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A review by morgan_blackledge
Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rajeev Charles Patel, Rupa Marya
5.0
A classic Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) witticism goes: an old fish asked a young fish “how’s the water?” to which the young fish replied “what the fuck is water?”
The point of it is, we may not understand or even perceive the shit were swimming in, because…we’re in it.
Like wearing a mask and not knowing it, because you’ve always worn it, you don’t even think to take it off and turn it around and have a look.
Until someone somehow asks you to do exactly that.
And even then you may feel incredulous about the very notion.
What’s a mask?
What’s water?
What are you talking about?
Who the fuck are you?
In these metaphors, the “mask” and the “water” are colonialism and advanced global capitalism, and the psychological, social, medical and environmental catastrophes they bring.
Of course the fish in “water” metaphor fails on a certain level.
Because in the case of us “fish” and the toxic “water” were all swimming in, it’s the young fish that are the ones who can’t help but knowing, and unfortunately, it’s the old fish who seem to can’t help but don’t!
Inflamed is about a lot of things.
But perhaps more than anything.
It’s about colonialism and late capitalism.
And what living, and breathing, and eating, and viewing our selves, and viewing each other, and viewing the planet, and viewing the world, from within the “water” and through the “mask” of colonialism and capitalism does to our minds, our bodies, our selves, our hearts, our brains, our relationships, our culture, our communities, our souls, our (literally) everything.
Inflamed asserts:
The world is on fire.
Our food and water is poisoned.
The philosophies religion and politics of rational self interest and entitlement are murdering the commons.
Danger and despair are hanging in the air.
In fact, the air IS danger and despair.
And so it is no wonder at all, that our bodies and brains, our relationships, our EVERYTHING is inflamed.
And when everything is inflamed.
Illness is no longer abnormal.
Illness is everything and everywhere.
How does one “do medicine” in that context?
As healers.
What (exactly) are we doing when we target a “symptom” occurring within an “individual” and treat it with a salve, or tincture, and never even think about the “mask” and the “water?”
That’s like plucking one “diseased” fish out of a tank filled with toxic sewage, and giving it a vitamin or an antibiotic, and then dropping it right back into the toxic sewage.
What the fuck good is that?
And if this is what we’re doing, are we part of the problem or part of the solution?
In AA we say:
“It’s not the THING, it’s the thing BEHIND the thing, that’s the thing.”
Inflamed is about the toxic thing that all of the other things are submerged in.
As therapists we can keep looking at the thing, behind the thing, behind the thing, behind the thing ad nauseam, without getting at the thing the things are swimming in.
The “mask” and the “water”.
We may think we’re doing good if we’re chasing things behind things.
And shit, if we make a nice little paycheck while we’re doing it, than we can call that a win/win.
After all, this is capitalism, and we all have to eat, right?
Well what if the “capitalism” part that we’re all just resigned to accept and operate within IS the problem?
Inflamed Authors Rupa Marya and Raj Patel ask:
What are we doing, if we are offering mindfulness-based stress reduction to someone who is dying of exposure?
At that point, is the therapist part of the problem or part of the solution?
Inflamed is about the toxic exposures, and structural and systemic inequities, and the environmental degradation, and the poisonous world view, and the lack of critical distance that causes “disease”.
Deep medicine is the term the authors offer as a kind of BIG healing, that looks at the “mask” and the “water” of capitalism and colonization and issues an invitation for healers of all varieties, to (a) acknowledge that we have a problem, (b) except that we are part of the problem, and (c) become part of the BIG solution.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s (copied and pasted straight from Wikipedia).
Marya and Patel assert that Medical Apartheid is happening RIGHT NOW in 2022, and RIGHT HERE in the USA.
By Medical Apartheid they simply mean.
Poor people.
Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
And increasingly everyone except for the most fortunate.
Are exposed to higher health risks and inadequate or even iatrogenic (harmful) systems of medicine.
With global capitalism and colonialism burning the world down, and selling N94 masks and mRNA shots as the solution.
Marya and Patel are ABSOLUTELY NOT anti vaxers.
They are saying YES to mask use and YES to vaccines, and YES to social distancing.
Absolutely!
And also challenging us to please look at the system that is the pandemic, and climate catastrophe, and medical apartheid, and…
Find language.
Forge meaning.
Build community.
And…
Fucking do something about it.
Become liberated.
Create something new.
The exposome is what Marya and Patel define as the summation of all the toxic exposures that an individual incurs over a lifetime.
This includes exogenous toxicities such as toxic chemicals and toxic organic pathogens from environmental and occupational sources, but also exposures to chronically active endogenous stress hormones and neurotoxins occurring via biological and psychosocial stressors.
Homeostasis refers to how our bodies and brains and social systems and environments maintain balance.
Allostasis refers to the “opposing processes” that become engaged when an organism, or organization becomes “out of balance”.
When our bodies and brains are under assault.
Our immune system‘s react by releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines, which aid the healing process in acute situations, but inflame the system over longer, chronic exposures.
Marya and Patel assert: as the world burns, and we breath it all in, so do our bodies and brains and relationships, and families, and communities, and cultures.
We are inflamed as we are in flames.
Chronic illnesses such as heart disease, digestive disease, respiratory disease, reproductive disruptions, chronic pain, addiction, and mental illnesses ensue.
Walt Whitman quipped “we contain multitudes”.
Marya and Patel posit that many of the billions of micro organisms that evolved with us, and live within us, our microbiome, which are absolutely essential to our health and survival, are LITERALLY going extinct.
Dysbiosis refers to the micro-biome mass extinction events happening in our bodies, analogous to the mass extinction currently underway in our environmental biome.
Loss of micro-biodiversity (extinction of certain types of bacteria) in our gut-biome causes chronic gut diseases such as: Inflammatory bowel, Crohn’s disease and other types of chronic gastrointestinal and digestive disorders.
Depression is also linked to gut health.
Marya and Patel assert that disruption of the microbiome, and environmental despoliation are products of colonialism, industrialism, and advanced global capitalism.
The knock on effects of colonialism and global capitalism are domination, exploitation and extermination.
Hydroelectric projects kill salmon populations, along with the other myriad animals and indigenous people that depend on the salmon to survive.
Industrial agricultures chronic use of toxic pesticides like Roundup are killing all of us, with BIPOC farm workers getting the most and the worst of it.
Factory farmings chronic use of antibiotics is murdering our gut biome and so much more.
Modern medicines chronic use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions, that themselves cause illness, disease and dependence (iatrogenesis) are failing, utterly FAILING under the strain of COVID-19.
All of it occurring within an addiction crisis, occurring within a financial crisis, occurring within a housing crisis, occurring within a police violence crisis, occurring within an ecological disaster.
And all of which is rotten, utterly shot through with the perspectives, products and byproducts of colonialism and advanced global capitalism.
What (exactly) does one mindfull breath at a time mean when we’re meditating in a gas chamber?
What does “self-help” mean when the only REAL solution is at the level of the system?
We can do better!
Liberation suggests something more than simple freedom.
Liberation connotes the ability and commitment to work and sacrifice and grow in the service of something BIG, something meaningful, something true, something good, something worthy of devotion, something worth living for.
Revolution, in its most redeemable sense, suggest cadres of like-minded individuals, joining together in solidarity, and upending old, outdated and otherwise oppressive modalities, in order to create something new, something better, something that is more effective, and hopefully something that is more sustainable in the long term.
Evolution occurs via the variation, selection, and retention, of genes, traits, information, knowledge and behaviors, adaptive to environmental and psychosocial pressures and in the service of survival and reproduction, transpiring over generations, within the lifespan of the individual and within the context of the milieu, echoing from the distant past, and hopefully into the distant future.
Recovery is about becoming liberated from the confines of chronic illness, addiction, mental illness and stultifying systems of oppression, via acceptance of what is, coupled with a lifetime commitment to estimable actions, born of fearless self-inquiry, clarification of what matters most, connection to a healing community, and in service to a higher purpose.
It is increasingly apparent that the religions, philosophies, politics and methodologies of brutal tribalism and unbridled rational self-interest are dividing us, devouring the commons, entangling us in a web of toxic misinformation and dependence, and in so doing, murdering our vitality, our mental health, our families, our communities, our planet, and for lack of a better word, our souls.
We need LIBERATION!
We need liberation NOW!
This book is LIBERATING!
This book gives life.
A must read.
The point of it is, we may not understand or even perceive the shit were swimming in, because…we’re in it.
Like wearing a mask and not knowing it, because you’ve always worn it, you don’t even think to take it off and turn it around and have a look.
Until someone somehow asks you to do exactly that.
And even then you may feel incredulous about the very notion.
What’s a mask?
What’s water?
What are you talking about?
Who the fuck are you?
In these metaphors, the “mask” and the “water” are colonialism and advanced global capitalism, and the psychological, social, medical and environmental catastrophes they bring.
Of course the fish in “water” metaphor fails on a certain level.
Because in the case of us “fish” and the toxic “water” were all swimming in, it’s the young fish that are the ones who can’t help but knowing, and unfortunately, it’s the old fish who seem to can’t help but don’t!
Inflamed is about a lot of things.
But perhaps more than anything.
It’s about colonialism and late capitalism.
And what living, and breathing, and eating, and viewing our selves, and viewing each other, and viewing the planet, and viewing the world, from within the “water” and through the “mask” of colonialism and capitalism does to our minds, our bodies, our selves, our hearts, our brains, our relationships, our culture, our communities, our souls, our (literally) everything.
Inflamed asserts:
The world is on fire.
Our food and water is poisoned.
The philosophies religion and politics of rational self interest and entitlement are murdering the commons.
Danger and despair are hanging in the air.
In fact, the air IS danger and despair.
And so it is no wonder at all, that our bodies and brains, our relationships, our EVERYTHING is inflamed.
And when everything is inflamed.
Illness is no longer abnormal.
Illness is everything and everywhere.
How does one “do medicine” in that context?
As healers.
What (exactly) are we doing when we target a “symptom” occurring within an “individual” and treat it with a salve, or tincture, and never even think about the “mask” and the “water?”
That’s like plucking one “diseased” fish out of a tank filled with toxic sewage, and giving it a vitamin or an antibiotic, and then dropping it right back into the toxic sewage.
What the fuck good is that?
And if this is what we’re doing, are we part of the problem or part of the solution?
In AA we say:
“It’s not the THING, it’s the thing BEHIND the thing, that’s the thing.”
Inflamed is about the toxic thing that all of the other things are submerged in.
As therapists we can keep looking at the thing, behind the thing, behind the thing, behind the thing ad nauseam, without getting at the thing the things are swimming in.
The “mask” and the “water”.
We may think we’re doing good if we’re chasing things behind things.
And shit, if we make a nice little paycheck while we’re doing it, than we can call that a win/win.
After all, this is capitalism, and we all have to eat, right?
Well what if the “capitalism” part that we’re all just resigned to accept and operate within IS the problem?
Inflamed Authors Rupa Marya and Raj Patel ask:
What are we doing, if we are offering mindfulness-based stress reduction to someone who is dying of exposure?
At that point, is the therapist part of the problem or part of the solution?
Inflamed is about the toxic exposures, and structural and systemic inequities, and the environmental degradation, and the poisonous world view, and the lack of critical distance that causes “disease”.
Deep medicine is the term the authors offer as a kind of BIG healing, that looks at the “mask” and the “water” of capitalism and colonization and issues an invitation for healers of all varieties, to (a) acknowledge that we have a problem, (b) except that we are part of the problem, and (c) become part of the BIG solution.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s (copied and pasted straight from Wikipedia).
Marya and Patel assert that Medical Apartheid is happening RIGHT NOW in 2022, and RIGHT HERE in the USA.
By Medical Apartheid they simply mean.
Poor people.
Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
And increasingly everyone except for the most fortunate.
Are exposed to higher health risks and inadequate or even iatrogenic (harmful) systems of medicine.
With global capitalism and colonialism burning the world down, and selling N94 masks and mRNA shots as the solution.
Marya and Patel are ABSOLUTELY NOT anti vaxers.
They are saying YES to mask use and YES to vaccines, and YES to social distancing.
Absolutely!
And also challenging us to please look at the system that is the pandemic, and climate catastrophe, and medical apartheid, and…
Find language.
Forge meaning.
Build community.
And…
Fucking do something about it.
Become liberated.
Create something new.
The exposome is what Marya and Patel define as the summation of all the toxic exposures that an individual incurs over a lifetime.
This includes exogenous toxicities such as toxic chemicals and toxic organic pathogens from environmental and occupational sources, but also exposures to chronically active endogenous stress hormones and neurotoxins occurring via biological and psychosocial stressors.
Homeostasis refers to how our bodies and brains and social systems and environments maintain balance.
Allostasis refers to the “opposing processes” that become engaged when an organism, or organization becomes “out of balance”.
When our bodies and brains are under assault.
Our immune system‘s react by releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines, which aid the healing process in acute situations, but inflame the system over longer, chronic exposures.
Marya and Patel assert: as the world burns, and we breath it all in, so do our bodies and brains and relationships, and families, and communities, and cultures.
We are inflamed as we are in flames.
Chronic illnesses such as heart disease, digestive disease, respiratory disease, reproductive disruptions, chronic pain, addiction, and mental illnesses ensue.
Walt Whitman quipped “we contain multitudes”.
Marya and Patel posit that many of the billions of micro organisms that evolved with us, and live within us, our microbiome, which are absolutely essential to our health and survival, are LITERALLY going extinct.
Dysbiosis refers to the micro-biome mass extinction events happening in our bodies, analogous to the mass extinction currently underway in our environmental biome.
Loss of micro-biodiversity (extinction of certain types of bacteria) in our gut-biome causes chronic gut diseases such as: Inflammatory bowel, Crohn’s disease and other types of chronic gastrointestinal and digestive disorders.
Depression is also linked to gut health.
Marya and Patel assert that disruption of the microbiome, and environmental despoliation are products of colonialism, industrialism, and advanced global capitalism.
The knock on effects of colonialism and global capitalism are domination, exploitation and extermination.
Hydroelectric projects kill salmon populations, along with the other myriad animals and indigenous people that depend on the salmon to survive.
Industrial agricultures chronic use of toxic pesticides like Roundup are killing all of us, with BIPOC farm workers getting the most and the worst of it.
Factory farmings chronic use of antibiotics is murdering our gut biome and so much more.
Modern medicines chronic use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions, that themselves cause illness, disease and dependence (iatrogenesis) are failing, utterly FAILING under the strain of COVID-19.
All of it occurring within an addiction crisis, occurring within a financial crisis, occurring within a housing crisis, occurring within a police violence crisis, occurring within an ecological disaster.
And all of which is rotten, utterly shot through with the perspectives, products and byproducts of colonialism and advanced global capitalism.
What (exactly) does one mindfull breath at a time mean when we’re meditating in a gas chamber?
What does “self-help” mean when the only REAL solution is at the level of the system?
We can do better!
Liberation suggests something more than simple freedom.
Liberation connotes the ability and commitment to work and sacrifice and grow in the service of something BIG, something meaningful, something true, something good, something worthy of devotion, something worth living for.
Revolution, in its most redeemable sense, suggest cadres of like-minded individuals, joining together in solidarity, and upending old, outdated and otherwise oppressive modalities, in order to create something new, something better, something that is more effective, and hopefully something that is more sustainable in the long term.
Evolution occurs via the variation, selection, and retention, of genes, traits, information, knowledge and behaviors, adaptive to environmental and psychosocial pressures and in the service of survival and reproduction, transpiring over generations, within the lifespan of the individual and within the context of the milieu, echoing from the distant past, and hopefully into the distant future.
Recovery is about becoming liberated from the confines of chronic illness, addiction, mental illness and stultifying systems of oppression, via acceptance of what is, coupled with a lifetime commitment to estimable actions, born of fearless self-inquiry, clarification of what matters most, connection to a healing community, and in service to a higher purpose.
It is increasingly apparent that the religions, philosophies, politics and methodologies of brutal tribalism and unbridled rational self-interest are dividing us, devouring the commons, entangling us in a web of toxic misinformation and dependence, and in so doing, murdering our vitality, our mental health, our families, our communities, our planet, and for lack of a better word, our souls.
We need LIBERATION!
We need liberation NOW!
This book is LIBERATING!
This book gives life.
A must read.