The Alchemy of Health Equity

In The Alchemy Symposiums series, we will explore the fallacious and subjective policies and demands for immediate change that will be growing out of the COVID-19 crisis.

In this first episode, Michael O’Fallon interviews Dr. James Lindsay of New Discourses to address the increasingly trendy call for ‘health equity” in response to the pandemic. As with other government-controlled “top-down” movements, health equity relies heavily on the systems normally associated with “social justice” to regulate and disseminate care. This concept of assessing a need for medical treatment based on a political agenda may be referred to as “alchemy.” 

According to George Soros in his book The Alchemy of Finance, 

“The Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, – that of alchemy, operational success.”

There you have it, plain and simple.

Alchemy is the medieval pseudoscientific forerunner of both the scientific method and chemistry that was based upon subjective criteria and fallacious assumptions. As with the alchemists of the ancient world, the current band of critical social justice warriors seek to transform base metals into gold. The metal being science and objective truth, and the gold, something more politically useful.

Ultimately, health equity becomes a rubric for deciding who lives and who dies based on identity politics and perceived levels of oppression rather than individual need or scientific facts. In a world quaking in the wake of COVID-19, we must not let the alchemists win the day. Join Dr. Lindsay and Mr. O’Fallon as they unpack this clear and present change agent: a policy that if implemented, will deconstruct our entire healthcare system. 

In the coming weeks we will explore the practice and goals of Alchemy in economics, healthcare, criminal justice, national policy, global politics, the climate, faith, and many others.

To learn more about Health Equity, please visit Dr. Lindsay’s Translations for the Wokish entry for this term on NewDiscourses.com.