I'm watching my favorite morning show right now, CBS Morning News. As usual, when the Medical stories are featured I am arguing with the flat piece of plastic and light on my wall in exasperation. What inspired me to sit down this morning was this quote from a 60 minute preview. "We've assumed all along that men and women are the same... that assumption was fundamentally wrong".
Come on, I'm losing it over here!!!
Yin and Yang theory in Chinese medicine, the medicine I get up and think about everyday, the one that pays my bills, knows this. This theory is a method and a school of thought that pulls the lens of life way back and provides insight into our bodies, the universe, and everything in between. This insight is totally absent in western medical thinking, and it is a terrible shame and a waste.
Western medicine zooms in close up and very often misses the big picture. The other problem with western so called 'scientific' thinking is that it makes many such assumptions based in cultural, gender, and economic bias to name a few. For decades, women were not used in medical studies or considered in any way as relevant or necessary. Yet when it comes time to sell the products of those studies, women are very necessary to buy them.
Nearly all drugs, surgeries, medical guidelines and risk factors are crafted while thinking only of men and while this flaw is being recognized here and there, the problem is still rampant and the solution, still elusive.
So called 'scientific' thinking has no big picture lens or filter, so biases are often missed and become assumed by the researchers, practitioners, and consumers. This isn't an ideologue dead end argument or point, this is actually a problem that is hurting us and making us less healthy and safe in medicine. This is a problem with a solution - if we could just learn to work together. Open up, talk about it, listen, and stop assuming Western 'scientific' thinking is The only way.
Yin and Yang theory, while seemingly very simple, can get quite complicated and difficult as anyone who's studied it can attest. When this theory is applied to modern questions about drugs, health, and studies it can shed quick light on potential problems, and open up complex discussions for deeper review and consideration. Fundamentally men and women and all the shades in between, (yes, there are shades between everything, including sex and gender), are very different.
Yin is substance Yang is movement. Yin and Yang engender each other and they are interdependent, from Yin comes Yang and from Yang comes Yin. One cannot exist without the other. Without night, we would not know what day is, without women, we would not know what men are.
Microscopic science and thinking is important and has great usefulness but so is big picture thinking, one is not more important than the other, both are equally important, helpful, and necessary.
Gayle King asked this morning, "why don't we know these things?" when speaking about men and women. Guess what Gayle? 'We' DO know but mainstream American news and discussion never considers or reports on Chinese Medicine, a medicine which by conservative estimates is 2,000 years old. How can 'We' so casually overlook this, especially when uncovering and asking such important questions, exposing such deep and troubling flaws.
Let's start opening our minds and getting smart America (and CBS news)! Let's start accepting or at least investigating the wisdom of the amazing thinkers who came before us and outside of our not even 300 year old nation. I can't take another morning of this lopsided and short-sided western thinking.
Pick someone relatable and well spoken to speak on your show who can represent another way of viewing health and the body, we will all learn something and be better for it. This isn't exactly untested stuff. 2,000 years and counting does count as research, even if our medical system stubbornly disagrees. After all, until today, they thought men and women were the same, outside of a uterus.
My yang is rising over here, its not a healthy condition for my natural balance.
