Health & Disease
Question:-
Health and disease appear to be arbitrary and ambiguous terms. Is there any way of reaching any kind of consensus?
Answer:-
The State of health or disease of a person is often judged from the average state of the people in a community; or of a community from the average state of humanity. Sometimes the notion of "Normal" is used to make assessments. If a particular condition is prevalent in a community then this will establish whether a particular person is normal or not. In a community of the blind, the blind will be normal. In a community of the immoral and of criminals, the immoral and criminal will be normal.
This does not seem to be a good way of judging things. A better way could be something as follows:-
We notice that there are, in fact, a range of conditions and characteristic. (a) Some of the characteristics, motives and action are beneficial to the person or the society or the environment, on both of which all depend to various degrees, and others are harmful to various degrees. (b) Some things bestow greater ability to do beneficial or harmful things. (c) Some characteristics are incompatible with others to various degrees and produce inner disharmony and conflicts which lead to suffering and disintegration, while other promote greater harmony and integration. There are, therefore, three levels to consider and their interactions.
We can represent a community by dots or points distributed along a line. We draw a line with a mid point which represents the average A. Around this is a section which we might call the Normal between an upper point N1 and lower point N2 and this represents health. Beyond the upper point we have the Ideal and below the lower point we have the Anti-ideal which is a state of disease.
Superhealth Health Disease
Ideal<----------------------|------|-------|---------------------> Anti-ideal
N1 A N2
The points N1-A -N2 can move in either direction according to what the community does.
People interact and influence each other to different degrees. Some communities are more integrated than others, and some are divided into sub-communities isolated from one another to different degrees. The greater the number or percentage of people in a community who are at points nearer the Ideal, or move towards it, the more do the points N1-A-N2 also move towards the Ideal. This may be called Development or Evolution. But they may also degenerate, moving toward the Anti-ideal in the same way.
As previously mentioned in various articles, human beings can be regarded as a unity in which three aspects interact - the physical, the mental (or social) and the spiritual. Health depends on the relationship between all three. Human beings require:- (a) A certain amount of Physical Capital (property, resources, money, food, clothing, shelter etc.) is required in order to achieve a degree of physical well-being. (b) A certain amount of Social Capital (loving families, friends, teachers, leaders, cooperating colleagues, customers etc.) is required for their social welfare. (c) A certain amount of Spiritual Capital (consciousness, conscience, self-control, insight, a sense of the underlying unity and harmony, and of Truth and Virtue, interest and compassion, sense of responsibility, initiative, knowledge and understanding, hope, love, faith, etc.) is required for their psychological welfare.
These things are inter-dependent to a large extent, but can also become substitutes for one another to some degree. It is possible to sacrifice physical welfare in order to gain friendship and brotherhood, or to use one's time in spiritual development rather than the pursuit of wealth. Or one can do the reverse. But if one does not cultivate the social virtues and skills then this will affect business adversely. Those who do not give do not receive. It will also affect spiritual development by removing the conditions in which learning is made possible. Those who do not cultivate the spiritual faculties will obviously restrict their horizons and their human qualities will atrophy. They will not have the necessary perception, motivations or abilities to adjust to Reality, the society or their own nature. The result must inevitably be malfunctions, conflict, disintegration and suffering.
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