There has been much discussion recently concerning chiropractors getting together, putting aside their philosophical differences and working together. So what’s new? Aside from personalities, the problem seems to center around the mixers and straights. If we are to get together it would help to outline the practical problems that must be overcome from both sides. Below is, at best, only a starting point but it is a beginning. Mixers and straights can get together if we can convince the mixers that:
1. Straights, with their non-diagnostic approach to chiropractic, are not a threat to society.
2. The straight philosophy that says “symptoms are not an indication of health, and treatment of disease is a no-win situation” is not that radical a departure from mainstream thinking.
3. Straight chiropractors with their philosophy and the fervor with which they espouse it will not take patients from their offices.
4. Chiropractic education is moving in the wrong direction. It needs less materia medica and more philosophy and technique.
5. We need 200,000 more chiropractors in the United States alone at this moment to care for the spinal subluxation needs of the population and it will not overcrowd the profession.
6. Should the straight become the dominant political force in the profession, he will not pass legislation to outlaw mixing or force the mixer to give up the title “chiropractor.”
Mixers and straights can get together if we can convince the straights that:
1. There is no danger to the public when chiropractors perform traditionally medical procedures.
2. Mixing does not confuse the public as to what chiropractic is.
3. Chiropractic will not go the way of osteopathy. That with a predominantly mixing understanding of chiropractic it will be virtually impossible for anyone to have their subluxations corrected a few generations from now.
4. A good chiropractic education really equips the doctor to recognize normal, abnormal, and disease in all its stages and to know what every one of the 25 trillion needs of the body is at any given moment.
5. The ” outside-in” philosophy of life in general and health in particular is correct and that the chiropractic profession should be part of it.
6. Broadening state laws in chiropractic will allow him to continue to practice as he wants and not be forced into a “standard of care” that violates his philosophy.
The above are real problems and must be addressed. The argument is often put forth by those who look for unification that we have a common enemy in medicine and that we should unite against it. The problem with this argument is that the straight chiropractor looks at chiropractic through his philosophy. In order to unify you must have things in common. From a philosophical viewpoint, broadscope chiropractic has a great deal more in common with medicine than it does with straight chiropractic. In fact, if we define chiropractic and medicine by their objectives, the major difference between mixing chiropractic and medicine is the only thing that straight and mixing have in common–a name. Our common name is a good start for getting together. Unfortunately, where do we go after that? You cannot base unification on a name only. If East and West Germany are to unify they must do it based upon more than just the fact that they have a common name. They have contrasting ideologies, that of socialism and capitalism, and if they are to get together, one or the other or both will have to abandon theirs. Straights are not willing to abandon their philosophy and I seriously doubt whether very many mixers are either.
We have just as contrasting a philosophy as do East and West Germany. The straight believes that the entire philosophy of “outside-in, below-up” of which medicine is only a part is not valid as a health care system. The mixer believes in that system but feels it can be improved upon. He feels that the drugless, conservative, alternative approach to treatment of disease that his brand of chiropractic offers is an improvement. The entire system is of questionable value because it is based upon a false philosophy (OIBU). True, it has its good points and it has accomplished some relatively good things. But the Nixon administration accomplished some good also. Communism has some relatively good points. East Germany for its size and population turns out great athletic teams. But when it comes down to the important things in life, apparently the thousands of East Germans rushing to the West do not think an Olympic Gold Medal is high on the list. The point is that the OIBU system of treating symptoms and disease does not meet man’s real needs and as long as a segment of our profession desires to be a part of that system and a segment wishes to change it we will never get together. v6n4