CHARACTERISTICS OF A MEMBER OF THE PIVOT - PART II The last issue dealt almost entirely with moral courage as a characteristic. In this issue a few more characteristics will be addressed. 1. Integrity. This is a quality sorely lacking in most aspects of society today. Dishonesty appears to be an acceptable way of life. No one is shocked at the revelation of a crooked politician. It is almost accepted as a qualification for politics. Many people, while condemning dishonesty in politics, are not above cheating on their income tax or padding an expense account. Malingering on the job is stealing from the company. How many people, if given too much change would bring the error to the attention of the cashier? What if the error was discovered at home? Would you return to the store? If honesty inconveniences you, is it too much trouble? Obeying laws is not necessarily integrity. A bank robber, leaving the scene, always obeys the speed laws, not because he has integrity but because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Webster defines integrity as "the state or quality of being complete, undivided, or unbroken." Chiropractors deal with the integrity of the nervous system, keeping it complete, unbroken in its functional capacity, relative to the vertebral column. Integrity means more than honesty, although honesty is a big part of it. It means being complete and sound in what you say, and in what you think. The chiropractor who is a member of the Pivot is complete in his philosophy. His procedure is complete; it stays within a prescribed area. He does not attempt to venture out of that prescribed area into someone else's domain. Integrity also means moral soundness. It means not taking an insurance dollar that is not deserved. It means not overcharging a patient or an insurance company. It means not performing procedures that are not necessary. It is saying there are more important things in life than money and if I ,ÿ3 have to compromise what is right to make money, I will not do it. Integrity is really honesty permeating every part of your life. 2. Strength of Character. This characteristic is little understood. There is a difference between a strong personality and an individual who has strength of character. Some have both. However, if there is a choice, strength of character is far superior. The world is full of strong personalities some good, some bad. The ability to sway people or attract them to your position has been a characteristic of many tyrants and dictators. That is how they first got into the position of power. An individual with strength of character is not necessarily outgoing or charismatic in his or her personality. Many of the strongest people in this profession have been the quiet, unassuming people who, day-in and day-out, are consistent, steadfast, and dependable. Others are attracted to these people because of these qualities not because of personality. They are the successful chiropractors that have built this profession. 3. The ability to see issues in black and white. In this day when so many people see everything in shades of gray, it is rare indeed to find people who not only see but think in terms of right and wrong and black and white. Even more vital is the ability to know when it is important and when it is not important to think in terms of absolutes. There are certain issues in our profession that necessitate taking a stand. These issues usually involve principles. There are other issues, usually involving the application of principles, which do not necessitate a fixed, immovable position. This can and should be left to the discretion of individuals. To know which issues should be regarded as absolutes and which are not truly takes the "wisdom of Solomon." That is a characteristic of a member of the Pivot. He is not hung up on techniques and office procedures. 4. The ability to conceptualize. This characteristic involves basing your actions upon concepts or groups of principles. There are many people who have principles and concepts firmly entrenched in their minds. However, their actions or their lifestyles have no relationship to those standards. All of us, at times, do not live and act according to our standards but for the most part we do. Many in our profession have no philosophy, no standard or no basis for what they do. It always fascinates me how ,ÿ3 they can criticize someone who practices according to a philosophy, yet they practice according to every whim, that is, whatever is fashionable or whatever strikes them as being "scientific." The ability to conceptualize is what B.J. referred to as the "anchored mind." These are a few of the characteristics of a member of the Pivot. It is this group of people who will preserve chiropractic if it is to be preserved. We had better begin to develop these characteristics and qualities in the members of our profession and in ourselves or we have not a hope of chiropractic surviving.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE STRAIGHT CHIROPRACTIC MOVEMENT?
Why is it that the chiropractors who call themselves principled or straight are not having the impact that they had five or ten years ago? There are probably many reasons. The schools, for one, are a major factor. There is no doubt that they have given up on their chiropractic emphasis. Part of that is due to the accreditation pressures put upon them. Whatever the reason, there is more medicine being taught in chiropractic colleges than there is chiropractic. Consequently, the student coming out of a chiropractic college is practicing more drugless medicine than chiropractic. Money is a second factor. A well-known chiropractor said ten years ago that the thing that would destroy this profession would not be the medical profession or the straight-mixing battle but greed on the part of the chiropractors. Chiropractors seem to be more interested in knowing how to fill out an insurance form than in knowing the chiropractic philosophy. They are more interested in whether their technique is impressive in the courtroom than whether it corrects vertebral subluxation. Chiropractors seem more interested in impressing the patient with the fact that they are real doctors than in teaching the patient about the principles and philosophy of chiropractic. There is nothing wrong with money. There is nothing wrong with insurance, techniques or professionalism. However, our priority must be correcting subluxations and teaching the public about chiropractic. The straight-mixing controversy is another cause. You can just fight so long and after awhile you become tired. When your time, money, and energy are being constantly drained in what appears to be an internal strife that has lasted 80 years with no end in sight, it takes an unusual person to keep battling. The chiropractic profession has a few of these people, on both sides. They are the professional soldiers in chiropractic. They just enjoy the conflict. But the majority of us are draftees. By the time "enlistment" is up we've forgotten what the battle is all about, especially if there is no one around to continually remind us. So we drop out. We say "I don't need this aggravation. I'm going back to private practice." The professional soldier doesn't need to be reminded. He loves the battle. He's the Patton of the chiropractic profession. But most of us don't like to fight. Perhaps we just alluded to the greatest cause for this lack of impact by chiropractors. There is no one around to remind us anymore. There are no inspirational, motivational, chiropractic speakers around anymore. If there are, they are convinced that no one wants to hear them. The seminars that once attracted thousands and got us excited about being chiropractors and "turning on life" are now mostly practice building seminars or worse. The chiropractic excitement of the late 60's and early 70's has largely disappeared. While much of it was not very professional, it nevertheless had the effect of making chiropractors proud to be chiropractors. But, we've gone from wanting to change the world to wanting to own it. How can we rekindle that flame of enthusiasm or light it in the young chiropractors where it has never been? We see no magnetic personalities on the horizon. The only other place it can come from is really the most logical place, within. We must generate our own excitement, our own enthusiasm, our own pride in what we do. It's not easy but it can be done. Here are some practical ways. 1. Study chiropractic philosophy - read a green book; dissect it, think about it, write down your thoughts on paper. Who knows but someone else may even want to read them! 2. Listen to chiropractic tapes - old B.J. tapes, or others. 3. Read other books and articles - then relate them to chiropractic. Philosophically analyze articles in chiropractic journals. 4. Lecture to your patients - the greatest reinforcement of your philosophy is to espouse it day after day. Most chiropractors who do lay lectures say that they are more excited about chiropractic after having given a lecture. 5. Write a newsletter - even if you only have it printed and left in your waiting room. Getting your thoughts on paper is important. All professions must continue to study to improve themselves. Yet how many of us ever try to improve ourselves as professionals in the area of philosophy? Taking technique courses is fine; practice building courses may be helpful (for some necessary). However, everyone needs to be continually studying and growing in the philosophy. There are only two directions a chiropractor can go with regard to his understanding and application of the principles and philosophy - backward or forward. If your understanding of chiropractic is not growing every day then it is going backward. Go back far enough and you are no longer practicing chiropractic.
DEDUCTIVE REASONING PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE
Those within the chiropractic profession who call themselves chiropractic "scientists," clinical chiropractors, or broad scope practitioners tend to look rather condescendingly at the chiropractic philosopher. Somehow they view those who have a strong philosophical base for their practice as ignorant, religious fanatics who worship B.J. Palmer, innate intelligence, or both. It is strange how they can come to that conclusion. It demonstrates their own ignorance, for almost universally, philosophers are considered to be the great thinkers, the intellectual types. But whatever their opinion, they must agree that chiropractic has a philosophy. They may see little value to it when compared to the art or the science, but it is there and it should be recognized. The chiropractic philosophy is a deductive one. One of the characteristics of deductive reasoning is that an a priori principle is involved. That means we begin with a self evident or accepted point of fact. We do not bother to try to prove our a priori statement. We regard it as an axiom. From that a priori statement we deduce other facts, each logical deduction being deduced from the previous or the original principle. The key is that no new facts are introduced, every conclusion based upon the conclusions previously drawn. We say then that if our original a priori statement is true, and our reasoning is proper, our conclusions must be true. Each principle deduced is built upon the previous one, and all based upon the original a priori statement. In chiropractic, we commonly refer to this as the Major Premise. If we use building blocks as an analogy, a very interesting concept develops. The Major Premise is our foundation, that is, the basis for what we do. Each principle logically is built upon that foundation and each one forms the foundation of the next brick. This deduction concept would lead us to believe that if we all start with the same Major Premise, and if our reasoning is sound, we should all come to the same conclusions. Further, if we all come to the same conclusions, then we should all practice identically, at least with regard to our objectives. Because the practice of chiropractic is based upon its philosophy, the manifestations, that is individual practices, would offer the same care and talk the same language. This raises the question that could be the key to unity in our profession. Let us start at the beginning. We all accept the Major Premise, "There is a universal intelligence in all matter continually giving to it all its properties and actions thus maintaining it in existence." How can we all start with that statement, agree upon it, and proceed to make logical deductions and conclusions which lead us to such wide divergencies on the practical application of that philosophy? The Major Premise is our starting point. Our logic should be sound yet some conclude chiropractic is only adjusting vertebral subluxations, some treat scoliosis, some recommend diet and exercise and on and on and on. Yet all would agree on the Major Premise as being the starting point in chiropractic, all would accept it as an a priori statement and all would agree that their philosophy is derived from that starting point. It seems then there must be a point where the reasoning of some goes astray. There must be a point where wrong conclusions have been drawn, faulty reasoning has been used, error has been deduced from truth or the application of the philosophy does no follow the philosophy. If we go back to our analogy of the building blocks, we can see that if two people start at the same point adding brick upon brick and one ends up with a crooked wall it is easy to rectify. There is a point where one brick was not properly built upon the preceding one. It may only be a fraction of an inch off but every one following will be of by that much, and even though the logic and reasoning is correct from that point on, the end product will not be straight (no pun intended). Perhaps the secret to unity then is to go back in our philosophy, or better yet start at the beginning point, begin the process of "brick by brick", principle by principle, building the philosophy and find out where some of us have gone out of "plumb." Intelligent dialogue will demonstrate to rational people where the reasoning has broken down. It is then only necessary to begin at that point and start to build upon the proper foundation. We don't have to tear down the whole wall, only go back to the point the plumb was lost. If we can correct those areas, we will make the greatest strides toward unifying this profession in principle and practice.
We have tried unifying our profession on definition, scope of practice, educational requirements, charismatic leaders and just about everything else. After 90 years we are just as fragmented as ever. Perhaps it is time to sit down to responsible dialogue, putting aside labels and get back to basics. If chiropractic is a philosophy as well as an art and science, and we would almost universally agree that it is, then perhaps we should stop ignoring its philosophy and start applying it to our professional objectives and practice.
