On Reading 'Tolerate the Heterodox'
Reading Liu Yanling's piece "Don't Throw Away the Essence of Chinese Medicine" on the front page of the Health News of September 6 — she spoke from the heart for our little band (little band is not a slight here, just a description of small number). Beside it I also read the piece titled "Tolerate the Heterodox," which is plainly aimed at Liu's article for what it sees as a one-voice intolerance of difference. That phrasing has touched a different thought in our little band.
"In developing Chinese medicine, let a hundred flowers bloom; let many lines of thought thrive" (the original words; same below) — with this I wholly agree.
"Whatever theory or method is created has developed Chinese medicine" — with this I dare not agree. Chinese medicine has only one theory of the Neijing, only one method of pattern-discernment and treatment. This theory and this method can be developed, made clearer, deepened, brought up to date — but absolutely no other theory or method may be allowed to disturb it, let alone reshape or recreate it.
"It is permitted that others go beyond the theory of the ancients and open another road. You may stand by 'ruler, minister, aide, courier' in herbal prescription; another may extract active components from Chinese herbs and combine them into a compound of a new concept." To open another road is to set up another house. Concepts are forms of thought that reflect the essential nature of their object; if it is called a new concept, it must be different from the old — that too is setting up another house. You have your power to set up another house — I have no right to interfere; but I do have the right not to acknowledge you as Chinese medicine.
"To revive Chinese medicine — don't run a one-voice house; don't walk one road" — fully agreed, because you and I are both Chinese medicine. But toward false Chinese medicine, one must run a one-voice house and walk one road. Otherwise I too will quietly transform into false Chinese medicine.
The real substance and image of true Chinese medicine — many people, including practitioners of Chinese medicine themselves, do not yet recognize. So that Peking-opera scene of Crossroads, in which our own people fight our own people, plays on and on without end. These two representative pieces show it clearly. It is precisely for this question that, this year (October 2002), Shandong Science and Technology Press has published, within my three-volume set, the Book on the Diseases of the New-Style Physicians. This book is a powder keg with a fuse lit — I hope it will lead to a great debate within the Chinese-medicine field. I have a clear sense of myself: I often hold to a mistaken thought I take to be right; I often, from the bottom of the well, regard my own view as far-seeing; I often offend close friends with whom I disagree; my temper runs hot; I am not careful with words. So I will certainly call down hostile attack and become the target of many arrows. To strip down and embrace fire — I am glad to do it, willing to play Yang Qilang dying under a shower of arrows. So long as it can rouse a real academic argument within Chinese medicine, I ask for nothing more.
Correspondence:
1. 210029 Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, 282 Hanzhong Road, Nanjing.
2. 210029 Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, 155 Hanzhong Road, Nanjing.