Foreword
David John Schleich, PhD
George Bernard Shaw famously warned us, as only he could
frame such a sentiment, that “we learn from history that we
learn nothing from history”.
At the same time, George Santayana, the philosopher, essayist, poet and
novelist, equally adept with rhetoric, had something perhaps a bit more
optimistic to share, that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to
repeat it.” So, there is, after all, a way forward through the vagaries and
vicissitudes of events, individuals and groups over time. The remarkable
TIMELINE of the Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine project is a powerful
instrument for the naturopathic profession to help us move in such positive
directions, to make sense of the continuum of relations and the knot of political,
social and epistemological roots which manifest in today’s educational, clinical
and research challenges.
Having studied progressive iterations of this effort by many people in the
naturopathic profession and related groups, I can attest to the substantial and
enduring value of the TIMELINE’s detail, to its scholarship, and to its very
language; that is, and I am drawing on Immanuel Kant’s exceptional wisdom
here for my point, the density and inter-relatedness of content here across
decades and decades allow us to discern not only momentum, but also what he
calls “a regular movement” in that continuum, which though it be complex,
chaotic and seemingly repetitive and exasperating, exhibits through its breadth
and depth a steady progress in the end.
During worried moments when I witness the unrelenting bruising efforts of our
detractors, I am reminded of Machiavelli’s dictum, that “human events ever
resemble those of preceding times”. Close reading of all the events, people,
institutions and organizations in the naturopathic story will point out the greatest
aspect of this TIMELINE’s contribution to all our collective work, that this history
may seem more moral than scientific at times, and that both are strong in the
product, in the outcomes. By knowing more about who we were once, and how
we got to the present, we are less strangers in the strange land of integrative
medicine dominated by orthodox systems. We become architects having
learned from what we endure, enabled by understanding such detail as the
TIMELINE presents the best ways to create and sustain forward-looking
structures which are increasingly resilient to the tsunami of economic priority
and guild behavior.
Whatever we keep on doing to keep naturopathic medicine robust and relevant,
every plan along the way must be informed by what Socrates once called
“these several actions with the whole soul”. Specifically, and if we know our
history, the “whole soul” of naturopathic medicine cannot be as easily slammed
by the reductionist approach to medicine which conveniently forgets and
forgives bloodletting and calomel in the same breath as it enables an opioid
pandemic.
The at once highly complex and beautifully simple principles of the medicine
which this TIMELINE shows, manifesting as they have over many, many years,
help keep our path forward clearer, more certain and ultimately sustainable.
These pages document in delicious detail how the three key elements in
professional formation persist: the establishing and accreditation of our
educational preparation for practice; the recognition of our graduates by civil
authority; and the codifying of our knowledge, secure in its derivation and
invariably stronger going forward in its historical and current relevance and
application.
DAVID J. SCHLEICH, PHD
PRESIDENT, NUNM