosophy Yan Ying continues, and compares his conception of harmony to the duke’s mistaken assumptions:
When your majesty says “yes,” Ju also says “yes.” This I like mixing water with water to make a tasty soup. No one wants such a soup? In music, this would be like an orchestra where each player plays the same instrument; and, al tuned in the same way. Who can enjoy such monotonous music? This is why it is not all right to be [too harmonious]. (Zuo Commentary: Zhaogong 20)
In the duke’s view, he and his minister were in harmony because the minister always obeyed his wishes and agreed with him on all matters. There were never any different views orjudgments; there was no tension at all. Yan Ying stresses maintaining this kind of sameness is like trying to make a tasty soup by adding water to water, a pointless exercise since nothing fruitful is produced. Indeed, such an exercise can be harmful. In such a relationship, the duke is right by definition, and he alone determines the standard for correctness. The minister is given no chance to provide his own views and perspectives. Sameness is achieved and maintained through social conformity. Yan Ying’s contrasting view emphasizes, such a social dynamic is at best stagnant and even possibly harmful. Why? It excludes difference and diversity. [Too much sameness] is thereby potentially oppressive.
More workable than rigorous social conformity is conscious effort to preserve difference and to put it to good use. . . . . Harmony can be re-defined as making differences productive forcreating a new and more balanced whole picture. This kind of [harmony thru creative conflict] stands opposed to conformity. Conformity only depends on the absence (or even suppression) of difference and diversity. Throughout the history of Chinese philosophy, the contest of harmony with conformity persists.
[Reference ~ pg. 9 in “Introduction to Harmony in Chinese Thought” in Harmony in Chinese Thought A Philosophical Introduction (2020) (pp.5-19) Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield. Authors: Chenyang Li, Nanyang Technological University; Sai Hang Kwok, University of Macau; Dascha Düring – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341786766_Introduction_to_Harmony_in_Chinese_Thought
[Routledge handbook of Chinese Medicine (2022) bd: By the absence of any mention of “creative tension” in TCM, this text confirms while “creative tension”is inherent and implicit in yin~Yang, “creative tension” in yin~Yang is only made explicit in Western culture.
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