“… responding to Kennedy’s dubious claims with total derision is counterproductive to our larger aim of undermining his authority.”
Dr. Bedard, you convey the strength it must take to remain compassionate while battling endless unproven medical claims and treatments. If you will indulge me a medical metaphor however, conceptualizing any practice of medicine as a political project is potent auto-intoxication, a self-inflicted poisoning of everything you are trying to achieve.
RFK Jr deserves our scorn for standing with a group of goons leading humanity away from enlightenment principles which have served us so well for nearly five centuries. But I would trade my own adherence to these principles in a heartbeat if I believed it would restore health to my children affected by chronic disease. Millions of MAHA adherents have done just that.
For as you say reasons of both politics and science, ‘our larger aim’ should be to treat and prevent these conditions more effectively and until then humbly empower and support those whom we cannot treat.
Hi Jon - thanks for this thoughtful comment!! I think “potent auto-intoxication” is a fair and beautifully articulated concern. It’s the challenge for me with everything I’m thinking about and writing right now - what does it look like to squarely face the reality of this moment in health politics, to take the concerns and questions of my patients and fellow citizens seriously, to remain open to challenging ideas, without relaxing my own scientific rigor or commitment to the value of empiricism. It’s hard and I’m not sure I’m always walking the line correctly, but your comment gets at exactly the questions and feelings that are guiding my work right now. Thank you for reading!
“they’re locked into a dynamic where they’re always speaking truth to the indifferent powers that be. They hear Kennedy’s mitochondria reference in a press conference as a signal that he shares their perspective. This dynamic is how Kennedy builds power with his followers and deepens divides between them and the rest of us: first, by affirming their ideas, and second, by daring us to overstep our bounds when we rush to shoot them down.”
Three cheers! This framing of authority as responsibility and liberalism as listening is so important. More articles like this one please, Jerusalem! In the spirit of trying to build on it, here is a hypothesis. Before the 1960s, what we now call the professional-managerial class, and college graduates in general, were such a small fraction of society that they had no choice but to grapple with being an elite. In this century, the well-educated, NYT-reading class is numerous enough that the majority of it has fallen into an identity trap: they identify with The People and participate in politics via expressive protests against bad authorities which turn off the less-educated and literate many and bolster (or at least fail to diminish) the authorities they disagree with. The way forward is to accept your membership in the PMC as a separation from the common person which gives you two responsibilities. First, you must listen to popular views which differ from yours but which must be represented in a democracy. Second, you must contribute with what Weber via Yglesias calls the slow boring of hard boards rather than the quick ephemeral high of self-expression.
Well put, and I think this goes to a lot of the seemingly crazy ideas put out there by the right. They need to be refuted, not dismissed and ridiculed, otherwise those new to the argument think "why aren't they engaging? What are they hiding?" Like most conspiracy theories, there is usually just enough of a kernel of truth to make it plausible, supported by ballasts of weak arguments, poor correlation, and outright falsehoods.
“… responding to Kennedy’s dubious claims with total derision is counterproductive to our larger aim of undermining his authority.”
Dr. Bedard, you convey the strength it must take to remain compassionate while battling endless unproven medical claims and treatments. If you will indulge me a medical metaphor however, conceptualizing any practice of medicine as a political project is potent auto-intoxication, a self-inflicted poisoning of everything you are trying to achieve.
RFK Jr deserves our scorn for standing with a group of goons leading humanity away from enlightenment principles which have served us so well for nearly five centuries. But I would trade my own adherence to these principles in a heartbeat if I believed it would restore health to my children affected by chronic disease. Millions of MAHA adherents have done just that.
For as you say reasons of both politics and science, ‘our larger aim’ should be to treat and prevent these conditions more effectively and until then humbly empower and support those whom we cannot treat.
Hi Jon - thanks for this thoughtful comment!! I think “potent auto-intoxication” is a fair and beautifully articulated concern. It’s the challenge for me with everything I’m thinking about and writing right now - what does it look like to squarely face the reality of this moment in health politics, to take the concerns and questions of my patients and fellow citizens seriously, to remain open to challenging ideas, without relaxing my own scientific rigor or commitment to the value of empiricism. It’s hard and I’m not sure I’m always walking the line correctly, but your comment gets at exactly the questions and feelings that are guiding my work right now. Thank you for reading!
“they’re locked into a dynamic where they’re always speaking truth to the indifferent powers that be. They hear Kennedy’s mitochondria reference in a press conference as a signal that he shares their perspective. This dynamic is how Kennedy builds power with his followers and deepens divides between them and the rest of us: first, by affirming their ideas, and second, by daring us to overstep our bounds when we rush to shoot them down.”
Three cheers! This framing of authority as responsibility and liberalism as listening is so important. More articles like this one please, Jerusalem! In the spirit of trying to build on it, here is a hypothesis. Before the 1960s, what we now call the professional-managerial class, and college graduates in general, were such a small fraction of society that they had no choice but to grapple with being an elite. In this century, the well-educated, NYT-reading class is numerous enough that the majority of it has fallen into an identity trap: they identify with The People and participate in politics via expressive protests against bad authorities which turn off the less-educated and literate many and bolster (or at least fail to diminish) the authorities they disagree with. The way forward is to accept your membership in the PMC as a separation from the common person which gives you two responsibilities. First, you must listen to popular views which differ from yours but which must be represented in a democracy. Second, you must contribute with what Weber via Yglesias calls the slow boring of hard boards rather than the quick ephemeral high of self-expression.
Well put, and I think this goes to a lot of the seemingly crazy ideas put out there by the right. They need to be refuted, not dismissed and ridiculed, otherwise those new to the argument think "why aren't they engaging? What are they hiding?" Like most conspiracy theories, there is usually just enough of a kernel of truth to make it plausible, supported by ballasts of weak arguments, poor correlation, and outright falsehoods.