Perhaps you have not liked some of what you have read in these essays. Well, good! That’s the whole idea. If you come to the realization that P-B is broken then you might want to help fix it. You might want to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
The energy and commitment necessary to champion a paradigm shift can come from realizing the hopelessness of partial solutions. We can’t fix an isolated problem that is systemic in origin; we can’t fix the most dysfunctional institutions in America and then move on to the next most dysfunctional problem on a prioritized list. We can’t blame education or government, for example, and begin to fix our human community by changing how those institutions operate with any long-term success no more than we can amputate a leg on our body hoping to cure our pneumonia.
We are learning, we suspect with some occasional resistance, that the problems of the global village cannot be addressed piecemeal either. P-B is a shattered paradigm and we must restore it to wholeness before we can see or experience Simple Reality. Problem solving must be done within the gestalt of P-A. A gestalt is a pattern so unified as a whole that its properties including its problems cannot be derived or solved from its separate parts.
As we are coming to realize all of our institutions in America are failing. Our military is terrorizing and slaughtering people in foreign lands. The CIA conspires to overthrow leaders of other nations chosen by their people thereby violating that nation’s sovereignty or supports autocracies inimical to the best interests of the people of that nation and then dumps them (Mubarak in Egypt in 2011) when the jig is up.
Our economic system creates and supports an increasing disparity between the rich and poor. Our government allies itself with the banks, insurance companies and mutual fund managers to rob us of our money and our children of their future.
And then we have the stunning irony—our hospitals are murdering people!!! Our doctors are engaging in homicide. (About 98,000 people die every year from medical errors.) Given that the “persons of interest” are unconscious and do not intend to kill innocent people we can say that all of these homicides were negligent homicides. We should be concerned about the connection between doctors and “Big Pharma.” Incestuous relationships are common among P-B institutions and it is easy for doctors to “push pills” because that is what patients want—a quick fix—to help them avoid looking at the truth surrounding their suffering.
As detectives we must approach our “case” in a professional manner or as Jack Webb would say, “Just the facts ma’am, just the facts.”
The victim: Libby Zion, age 18.
Symptoms: Uncontrollable jerking, fever of 103 when brought to the hospital. Seven hours after she was admitted she went into cardiac arrest and died.
Suspects and murder weapons months prior to her hospitalization:
| Doctor # 1 | phenelzine for depression |
| Dentist | narcotics after a tooth extraction |
| Doctor # 2 | antibiotics and antihistamine for ear infection |
| two more antibiotics | |
| valium | |
| sleeping pills | |
| an antidepressant |
Upon entering the hospital other suspects are thought to have used other murder weapons:
| Resident # 1 | tylenol |
| Resident # 2 and intern # 1 | Demerol |
| Intern # 2 | injection of sedative Haldol |
Motive: To save the life of the patient.
Modus operandi: No communication among health professionals as to what drugs were prescribed over time and or whether any of these drugs in combination might prove fatal. The various “properties” of the gestalt did not operate as a whole ignoring the principles of Simple Reality which alone will guarantee survival.
Verdict: All involved are guilty of ignorance, denial, and lack of compassion; unconsciously aiding and abetting the perpetuation of a shattered and ineffective health care system.
Case closed.
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References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.
