As I've written before, acupuncture is useful to those who believe in
it and so long as it's applied to cases where it doesn't harm -- or
delay the use of more appropriate methods. Dogmatic acupuncturists
who deny other treatment can be as dangerous to themselves and their
children as Christian Scientists and Jehovah's Witnesses have been in the past.
But why, if what you've written below is true, do the Chinese, except
for the old, hardly use acupuncture at all? Young Chinese friends of
mine in the choral world make fun of it when I ask them about
acupuncture. To them it's as quaint as the 19th century practice of
blood-letting is to us nowadays.
Keith
At 08:14 10/02/2012, D wrote:
It was a statement based upon the history of religious oppression
and educational indoctrination of a western system that appears to
glorify the separation of body and energy (if you prefer) and thus
treat the effect rather than the cause of illness.
Whereas the drugless approach of re-aligning the energies to allow
the body to heal itself and, if needed, the use of correct foods or
medicinal herbs to rid the body of parasites (here I include
bacteria and viruses) and we have, aside from the Ayurvedic, one of
the oldest forms of medicine in the world today. Just because
western medicine appeared to give quick results in some measure does
not necessarily place it at the top of the ladder. Considering all
the ways western civilization is making not just mankind less
healthy but the total environment less healthy, I can only see the
blindness of arrogance of a western 'civilized' education in
throwing away something that has lasted for thousands of years to
accept as gospel something that is, by comparison, an infant. Let us
hope the infant has enough of a sponge-brain left to absorb
something new that is old. For humanity to be here, now, our
forebears had to be intelligent - for the most part.
I'm unsure why you took it personally.
D.
On 09/02/2012 10:59 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Darryl,
There's no need for gratuitous insults. Having been put by you into
the category of those of "limited spiritual intelligence" by you, I
guess I'm in the good company of the majority of Futurework listers
who may have visited conventional doctors many times but never once
to an acupuncturist.
Lawry's comment to my original posting of a year ago was fair
comment. Your last sentence wasn't and should have been scrubbed.
Keith
At 04:37 10/02/2012, you wrote:
Yes, Lawry,
I have read that acupuncture is over 5,000 years old as a medical
treatment. And at an early time in China's history laws were
passed wherein if a 'doctor' lost a patient to death and did not
hang a red lantern outside his door and a surviving relative noted
same to the local authority, said doctor was publicly beheaded.
However, that medical practice has had a hard sell in Britain.
Perhaps because it treats that which cannot be understood by most
'western' thought processes. The treatment of energies (vibrations
if you will) appears too difficult a concept for the limited
spiritual intelligence of most of the brainwashed western hemisphere.
D.
On 09/02/2012 5:41 PM, de Bivort Lawrence wrote:
Greetings, everyone,
I have a physician in NYC who I visit occassionally. He is both a
(western) MD and a doctor of Chinese medicine. He views them as
complementary: sometimes he uses the practices of one, and at
other times the practices of the other. This includes
acupuncture, acupressure. His wife is an herbal/Chinese doctor,
and sometimes some of that is used, as well.
Cheers,
Lawry
On Jan 9, 2011, at 10:56 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
You're not seriously proposing acupuncture are you? Even the
Chinese scarcely use it as a practical system!
Acupuncture was a great discovery in that it indicated that
there are neuronal "gates" in our bodies which, if
over-stimulated, can block pain. (Scratching ourselves when we
feel an itch is an instinctive -- and effective -- use of this
phenomenon.) It can work, too, for some quite awe inspiring
surgical operations in the case of patients who believe deeply
in it very deeply -- virtual hypnosis. But if it's the
"arrogance of our [the West's] scientific society and the need
for the present medical/pharmaceutical businesses to maintain
their grip on the lucrative resource at hand" why didn't the
Chinese use acupuncture more widely long ago?
They didn't because acupuncture has only very limited uses.
Instead, the Chinese long ago used various natural products to
bring about anaesthesia for serious operations, just as monastic
hospitals did in Medieval Europe.
Keith
At 11:27 09/01/2011 -0800, Darryl wrote:
Add to the list below the study of the energy flows of the body
and acupuncture to treat dis-eases of the body (over 3500
years of use). This style of medical intervention is still
little understood by the western world partly due to the
arrogance of our scientific society and the need for the
present medical/pharmaceutical businesses to maintain their
grip on the lucrative resource at hand. Let's mention as well
the vast knowledge of the ancient Chinese of the medicinals of
the natural world and the Chinese achievements in astronomy.
The struggle to 'achieve' in anything (sports, technocracy,
business/economics, government, etc.) can lead to a blind
arrogance toward other aspects within a field or society or
toward other cultures. It is this unacceptance of 'differing
ways and values' that can lead to misunderstandings, conflict
and disaster in the long run.
Darryl
On 1/8/2011 11:50 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Ed,
Yes . . . well I mentioned this in my piece. Over the
centuries the Chinese amassed a large number of inventions
here and there in a vast country which then drifted into
Europe in the Middle Ages. The real problem for China began at
the time of the Ming dynasty (early 1400s) when multi-masted
ships (that is, international trade) was outlawed. From then
onwards they were no longer receptive to catalytic ideas from
the outside world. It's economy was large enough (and its
internal freight routes were adequate enough -- principally
its grand canal linking the 'export markets' of the north and
south) for it to remain viable, but it never made any great
strides from then on. Its culture and economy was largely
locked and introverted.
The original problem (that the abstract scientific ideas of
the West from about 1700 onwards couldn't be immediately
written down in ideographic Chinese) doesn't apply any longer.
(Now that they've absorbed the ideas they can be written down
in Chinese -- albeit in railway length words!) The problem
today (which, as I said, the government is seriously worried
about) is that their children and young people are not curious
or creative enough -- and they (not I) put it down to the many
years of intensive rote learning necessary to acquire reading and writing.
Keith
At 12:28 08/01/2011 -0500, you wrote:
Interesting Keith, but despite the problem of their written
language, the Chinese do seem to have been able to come up
with inventions in the past. I recalled reading something
about them having invented gunpowder, so I looked that up on
Wikipedia and to my surprise found that they had not only
invented gunpowder, but a host of other
things:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China>China has been the source
of many significant
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention>inventions, including
the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions_of_ancient_China>Four
Great Inventions of ancient China:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papermaking>papermaking, the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass>compass,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder>gunpowder, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_typography_in_East_Asia>printing
(both
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodblock_printing>woodblock
and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type>movable type).
The list below contains these and other inventions.
The <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_people>Chinese
invented
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China>technologies
involving <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics>mechanics,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulics>hydraulics, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics>mathematics applied
to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horology>horology
,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy>metallurgy,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy>astronomy,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture>agriculture,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering>engineering,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory>music theory,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsmanship>craftsmanship,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_history>nautics, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfare>warfare. By the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_Period>Warring
States Period (403221 BC), they had advanced metallurgic
technology, including the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace>blast furnace and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupola_furnace>cupola furnace,
while the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finery_forge>finery
forge and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddling_%28metallurgy%29>puddli
ng process were known by the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty>Han Dynasty(202 BC
AD 220). A sophisticated economic system in <?xml:namespace
prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/><?xml:namespace prefix = u1 />China gave birth to
inventions such as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote>paper money during the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty>Song Dynasty
(9601279). The invention of gunpowder by the 10th century led
to an array of inventions such as the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_lance>fire lance, land
mine, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_mine>naval mine,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon>hand cannon,
exploding cannonballs, multistage
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket>rocket, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing#Fire_arrows_and_rockets>rocket
bombs with aerodynamic wings and explosive payloads. With the
navigational aid of the 11th-century compass and ability to
steer at high sea with the 1st-century sternpost
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudder>rudder, premodern
Chinese sailors sailed as far as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Africa>East Africa and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt>Egypt
.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-0>[1]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-1>[2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-2>[3]
In water-powered clockworks, the premodern Chinese had used
the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapement>escapement
mechanism since the 8th century and the endless
power-transmitting
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_drive>chain drive in the
11th century. They also made large mechanical puppet theaters
driven by
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterwheel>waterwheels and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke>carriage wheels and
wine-serving<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton>
automatons driven by
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_steamer>paddle wheel
boats. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions)
The quote mentions agriculture, but not the intensive
agriculture of the rice paddie. I recall reading somewhere
that rice paddies were partly a response to the need to feed vast armies.
Despite the problems raised by their written language, the
Chinese must have had some way of encapsulating their
inventions because they were quite widely used. And in the
case of Europe, it wasn't so much language that was essential
to the spread of ideas. Rather it was the invention of the
printing press and the movement away from Latin to the
vernacular that swept ideas across the continent.
If their written language presents a problem currently, there
is good reason to believe that the Chinese will have no
problem in adapting. A few days ago, I saw a TV interveiw
with Justin Yinfu Lin, Chief Economist of the World
Bank. The interview was in English, and Yinfu Lin's
responses were in English, but in an English so thick that I
had a lot of trouble understanding what he was
saying. However, he knew exactly what he was saying.
My point is that if there is a problem, I'm sure that the
Chinese will find a way around it.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK,
INCOME DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 5:44 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Why China won't win in this century
The reason why China will never win hands-down in its
current economic war with America is the same as why Japan
didn't succeed in the 1980s when all were expecting that its
corporations and banks would eat America up (Americans
included). The reason is that both countries are good at
copying ideas and technologies; neither is good at inventing new ones.
It's their written language that's the main part of their
problem. It's non-phonetic. It means that in order to
acquire a basic vocabulary -- of, say, 2,000 or 3,000 words
(the content of their average newspapers) -- children have
to learn uniquely-shaped characters (whole words) which have
no, or very little, relationship with their utterance. A
Chinese or Japanese child can learn to speak his language
quite as readily as children do the world over, but learning
how to read or write each individual word takes many years.
And there's only one way, unfortunately for children, and
that's by rote learning. And thousands of hours of rote
learning over many years under the strict discipline
of slave-masters in the schoolroom doesn't do anything for
the creativity of young minds -- or for older minds for that
matter because the basic mental skills are aptitudes are
thoroughly laid down before puberty.
The Chinese and Japanese governments are well aware of the
damage that rote learning is doing to them -- and say so
quite frequently. Although both countries can churn out ten
of thousands of science and engineering graduates every
year, there's scarcely an independent mind among them.
Independent 'garage inventors', as we have in the West, are
as rare as hen's teeth in China and Japan. For example,
Japan has been industrialized for over a century -- only a
decade or two less than other Western countries -- yet it
has only won 15 Nobel prizes in the science subjects.
Compare this figure with those of America (261), the UK (91)
and Germany (88). China has only won 10! However, this
comparison is unfair because China's have only been won
since it woke up in the 1970s. America's number also needs
to be modified because about a third of its prizes have been
won by foreign-born scientists who became American citizens
after migrating there.
It's all Emperor Qin Shi Huang's fault (yes, the same as is
famed for his terracotta army). Once Qin had conquered
several countries and unified China in 221BC, he
standardized as many things as possible from weights and
measures and currency through to the written language. All
the various scholars throughout his empire, speaking scores
of different languages (some with and some without a written
form) were forced -- on pain of death -- to produce a
composite, but common, written language. And this could only
be non-phonetic, of course. Even the mighty power of Emperor
Qin couldn't force millions of his subjects to learn a new
common spoken language but he could certainly force his
relatively few scholars to produce a new common written one.
One popular penalty in those days was to cut someone through
his midriff, mount him on a platter of hot tar and take him
around the town, gesticulating and shouting before he expired.
And herein lies a paradox, because the industrial revolution
in Europe would never have happened without starting from a
basic stock of scores of innovations -- such as canal locks,
differential gears, sowing grain in rows and so forth --
that had drifted in from China along the Great Silk Road
over a period of centuries. However, this doesn't signify
that the Chinese had been more inventive than Europeans. But
its common written language had meant that when one
innovation -- say a wheelbarrow (very important indeed for
both China and Europe) -- had been invented by a genius in
one tucked-away corner of China, then the local mandarin
could write and tell hundreds more all about this wonderful new device.
But what once had been an accelerator for both Chinese and
European civilizations actually became a retardant for China
when the Western Enlightenment and scientific revolution
stirred into life in the 1600s and 1700s. The Chinese had no
way of encapsulating these new ideas. A Chinese mandarin
visiting Europe in, say, the 1700s or 1800s, and learning
about the new exciting scientific ideas (if he'd learned
Latin or another European language of course) had no way of
disseminating them widely in China because there he had no
method of writing them down in Chinese words that would have
been instantly recognizable by fellow Chinese scholars or
engineers. He could only convey the new ideas vaguely by
speaking of them face-to-face when he returned home.
Thus Japan (which had inherited thousands of Chinese words)
and China were left behind by the industrial revolution in
England, Germany and America. They didn't begin to catch up
in earnest until the the 1870s (the Meiji Revolution) and
the 1970s (the Deng Xiaoping Revolution) respectively. And
this is still -- largely -- where they are today. Both the
Chinese and Japanese governments are trying to phoneticize
their written languages but only very slowly, such is the
cultural conservatism of two thousands years to contend with.
What might be significant in China (though not yet happening
in Japan), is that all their college and university entrants
have to learn spoken and written English these days. All
their top government officials speak English and most
business and science faculties in their universities use
English widely in their seminars. Also, thousands of their
brightest young post-grad scientists go to America or
England for research experience and qualifications. Indeed,
once they are here for a few years they become quite as
inventive as Western scientists (if not more so when you
look at the authorship of many papers in heavyweight
subject, say genetics or particle physics). Unfortunately
for the Chinese and Japanese governments many, if not most,
of the most innovative scientific minds elect to stay in
their adoptive countries rather than to return.
But the problem is even more serious for China and Japan.
Almost as important as are the original ideas of innovative
individuals is the necessity of other individuals who will
give a welcome to new ideas and help to develop them. And
it's this open-minded hinterland which is still limited
because of their deep, conservative, authoritative cultures.
Goodness knows, new ideas often have a hard time being
accepted in the West. Even here, the crazy ideas of
yesteryear sometimes have to wait until its die-hard
opponents are dead and buried and a brand new generation
appears. Only then are the ideas seen to be not so crazy after all.
There we are then. Japan came close to hollowing out America
and Western Europe 30 years ago with its superbly made
(Western-invented) products. China is threatening to do the
same in the coming years. But the innovative momentum is
still with the West and this sort of cultural momentum takes
a century or two to die down -- if it ever does -- or a
century to acquire -- if it ever does in China and Japan.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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