CHA jing discussion

[Guest guest]

" I believe the mainstream antropology [sic] position on this topic is that

it reflects cultural taboos more than medical necessity. controlling sexuality

and reproduction is generally considered one of the mechanisms by which so-

called civilization was established. If one reads well documented women's

studies literature, you will see that many traditional ideas about sexuality

were imposed by patriarchal usurpers of earlier matriarchal

traditions...evidence suggests... " (Todd)

 

I wasn't aware that there exists a mainstream anthropology position.

The adoption of such a position would, in fact, fly in the face of healthy

academic debate. That's why it's important to specify what you're talking

about; not to do so is to ignore internal differences within a field and

create a picture of unified (and, indeed, universalizing) knowledge. The

effect is stronger in the case of your citation of well-documented women's

studies literature. How did this information make its way to me? Whether

it is through Ken Wilber's generous distillations, or a particular book or

article, or a large body of work, it's important that you orient me to the

source of the tidbit you wish to substantiate with adjectives such as

" well-documented. " Would diverse scholars in this field, such as Helene

Cixous, Teresa de Lauretis, Camilla Paglia, Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich,

Julia Kristeva, and so on, simply nod in consensus if they read your

statement?

 

 

I suspect this tendency stems from your attested following of Wilber and his

" orienting generalizations, " that is, his summaries of what particular

schools of thought claim. Unfortunately, Wilber does little to substantiate

his adamant repetitions with his hacked-up quotations and virulent assaults

upon the straw men of his choosing. In a grand exercise in tautology, he

skims the literature to prop up the positions he sets out with. His

orienting generalizations are code for reductionism, an attractive tool for

someone whose readership (me!) wants to see a beautiful cosmic marriage

between everything and everything else, all layered and meme color-coded.

 

 

I indulge in this apparent digression because you have often mentioned

Wilber and, having read many of his books with critical appreciation (No

Boundary; Eye to Eye; Up From Eden; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; Marriage of

Sense and Soul) I understand the indoctrinating effect of his authoritative,

won't-budge-an-inch, I've-read-it-all-and-here's-where-it's-at attitude, and

I see that indoctrination filter through your writing as well. ( " ...just as

I know I will never change your minds, be sure you will never change mine,

either. I write, as ever, not to influence those whose minds are made up,

but for those who remain undecided on such matters. " Apart from sounding a

bit like a green party candidate, it smacks of the purism it is

denegrating.)

 

 

Perhaps this is where dogma and theory diverge: someone who holds to dogma

only seeks to validate their position, rather than to verify or disprove it.

There is a substantial difference between a world of Wilberites (or

followers of any other self-styled philosopher) inter-subjectively

validating the claims made by Mr. Wilber, and that of genetic scientists

inter-subjectively verifying the results of an experiment demonstrating that

DNA can be derived from proteins.

 

 

The remarkable power of Cartesian philosophy and its elaboration in the

modern scientific method is most notable in the natural sciences (Wilber's

" eye of flesh " ). That is why they are referred to as " hard " or " exact. "

Some would like very much for medicine to enter this realm, but, as you have

pointed out in various ways yourself, it would never be possible to reduce

medicine to an exact science. Peer-reviewed medical journals of the highest

caliber are a pale comparison to the exactness offered in, say, Cell.

Compared to the predictability of energy production in a cell (which is no

easy thing to measure and prove) randomized, double-blinded clinical trials

are somewhat of a joke. Three cheers for evidence based medicine, but for

now the majority of medical protocols are still based on speculative

evidence at best: unproven theories. Surgery research is especially

difficult to fit into the mold (sham bypass, anyone?), and surgery is one of

modern medicine's greatest contributions to humanity.

 

 

Scholars such as Judith Farquar, Charlotte Furth, Francesca Brey, and

Patricia Ebrey have made it amply clear by now that the history of Chinese

medicine(s) with regard to sex and sexuality reflects a multitude of

cultural influences. This is not to say the story is un-medical just

because it also lies within the fields of history, anthropology, and so on.

Medicine(s) and culture(s), however scientifically rooted the former, are

inseparable. As Christopher Cullen points out, we have to realize that

we're " sick " before a doctor can do anything for us (Cullen, 1993. " Patients

and Healers in Late Imperial China: Evidence from the Jinpingmei. " History

of Science, vol. 31, 2: 99-150). Quantifying illness in order to measure

the effect of intervention yields neither illnesses nor interventions which

are free from cultural influence.

 

 

Finally, degrees of certainty in clinical medicine are always qualified and

informed by (need we emphasize subjective?) clinical contexts and the

decisions of the caregiver and patient. So the question, " Was this (just)

cultural or is it (really) scientific? " is compelling, but loaded and

paradoxical. The implied question is, " How reliable is this oversex/jing

stuff? " Given the nature of outcomes (pun only slightly intended), which

are not physically measurable, even if thinly quantifiable (i.e., a man's

sense of post-ejaculatory fatigue quantified subjectively or by some

physical marker) how can we reach cross-cultural conclusions? It's a bit

like separating placebo effect from, well, .the rest. Whatever that is. We

use these terms to reflect varying degrees of certainty for different

situations. Perhaps liver cancer is less responsive to placebo

(non-specific effects of intervention) while a complaint of sensations of

demons within requires a healthy dose of placebo (of fairly high quality).

Understanding etiology is often a black hole. Next time you're in China,

try figuring out how you got sick. If you get really tired, it's either the

jetlag, the chopsticks, or your careless loss of jing. The point is, how

does your patient feel?

 

 

Saluti a tutti da Napoli,

 

Jonah Hershowitz

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

, " jonah " <jonah@e...> wrote:

Would diverse scholars in this field, such as Helene

> Cixous, Teresa de Lauretis, Camilla Paglia, Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich,

> Julia Kristeva, and so on, simply nod in consensus if they read your

> statement?

 

touche

 

Unfortunately, Wilber does little to substantiate

> his adamant repetitions with his hacked-up quotations and virulent assaults

> upon the straw men of his choosing. In a grand exercise in tautology, he

> skims the literature to prop up the positions he sets out with. His

> orienting generalizations are code for reductionism, an attractive tool for

> someone whose readership (me!) wants to see a beautiful cosmic marriage

> between everything and everything else, all layered and meme color-coded.

 

To this, I can only say that I disagree. I find his arguments compelling and

fair. He is highly regarded in many academic circles, especially amongst

those who bemoan the loss of classical study in favor of the post modern

deconstructionsism that is rampant in academia. He is quite unpopular

amongst many feminists and radical envrionmentalists, but I certainly have

not seen a reasonable rebuttal to any of his critiques of various new age

philosophies. I have only seen unsupported claims such as yours about his

taking quotes out of context, etc. Could you direct me to an actual critique of

his work that I might find as compelling as his words. However, this forum is

not the place to go on about Wilber. I assume others will see if my argument

has merits not by believing either my interpetation or yours, but by reading

the source material themselves. Shambhala press has a wilber forum, BTW.

 

P.S. With regard to changing my mind, I think you missed my point. I don't

change my mind regarding evidence based phenomena without seeing evidence.

Show me the evidence and I will yield in a split second. No philosophical

opinion is strong enough to bind me in the face of incontrovertible fact (not

my own or those of others). You might be surprised to find out that I actually

disagree with some of Wilber's writing on alternative medicine and bioenergy.

I think he got it wrong. Cultural taboos which also have established

themselves in the medical literature are not evidence in my mind.

Homosexulality used to be in the DSM manual about 30 years ago. Not because

of any evidence that this was a mental illness, but because society thought it

was bad. I remain open to the idea that CM is right about jing loss, but I

felt

the need to point out that in an academic forum on this topic (like an

anthropology group), prohibitions against sex immediately lead to discussion

of social factors that might have influenced this. I think this type of

analysis

is directly relevant to chinese culture as to all others. They do not sit above

such analysis and to blindly accept such dictums is a dangerous precedent for

a healthcare system.