Wonderful conference last week in integrative health and the state of Utah, but it laid bare an important finding. Knowledge of our health needs is very thin on the ground. This is not to say that people do not know there is a problem with regard to health. On this point there is unanimity; change is clearly warranted and in the wind.
There are two major problems with regard to knowledge and lack thereof in this case. First, everyone does not know specifically what needs to be done, scientifically-speaking. Knowledge of the relationships between health and contributors to and detractors from general well-being are not widely understood. More about that later. The second issue was considered in more detail in the sessions. Something needs to be done socially, political, and economically, but at what level? With what specific objectives? With what level of reform in mind?
Given my MBA background, experience in venture capital and entrepreneurism, etc., and generally conservative background, it may come as some surprise that I have made a lifelong study of revolution. The nature and requirements of revolution have always interested me, dating to the time when as a child I would visit my local library with my little red wagon, loading up books to read, if not devour in their entirety. "Squanto and the Pilgrims" as an essay on revolution and upheaval? His fellow natives probably would have thought so. I have always been attracted to the stories of revolution -- economic, social, political, religious, cultural. This is one factor to be sure in my original choice to go into venture capital early in my career. I was so fortunate to have studied such developments at UCSD with the oversight of the politicians and economists of the International Relations and Pacific Studies program there.
Revolution represents the clash of interests in the raw. In a revolution, a new order takes hold, ushering out the authority structures and the economic fabric of the old order, replacing it with a new one. We Americans understand such a development well, at least in our early history as a state, given that we served to open a revolutionary, worldwide Pandora's box in that regard.
Reform was an underlying theme of the integrative health conference at the University of Utah, but there was little confidence on how such a development should take place, whether it should happen in the context of current relationships or whether a new order was in order. There were voices for either extreme and for various scenarios in between.
This sets up a problematic couplet. Scientific realities with regard to an assessment of the problem must be better understood even while political and economic alignments are in flux. Often, participants in the program referred to the repetitive nature of their meetings. An underlying theme of the current meetings was that in the estimation of participants as well as leaders, prior meetings had reiterated themes of reform several times over with no resolution and negligible progress. The question presented over and over was how to break such a cycle, how and where to exert some form of leadership that would make a difference, particularly with regard to scientific possibilities.
How to address two moving targets? We must reduce them down to one, an intrinsically stable one. Based on my understanding of successful reform efforts, even revolutions, there is a clear path for the movement, though a potentially painful one. It is this: As nature is an intractable force, the source of our bounty and our woes, we should make an intractable commitment to follow what nature tells us needs to be done. We have oh, so many examples of when nature and scientific reality have been ignored in the interests of political and economic prerogatives that are harmful and short-sighted. As nature expresses itself to us in various forms of data, the acquisition and use of data in its various forms should be paramount in our efforts for reform and change.
The point here is that we be willing to follow the path laid out by nature, scientific findings, and ongoing collections of data wherever it leads. Only such a commitment will generate longstanding results. Only such a commitment will bring health in its various forms and economic and ecological stability. All of our educational, cultural, and civic resources need to be brought to the fore in support of such a commitment, which will surely have far-reaching economic and political implications. Some commercial opportunities will present themselves and others will wither up and die. Organizations, public and private, that have come to support the underlying conditions for disease and imbalance will thus lose influence and will need to convert their missions to those that are better in alignment with the health-oriented needs of the people.
Thus there will be a need for entrepreneurship and leadership in both public and private sectors. In Utah, we have a stellar history in this regard, most particularly with respect to the work of David Eccles as continued on by his son, Marriner. This history is directly applicable to our situation in Utah in our time. For a time, Marriner stood alone. In the end, he changed the world that we now enjoy in many ways and on many levels. I will record a presentation later today that outlines this history from my memory, particularly as it applies to leadership in public/private reform, even bordering on the revolutionary. Utahns see the Eccles name everywhere they look, but there is little knowledge of the history. Take ahold of your seats, the Eccles story is "Lord of the Rings"-esque.
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