My friend JR Atwood posted a great TED talk by Liz Coleman, regarding the nature of education in our day and age.

I’m more concerned with something more foundational – the use of common sense.

My father is in the hospital. He’s been in before – most seriously, when he underwent emergency surgery to replace his aorta with a gortex tube, four years ago.

He’s been having some issues, and went back in recently. The doctors have him on so many medications, it’s hard to tell what’s causing what.

And that’s my problem.

The doctors have no faith in the human body to heal itself.

In days of old, before “internal medicine” (which is anything but “internal” – consisting as it does, mostly of “external” items leveraged against the internal state), the body was regarded as a delicate and powerful system. To attain health, one usually only needed to do things (or do fewer things) to return that system to balance…

Called “homeostasis” – the balance of activity within the body.

What’s Up, Doc?

Where did the faith go?  Where is the faith in the human body to heal itself?  Only in “alternative” medicines?  Even there, many alternative practitioners have taken on the cultural values of US culture, and peddle pills and external “cures.”

Doctoring the Evidence

Another faith disappeared around the same time as the faith in the human body – faith in the healing power of the Earth.  I don’t want to get too crazy with this (you’ll be calling  me a “hippie” in a minute if I’m not careful, boxing me in), but the point is salient.

As the values of “science” (the “expertism” that Liz Coleman mentions in her talk) overtook common sense, it killed any other thought process or options.

When society realized that this expertise-value could be used to sell more products, it took the reins.  As people have become more and more inculcated in the idea of “the expert,” other options disappear.

And so does common sense.

Doctor My Doctor

Now we’ve reached  a point where it has become commonsense to refer to “experts” for our opinions – for our common sense.

My father lies in a hospital bed tonight.  The doctors have not healed him at all.  They can’t figure out what’s wrong.  Because they’re incapable of asking questions.

The foundational of all common sense is found in a single question:

Why?