One of the great things about the “B.J. period” in chiropractic’s history was that there was no equivocation. What B.J. said was law. If you did not like it or agree with it, then you were not with him. While this caused a lot of people to despise B.J. and probably created much of the diversity (and adversity) within the profession, at least everybody knew where they stood. B.J. defined chiropractic, he was the authority and if you did anything else, it was not chiropractic. B.J. could get away with that because, after all, he was a Palmer which gave him the genealogical right to define chiropractic. But now that B.J. is gone, who has the right to define chiropractic? The Fountainhead, his school? The ICA, his organization? Some believe the individual states have the right, some say the schools and some believe each chiropractor should define it in his or her own way.
It seems to me that there are two possibilities. Either we need one worldwide definition of chiropractic that everyone under penalty of death must abide by (okay maybe just penalty of loss of license) or everyone should have the right to define chiropractic for themselves. Living in a society that respects individual freedom lends itself to the second option (even though from a selfish standpoint, I would prefer the first choice as long as it was my definition). Once chiropractic became part of the public domain by virtue of licensure, not only did its practitioners have to obey the laws of the land but they also had to obey the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law suggests freedom under a constitutional authority which delegates most rights to the individual (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) and the next greatest amount of authority to the states (which could and do have 50 different definitions of chiropractic). So while many of us are not happy with a multiplicity of definitions for chiropractic, it is something we have to live with in a free society. Besides, more than likely if we had only one definition, it would not be mine!
Unfortunately, a multitude of definitions necessitates more defining terms, if only to avoid confusion in the minds of the public and the government. That is why terms like “straight” were developed. When that term no longer clearly defined the profession (i.e., delineated the FSCO straights from the ICA straights), new terms were devised. For a while ICA people used the term “super straight” to describe the FSCO straights but it never really caught on as a descriptive term, probably because it really does not make anything clearer. Perhaps they stopped using the term because “super” has come to be a laudatory term and their intention was not to compliment that segment of the straight community. More recently, the FSCO straights have come to use the term “objective straights” which is much more descriptive, inasmuch as we define straight chiropractic by its objective or mission. I believe that descriptive terms are helpful. It is only when and if we place negative connotations on them that they create animosity within the profession. Mixer is a very descriptive term, albeit unprofessional if said through clenched teeth.
Unfortunately, in an effort to get rid of the animosity, we have tried to do away with descriptive terms, or even worse, created ambiguous terminology to try to make everybody happy and thereby welcome everyone to the fold. The ICA, shortly after B.J.’s death, added the phrases “preparatory to” and “complimentary to” to their definition of chiropractic. These two clearly ambiguous terms were included to allow those who wanted to “rub and roll” into the ICA. The leaders of the organization could say to the hands-only, upper-cervical practitioners that “preparatory to” meant laying the patient on a side-posture table and cocking the drop headpiece. That is purposeful ambiguity. It is so vague that anybody can interpret it any way they wish.
The recent consensus statement of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) is just such an exercise in ambiguity. (See January 1997 issue of the Pivot Review). Without getting into the details of the document, some basic questions need to be addressed. How can twenty admittedly diverse people, like the Presidents of all the Chiropractic Colleges, agree on something unless it is purposefully ambiguous? To believe that Sid Williams and James Winterstein see the profession in a similar enough manner to be able to write a singular definition and scope-of-practice document is irrational. To write a document that Reed Phillips and Thom Gelardi can agree upon necessitates someone pretending the document says something that it does not–or it says nothing at all!
Do we really need advancement that badly that we force twenty honorable men to compromise and read something different into a document or to write purposefully ambiguous phrases just so we can have something that “everyone can live with?”
It is great to see an end to the war between the profession’s four educational factions (drug-prescribing wannabees, drugless treaters, disease-causing subluxation correctors and non-therapeutic adjusters), but that does not mean we are all friends and can all work together. Pretending that we are one, big, happy family for the public, the government or ourselves is unrealistic, and frankly, downright dishonest. Let’s face it, we all know that deep down inside some of those college presidents despise one another. What is worse, it prevents each group from being free to present their idea of chiropractic and then to pursue that idea in a free society and a free marketplace. Further, we delude ourselves into thinking we are all together or can come together on programs and issues when those programs and issues are, or should be, based on very fundamental differences.
Recently I heard a speaker say we should focus on what unites us rather than what separates us. That’s fine as long as what unites us is an essential and what separates us in not. What will eventually happen if the ACC’s trend continues is that fundamental differences will be put aside and programs and issues will be based on non-essentials or those that lend themselves to ambiguity. Following the ACC Conference paper, that is exactly what occurred by the convening of the ICA/ACA Leadership Summit in November 1996 (as reported in “Dynamic Chiropractic,” December 16, 1996, p22). The results of the conference were “preliminary plans for implementation of the public education and awareness effort.” What is that effort going to be like if it has to satisfy all of the different factions? The ACA indicated it wants the public to be better informed “about matters of chiropractic education, examination and licensure.” Educating the public must be ambiguous to satisfy both groups. As far as education, examination and licensure are concerned, the ICA wants the public to know that we are well-trained and licensed to perform our subluxation-based chiropractic. The ACA wants the public to know that we are educated to do everything a medical doctor does and therefore, should be licensed to do everything a medical doctor does. With regard to the diagnosis aspect of our education, the ACA interprets it as medical diagnosis and the ICA allows you to interpret it anyway you want, from “diagnosing” a subluxation or a medical condition to just monitoring innate expression. Of course, the FSCO position would get the word out of there altogether for its either medical (ACA interpretation) or ambiguous “diagnosis” (ICA interpretation).
Any public awareness program that will gain “the support and participation of every organization within the profession, and in fact, every doctor of chiropractic” will have to be ambiguous. It will have to be something like “Chiropractic Keeps Me Smiling” which is a cute, little epigram and makes a nice bumper sticker but says nothing. Am I smiling because it got rid of my backache, cured my medical condition, corrected the cause of my disease or allowed the innate intelligence of my body to be better expressed? Am I smiling because I got an alternative to medical care, because my chiropractor is as well-trained as a medical doctor or because for the first time in my life I really understand what life and health are all about from an above-down, inside-out viewpoint? The public deserves better than a profession described in vague terms. Likewise, chiropractic deserves better than being defined in ambiguous terms and the profession, if it is to advance and assume its rightful place in society, must begin to more clearly define its position rather than continue to obscure it. v13n3