Plato’s cave

  The doctor-patient relationship is, by its nature, a power dynamic:   the doctor is the healthy, strong, calm savior, the holder of knowledge.  The patient is the weak, suffering, frightened person seeking help from the former. ….the ignorant seeking aid from the “authority.”  In primitive societies, the doctor was the tribe’s shaman, the keeper of great natural and metaphysical secrets, second in hierarchy only to the chief. Today, things have changed.  Since the 1970s, with the questioning of all authority and established power, doctors and medical authority were among the first institutions to be challenged.  Pharmaceutical and insurance companies aided this shift, seeking to strip doctors of their power and claim it for themselves. (The power to influence and exploit patients is too lucrative a business to be left to “naive doctors.”) . The flattery of a now pseudo-educated public led to the belief that anyone can judge what suits them diagnostically ...

  …I think I know the Arabs somewhat. I lived with them for two years. The conclusion I reached is that they are not a homogeneous population, and therefore, we cannot make broad generalizations about such a vast group of 300 million people living in different geographical and historical environments. They may share a common language and religion—after all, the language is tied to religion since the Quran is also a linguistic teaching tool—but they have different historical backgrounds and likely different genetic and cultural heritages. The Egyptians are an indigenous ancient population and, to a large extent, have ancient Egyptian roots. They speak Arabic but are not purely Arab: they have been Arabized linguistically and culturally through Islam, but they have a different character and mentality from the Arabs of Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia (who also differ greatly among themselves). Culturally, the Egyptians are far superior to the others, as are the Syrians and I...

The older I get and the more experiences and knowledge I gain, the more misanthropic I become.  Yes, don’t be surprised or shocked:  A misanthrope is not a bad person.  A misanthrope is a former good person.  A disappointed person.  One who believed that people are good and got slapped with crap in the face.  How did the crap hit them?  Simple:  while they were gazing at the clouds and philosophizing about the beauty of Creation and the grandeur of human existence, they fell into a cesspool.  🙂  It was right in front of them, but they didn’t see it:  They were looking up and philosophizing while the swindlers were digging their pit.  Who are the swindlers?  Simple: the deceivers.  They’re always the same… because they sell the same products: Ideology, religion, humanity, love, selflessness, inclusion.  Inclusion is the new word for the same product. Something that sounds pleasant to the ear and carries flattery ...