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 Naturopathic Solutions to America's Epidemics of Violence and Neurobehavioral Disorders, Part One Scratching the Surface of the Obvious By Alex Vasquez, ND, DC, Editor, Naturopathy Digest
Research and conversation on the topic of violence in America often focus on children and adolescents. While the reason for this misguided focus is partially altruistic, I think a larger reason for this diversion is that it helps distance us adults from collectively taking responsibility for our nation's epidemic of violence, by making the problem appear to be the results of individual actions (e.g., abusive parents and playground bullies), rather than accepting that we have collectively created a culture of violence which affects us all. Children are the focus of our pity so we don't have to feel our own grief, and so we can avoid accepting the society-wide and pervasive enormity of the problem.3 Hogan, who advocates that America's violence be addressed as a "public health emergency," noted the following:
Notice how Hogan exemplifies our cultural inability to accept responsibility for the violence we create by the following quote from the above-cited article: "While perhaps not directly responsible for violence in America, society sets the stage and then closes its eyes to the tragedy."4 If our society is not collectively responsible for the culture of violence we engender and perpetuate, then the only other logical scapegoat must be the extraterrestrial aliens who influence us via radio frequencies we receive through our dental amalgams. While aggression is likely an inherent attribute of human consciousness,5 and a reflection of the struggle for existence and thus life itself – an extension of what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche referred to as "the will to power"6 – we also appreciate that this instinct can be restrained. The ability to be fierce (rather than violent) also can be modulated such that it remains life-sustaining and productive, rather than being transformed into violence, which is inherently life-draining and destructive. Ironically, passivity and "people-pleasing" and other "good" social virtues can lead to violence by forcing people to suppress their true feelings until their emotional pots boil over into rage and uncontrolled aggression. Our inability to set healthy boundaries and to thus be "fierce"7 is periodically expressed in the violent eruption of chronically suppressed emotions; what Bradshaw refers to as "the price of nice."8 On a wider scale, violence against large groups of people is perpetuated under the guise of specific anti-humanistic policies and is termed "institutionalized violence" and "structural violence." It is defined by Johan Galtung and other 1960s theologians as economic, political, legal, religious and cultural rules, mores and policies that stop individuals, groups and societies from reaching their full potential.9 Might we add medical, health care, and nutritional obstacles to that list? Can medicine and health care be forms of violence, even when delivered by altruistic physicians acting within established professional guidelines? Is feeding high-profit, low-nutrient meals to children a form of violence, given the clear evidence that such "foods" stifle intellectual potential and undercut the physical health necessary for fully developed confidence, effectiveness and manifestation of one's life experience? Violence can be considered the social manifestation of social-mental illness, with its base rooted in the depleted soil of poor nutrition and sociocultural deprivation. If solutions were available from the interventions and "leadership" of the allopathic profession, we already would have feasted on the harvest of the medical profession's ability to address the nation's health care problems with efficiency and efficacy; many of us have yet to be thus satisfied. The allopathic profession's infatuation with identification and use of "molecular solutions" (i.e., drugs) has condemned the profession to failure, because molecular monotherapy will never be able to address biosocial phenomena in individuals or on a population-wide basis.10 Where must we look with our hopes? Let's explore naturopathic solutions in the next part of this article. References
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All Rights Reserved, Naturopathy Digest, 2011.
Date Last Modified - Friday, 17-Oct-2008 12:10:55 PDT
Despite the compassionate and peace-loving image we like to project, America is one of the most violent nations on Earth, and perhaps in history. Violence – the intentional mistreatment of others – ranges from the obvious forms of battery and physical abuse to the more subtle emotional coercion and institutionalized violence that pervades many of our relationships at home and work. Indeed, when we appreciate that the modern definition of violence includes "abusive or unjust exercise of power,"1 we can appreciate that violence affects us more often than many of us would like to believe, even though we ourselves may not have been the victims of recent physical assault or attack. Recall, too, that assault takes place by the mere threat of violence;2 just because a person has not been physically attacked does not mean they have not been assaulted.
