Do You Still Believe in Bloodletting? A Lesson From Jane Jacobs
“[City planners] are all in the same elaborately learned superstition as medical science was early in the last century, when physicians put their faith in bloodletting…” — Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs opens with quite the zinger.
She compares the building of highways through downtowns and the destruction of walkable city life to the defunct medical practice of bloodletting.
If you’re unfamiliar with bloodletting, it’s when medical doctors “treated” patients by draining their blood. Have a fever? You need less blood. Asthma? Too much blood is the problem. How about cancer? Maybe you just have to lose a little bit of blood.
The practice of bloodletting is ridiculous. Yet, 20th-century urban planning followed a tradition as ridiculous, dangerous, and destructive.
Jacobs takes the analogy further. She writes, “With bloodletting, it took years of learning to know precisely which veins, by what rituals, were to be opened for what symptoms. A superstructure of technical complication was erected in such deadpan detail that the literature still sounds almost plausible.”
Doctors at the time had advanced logic, processes, and textbooks, all of which was complete and utter nonsense.
This is still happening in city planning today.
(For example, in her new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways Megan Kimble discusses how the state of Texas is continuing to sabotage their cities.)
Where do we still believe in bloodletting?
As I reread Jacobs’ book this month, I realized this point applies to so much more.
I’ve spent many of my Saturdays at community gardens here in New York. I’ve learned more about plants and the importance of our soil. Through this, I’ve learned about how our modern agriculture is destroying the earth and shoving unhealthy, pesticide-ridden food down our throats.
Like bloodletting, it’s a misguided and destructive framework.
(For some recommended reading on this, check out Kiss The Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World.)
With Jacobs’ analogy fresh on my mind, I knew this would apply to more. I talked about this with my girlfriend Shylin, who’s getting a graduate degree in psychiatry. She was quick to point out that our approach to dealing with mental illness doesn’t seem so far off.
Some estimates suggest that 50% of medications are prescribed, dispensed, or sold inappropriately. Our mental health framework is riddled with an over-reliance on medication, quick fixes, and rigid diagnostic labels.
Analogies abundant, it’s clear that we’re no better than the doctors who drained people’s blood.
Where do I still believe in bloodletting?
I can’t help but come to the sobering conclusion that there’s something out there that I think I understand, that I have an elaborate set of logic to justify, which is as ridiculous as draining someone’s blood.
Of course, if I knew what it was, I would change my mind.
Tim Ferriss has this nice line in his old fitness book The 4-Hour Body. He writes, “Fifty percent of what we know is wrong. The problem is that we do not know which 50% it is.”
This gets part of the way there, but Jacobs’ bloodletting analogy takes this a step further. What belief do I hold, propped up by intricate reasoning, that is misguided?
That’s a question I will think about.
Un abrazo,
~David
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