Editorial
Health: The Wider Perspective We find it increasingly difficult in these days to consider problems of health on a purely individual case-study basis. The lives of human beings in the modern world are so interwoven with the nature and behavior of the communities to which they belong t h a t no person or small group can be saved or healed alone; and we are, as the Bible says, "members one of another." The shadow of nuclear doom as a real possibility is so dark and all-pervasive t h a t it reaches into every individual life, if the individual is imaginative and honest enough to face it. The Elizabethan cleric and poet John Donne reminded us centuries ago t h a t "No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." If it was true then, it is a thousand times more true now. Evidence of this intrusion of the issues of the great world and its threatened survival on the private worlds of its people continues to pile up. Young people wonder whether they will ever have time to fulfill the plans they want to make for their lives. Can they hope to get an education, marry, qualify for a vocation or profession, raise and educate children? Will there be time before the curtain falls on the human drama? W h a t have they to look forward to? Will there be any long-range future where the personal plans of individuals make any difference? Older people weep not so much for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. Will there be any future at all? These questions have never been asked before except by members of apocalyptic cults who were looking forward to a prophesied imminent end of the world. Now they are being widely asked. We have had a number of replies to our editorial on " I m a g i n a t i o n and Survival" in the summer 1982 issue of the Journal of Religion and Health. It is always heartening to know t h a t somebody out there is reading what one writes. One correspondent has begun a piece of research in the area of the responses of young people to the conditions and tensions of the nuclear age, which he hopes to submit as a Journal article. We are encouraging him to do so. There is need for widespread systematic research into human attitudes toward the wholly possible prospect of the end of the human experiment and of life itself on the earth. This is a threat the human race has never confronted before, and it demands a whole cluster of new understandings, new responses, new skills, new techniques of survival, not to mention new ethical and spiritual values. We urge others to turn their minds and their creative imaginations to this all-important area of human need and perplexity. We can offer here some general guidelines for t h a t research based upon our reading, observation, conversation, and reflection. A great many people, perhaps a majority in the Western world, seem to have succeeded in blocking 0022-4197:~3:1.100-0087502.75
87
19,";3 I nst itutes of Religion and I lealth
88
Journal of Religion and Health
from their minds full realization of the probable occurrence and the likely outcome of a nuclear exchange between the major powers. They think of nuclear weapons as simply more effective weapons to be used as weapons have always been used: to win a war. They seem unwilling or unable to realize t h a t the concept of victory no longer applies. They expect the future to be like the past, even though it never has been. In this group, unfortunately, are all (we can think of no exceptions; we wish we could) the present political and military leaders of the world. The U.S. Secretary of Defense is typical. He said t h a t nuclear war was not winnable but t h a t "we certainly are planning not to be defeated." We wonder what the Secretary meant by t h a t obscure statement. Who has won, who has been defeated when both combatants have ceased to exist? Yet statements of this kind continue to come from the leaders of all the nuclear countries. It will be of the u t m o s t importance for us to find out what creates this myopia in the presence of the facts of life in a nuclear-armed world and also how it can be corrected. This is a psychological task and also an educational task before it becomes a political task. In medical terms it is a task of diagnosis and treatment essential to the survival of the human race. Walter Lippmann, one of the most civilized and astute observers of and commentators on the events of the middle decades of this century, spoke often and feelingly of the importance of what he called " t h e climate of civility." He meant by this what an earlier age might have called "good manners." In order to have any kind of human relations at all, it is first necessary to have an atmosphere in which rational discourse is possible. Sometimes in situations where there are deep suspicions, traditional rivalries, complicated misunderstandings, and smoldering hatreds, people m u s t learn to conduct their relationships within certain rules of etiquette, since otherwise no relationship at all is possible. People m u s t listen to one another and consider what each is saying and hearing. People m u s t learn to be open and receptive to ideas and forms of expression t h a t are foreign to their experience and even offensive to their cherished beliefs and values. The climate of civility implies not agreement or capitulation on either side but an acceptance of coexistence and a willingness to continue discussion and exploration of possible relationships. In the case of nations possessed of overwhelming numbers of deadly nuclear weapons, the only alternative to coexistence is nonexistence. This fact is not sufficiently understood; but as we have said, it m u s t never be forgotten, no m a t t e r how difficult and frustrating continued dialogue m a y appear to be. Civility, good manners are not mere adornments of human society. They are absolutely essential to constructive human communication. And the more disturbed and tense human relationships are, the more essential are the ordinary, accepted rules of rational discussion. One of the anomalies of conventional diplomatic life has been the tendency to break off diplomatic relations when situations became strained and complicated. When an offense is committed, call the ambassador home, shut down the consulate, break off relations. A rational response to a diplomatic impasse would be j u s t the opposite. The more complex and tense the situation, the more every avenue of communication m u s t be kept open between the disputants. It m a y well be t h a t
Har~, C'..~leserve
89
some unforeseen solution exists that has not yet come to the attention of those most involved. In any event, further discussion is preferable to the suspension of discussion and the decline of relations into hostility and mutual destruction. Coexistence may not be much, but it is certain to be better from the point of view of life, growth, and health than nonexistence. Another guideline of basic importance in dealing with deep conflicts between human beings or human groups is the importance of finding and defining clearly any areas of agreement and common ground that may exist. There are always some. In the case of the great powers whose conflicting aims, values, and suicidal arms race threaten the whole earth and all life, there is at least one area of common ground: Presumably they both want to survive as human, geographical, and cultural entities. Since they have now reached a point where neither one can destroy the other without itself being destroyed, they should agree on that common ground. They should agree to do whatever makes for their conunon survival. Two people on a tossing life raft on a lonely sea may not like each other or share the same values and purposes; but so long as they are on the raft, they share one purpose--survival. And to achieve that purpose they must work together. This is a fact so obvious that one wonders why people in places of power and responsibility do not see it. Most ordinary people are sane enough to prefer survival to extinction even under less than ideal conditions. As long as life lasts, conditions may change. Nonexistence offers no options. Political and military leaders would be better advised to listen to what ordinary people think and feel than to follow their own special doctrines and myths. President Eisenhower once remarked that ordinary people want peace so much that their leaders ought to get out of their way and let them have it. Anyone familiar with techniques of mediation and arbitration knows that the place to start in resolving any conflict is whatever common ground exists. Since we are all human, some will always exist. It is of great importance that we help people to think from their common ground. We should forget the long struggle between communism and capitalism, symbols and abstractions both, and concentrate on the fate of human beings of various nations and races who all like to eat, sleep, work, play, love, worship, and pursue their private destinies in safety and peace. Nobody who has had any experience with teaching, guiding, and counseling individuals can be aware of the power and the limitations of the successreward, failure-punishment system. It is true that people do act in response to the possible good that is set before them, and that they do fear failure because of its unpleasant consequences. Yet we know also the limitations of this system. Real achievement comes not from hope of reward. Failure or deviation from accepted behavior patterns is not prevented by threats of punishment. The overcrowded prisons and work camps of the USSR, the United States, and other countries are eloquent testimonials to the limitations of the rewardpunishment system. The system becomes utterly mad when it is extended to the issues of threatened nuclear war. Here we have two superpowers, an ironic term, threatening each other with utter destruction to be visited on both if either one uses that nuclear capability. The notion is called the doctrine of
90
Journal of Religion and Health
deterrence. We m u s t always be sure we can destroy anybody who destroys us. We are told we m u s t have nuclear arms in order t h a t we m a y never use them or have them used against us. The illogic of the a r g u m e n t seems to say: "He, thinking I was about to kill him in self-defense, was about to kill me in selfdefense; so I had to kill him in self-defense." As J o n a t h a n Schell points out, "Under such a doctrine m i h t a r y superiority is as dangerous to the side t h a t possesses it as it is to the side t h a t is supposedly threatened by it." The more superior you are the more dangerous things get. In short, who needs military superiority? Whom does it make safe? One would think t h a t the fallacy of the deterrence a r g u m e n t would be apparent to all except possibly to those who are so involved in the arms game t h a t they have neither the will nor the objectivity to look at the situation. It would also seem t h a t the solution is so obvious t h a t none can miss it: an agreement among the nuclear nations t h a t no one of them will be the first to launch a nuclear attack. When the late Leonid Brezhnev made this proposal, the American president should have seized his hand and said, "Done. We promise the same thing." If it is argued t h a t we cannot t r u s t the Soviets, the answer is, " W h a t have we got to lose? And there is everything to gain." A final guideline of decisive importance is the necessity of continuing and extending the already worldwide discussion of these issues of life and death in the nuclear age. We are aware of the possibihty t h a t some will say such issues as this have no bearing on the specific and highly individualized concerns of personal health and m a t u r i t y with which this and m a n y other journals are concerned. We make no apology for introducing the subject. We m u s t all become concerned about the plight of the human experiment and the endangered earth. If individuals are to reach a n y t h i n g like health and wholeness, they m u s t have an orderly society, a peaceful environment t h a t is at least free from nuclear destruction and pervasive fear, and an earth on which to hve and work and, we hope, prosper. We think it is time for the people of good will in every nation and in every profession, business, and area of human activity to make common cause against the mass insanity of nuclear destruction t h a t hangs over the whole human race and the whole planet. We believe t h a t unless millions of people awake to this threat and become informed, articulate, and active about it none of us have much chance for survival. It would seem, furthermore, t h a t the clergy, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, the healers of h u m a n bodies and souls, should be among the first to let their views be known and to do the scholarly, educational, and therapeutic works t h a t are required to bring the human family to an awareness of the danger and an understanding of the creative resources in human nature t h a t can cope with it. We do not feel despair or discouragement, but we do feel concern--concern t h a t those who have given their lives to an understanding of human nature, human behavior, and to the effort to help people release the sane, creative, compassionate forces t h a t are within them do everything in their power now. Suddenly the work of the doctor of the body and soul of human beings is dealing not only with making the passage of a few people through this world a
Harry C Meserve
91
little more healthy and happy than it might otherwise be. The doctor, all those who are concerned for health, are dealing with issues t h a t touch the destiny of the h u m a n enterprise itself. We live at an awesome moment. It demands a serious and dedicated response. Harry C Meserve
Health: The Wider Perspective We find it increasingly difficult in these days to consider problems of health on a purely individual case-study basis. The lives of human beings in the modern world are so interwoven with the nature and behavior of the communities to which they belong t h a t no person or small group can be saved or healed alone; and we are, as the Bible says, "members one of another." The shadow of nuclear doom as a real possibility is so dark and all-pervasive t h a t it reaches into every individual life, if the individual is imaginative and honest enough to face it. The Elizabethan cleric and poet John Donne reminded us centuries ago t h a t "No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." If it was true then, it is a thousand times more true now. Evidence of this intrusion of the issues of the great world and its threatened survival on the private worlds of its people continues to pile up. Young people wonder whether they will ever have time to fulfill the plans they want to make for their lives. Can they hope to get an education, marry, qualify for a vocation or profession, raise and educate children? Will there be time before the curtain falls on the human drama? W h a t have they to look forward to? Will there be any long-range future where the personal plans of individuals make any difference? Older people weep not so much for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. Will there be any future at all? These questions have never been asked before except by members of apocalyptic cults who were looking forward to a prophesied imminent end of the world. Now they are being widely asked. We have had a number of replies to our editorial on " I m a g i n a t i o n and Survival" in the summer 1982 issue of the Journal of Religion and Health. It is always heartening to know t h a t somebody out there is reading what one writes. One correspondent has begun a piece of research in the area of the responses of young people to the conditions and tensions of the nuclear age, which he hopes to submit as a Journal article. We are encouraging him to do so. There is need for widespread systematic research into human attitudes toward the wholly possible prospect of the end of the human experiment and of life itself on the earth. This is a threat the human race has never confronted before, and it demands a whole cluster of new understandings, new responses, new skills, new techniques of survival, not to mention new ethical and spiritual values. We urge others to turn their minds and their creative imaginations to this all-important area of human need and perplexity. We can offer here some general guidelines for t h a t research based upon our reading, observation, conversation, and reflection. A great many people, perhaps a majority in the Western world, seem to have succeeded in blocking 0022-4197:~3:1.100-0087502.75
87
19,";3 I nst itutes of Religion and I lealth
88
Journal of Religion and Health
from their minds full realization of the probable occurrence and the likely outcome of a nuclear exchange between the major powers. They think of nuclear weapons as simply more effective weapons to be used as weapons have always been used: to win a war. They seem unwilling or unable to realize t h a t the concept of victory no longer applies. They expect the future to be like the past, even though it never has been. In this group, unfortunately, are all (we can think of no exceptions; we wish we could) the present political and military leaders of the world. The U.S. Secretary of Defense is typical. He said t h a t nuclear war was not winnable but t h a t "we certainly are planning not to be defeated." We wonder what the Secretary meant by t h a t obscure statement. Who has won, who has been defeated when both combatants have ceased to exist? Yet statements of this kind continue to come from the leaders of all the nuclear countries. It will be of the u t m o s t importance for us to find out what creates this myopia in the presence of the facts of life in a nuclear-armed world and also how it can be corrected. This is a psychological task and also an educational task before it becomes a political task. In medical terms it is a task of diagnosis and treatment essential to the survival of the human race. Walter Lippmann, one of the most civilized and astute observers of and commentators on the events of the middle decades of this century, spoke often and feelingly of the importance of what he called " t h e climate of civility." He meant by this what an earlier age might have called "good manners." In order to have any kind of human relations at all, it is first necessary to have an atmosphere in which rational discourse is possible. Sometimes in situations where there are deep suspicions, traditional rivalries, complicated misunderstandings, and smoldering hatreds, people m u s t learn to conduct their relationships within certain rules of etiquette, since otherwise no relationship at all is possible. People m u s t listen to one another and consider what each is saying and hearing. People m u s t learn to be open and receptive to ideas and forms of expression t h a t are foreign to their experience and even offensive to their cherished beliefs and values. The climate of civility implies not agreement or capitulation on either side but an acceptance of coexistence and a willingness to continue discussion and exploration of possible relationships. In the case of nations possessed of overwhelming numbers of deadly nuclear weapons, the only alternative to coexistence is nonexistence. This fact is not sufficiently understood; but as we have said, it m u s t never be forgotten, no m a t t e r how difficult and frustrating continued dialogue m a y appear to be. Civility, good manners are not mere adornments of human society. They are absolutely essential to constructive human communication. And the more disturbed and tense human relationships are, the more essential are the ordinary, accepted rules of rational discussion. One of the anomalies of conventional diplomatic life has been the tendency to break off diplomatic relations when situations became strained and complicated. When an offense is committed, call the ambassador home, shut down the consulate, break off relations. A rational response to a diplomatic impasse would be j u s t the opposite. The more complex and tense the situation, the more every avenue of communication m u s t be kept open between the disputants. It m a y well be t h a t
Har~, C'..~leserve
89
some unforeseen solution exists that has not yet come to the attention of those most involved. In any event, further discussion is preferable to the suspension of discussion and the decline of relations into hostility and mutual destruction. Coexistence may not be much, but it is certain to be better from the point of view of life, growth, and health than nonexistence. Another guideline of basic importance in dealing with deep conflicts between human beings or human groups is the importance of finding and defining clearly any areas of agreement and common ground that may exist. There are always some. In the case of the great powers whose conflicting aims, values, and suicidal arms race threaten the whole earth and all life, there is at least one area of common ground: Presumably they both want to survive as human, geographical, and cultural entities. Since they have now reached a point where neither one can destroy the other without itself being destroyed, they should agree on that common ground. They should agree to do whatever makes for their conunon survival. Two people on a tossing life raft on a lonely sea may not like each other or share the same values and purposes; but so long as they are on the raft, they share one purpose--survival. And to achieve that purpose they must work together. This is a fact so obvious that one wonders why people in places of power and responsibility do not see it. Most ordinary people are sane enough to prefer survival to extinction even under less than ideal conditions. As long as life lasts, conditions may change. Nonexistence offers no options. Political and military leaders would be better advised to listen to what ordinary people think and feel than to follow their own special doctrines and myths. President Eisenhower once remarked that ordinary people want peace so much that their leaders ought to get out of their way and let them have it. Anyone familiar with techniques of mediation and arbitration knows that the place to start in resolving any conflict is whatever common ground exists. Since we are all human, some will always exist. It is of great importance that we help people to think from their common ground. We should forget the long struggle between communism and capitalism, symbols and abstractions both, and concentrate on the fate of human beings of various nations and races who all like to eat, sleep, work, play, love, worship, and pursue their private destinies in safety and peace. Nobody who has had any experience with teaching, guiding, and counseling individuals can be aware of the power and the limitations of the successreward, failure-punishment system. It is true that people do act in response to the possible good that is set before them, and that they do fear failure because of its unpleasant consequences. Yet we know also the limitations of this system. Real achievement comes not from hope of reward. Failure or deviation from accepted behavior patterns is not prevented by threats of punishment. The overcrowded prisons and work camps of the USSR, the United States, and other countries are eloquent testimonials to the limitations of the rewardpunishment system. The system becomes utterly mad when it is extended to the issues of threatened nuclear war. Here we have two superpowers, an ironic term, threatening each other with utter destruction to be visited on both if either one uses that nuclear capability. The notion is called the doctrine of
90
Journal of Religion and Health
deterrence. We m u s t always be sure we can destroy anybody who destroys us. We are told we m u s t have nuclear arms in order t h a t we m a y never use them or have them used against us. The illogic of the a r g u m e n t seems to say: "He, thinking I was about to kill him in self-defense, was about to kill me in selfdefense; so I had to kill him in self-defense." As J o n a t h a n Schell points out, "Under such a doctrine m i h t a r y superiority is as dangerous to the side t h a t possesses it as it is to the side t h a t is supposedly threatened by it." The more superior you are the more dangerous things get. In short, who needs military superiority? Whom does it make safe? One would think t h a t the fallacy of the deterrence a r g u m e n t would be apparent to all except possibly to those who are so involved in the arms game t h a t they have neither the will nor the objectivity to look at the situation. It would also seem t h a t the solution is so obvious t h a t none can miss it: an agreement among the nuclear nations t h a t no one of them will be the first to launch a nuclear attack. When the late Leonid Brezhnev made this proposal, the American president should have seized his hand and said, "Done. We promise the same thing." If it is argued t h a t we cannot t r u s t the Soviets, the answer is, " W h a t have we got to lose? And there is everything to gain." A final guideline of decisive importance is the necessity of continuing and extending the already worldwide discussion of these issues of life and death in the nuclear age. We are aware of the possibihty t h a t some will say such issues as this have no bearing on the specific and highly individualized concerns of personal health and m a t u r i t y with which this and m a n y other journals are concerned. We make no apology for introducing the subject. We m u s t all become concerned about the plight of the human experiment and the endangered earth. If individuals are to reach a n y t h i n g like health and wholeness, they m u s t have an orderly society, a peaceful environment t h a t is at least free from nuclear destruction and pervasive fear, and an earth on which to hve and work and, we hope, prosper. We think it is time for the people of good will in every nation and in every profession, business, and area of human activity to make common cause against the mass insanity of nuclear destruction t h a t hangs over the whole human race and the whole planet. We believe t h a t unless millions of people awake to this threat and become informed, articulate, and active about it none of us have much chance for survival. It would seem, furthermore, t h a t the clergy, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, the healers of h u m a n bodies and souls, should be among the first to let their views be known and to do the scholarly, educational, and therapeutic works t h a t are required to bring the human family to an awareness of the danger and an understanding of the creative resources in human nature t h a t can cope with it. We do not feel despair or discouragement, but we do feel concern--concern t h a t those who have given their lives to an understanding of human nature, human behavior, and to the effort to help people release the sane, creative, compassionate forces t h a t are within them do everything in their power now. Suddenly the work of the doctor of the body and soul of human beings is dealing not only with making the passage of a few people through this world a
Harry C Meserve
91
little more healthy and happy than it might otherwise be. The doctor, all those who are concerned for health, are dealing with issues t h a t touch the destiny of the h u m a n enterprise itself. We live at an awesome moment. It demands a serious and dedicated response. Harry C Meserve
