Religion and the State: Doctors, Teachers, and Psychiatrists as the New Priesthood

By Michael Ostrolenk

There is a lot of discussion these days about the separation of church and state. Although interesting, I think it is a misguided discussion. It would be like a gun shot victim going to the emergency room and complaining of an ingrown toenail. Yes, the ingrown toe nail might be a problem but a bullet in the chest is much more problematic and life threatening.

In the pre-modern times, i.e. before the Enlightenment, the Church i.e. the priest’s role was to be the intermediary between the individual and God. The priest had all of the theological power given to him by the Church hierarchy and since there was no separation of value spheres, he also had most of the social and political power. The priest class told the people how ‘best’ to live in order to graced by God with eternal life. This served the Theo-political class’s interest in power and control. Well, I would like to suggest not much has changed since the Enlightenment except the priest class has changed from religious to secular, the power has moved from the church to the state and the theology is not monotheistic but secular de-humanism. The interest now is not in eternal life and saving an individual’s soul but in present day life and saving i.e. controlling the individual’s body and mind.

In the pre-modern times the priest was the agent of the church. In modern times, the doctor, teacher and psychiatrist are agents of the state. Their job is to ‘control’ the people for their own sake. They are in place to act as intermediaries between the individual and the individuals living their own lives.

Doctors as agents of the state

Before the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act was passed, Americans were able to purchase narcotics for their pain over the counter or from catalogs. Before the American Medical Associations rise to political power, medicine was pluralistic and there were a lot more options in terms of types of medicines and types of doctors.

Today, Americans must go to the agent of the state called the medical doctor, who has been granted a monopoly on medicine by the state and its affiliates. Americans go to the doctor in order to do a confession, similar to the confession one gives to a priest, not to be forgiven for one’s sins, but, in hopes of getting treatment called prescription drugs. The private confession, called an “assessment,” is then made public via the government law -- the so-called privacy rule under HIPAA. This benefits the friends of the state in the healthcare industry. The individual doctor who had been able to contract with the individual patient to provide medical care is now an agent of the state or one of its partners in the healthcare industry.

The doctor, as agent of the state, determines what the patient is allowed and not allowed to do in terms of treating their bodily problems. If the doctor, who first takes the Hippocratic Oath before his oath to the state, i.e. his oath to the DEA, FDA, etc, decides that the patient would do best without drugging, burning or cutting, the doctor could have his license revoked by the state through the power of the state medical boards whose job it is to control the definition and practice of medicine.

Teachers as agents of the state

In 1852, the first compulsory education attendance law passed in Massachusetts. This law had to be enforced by the state militia.

Why? Because at that time, parents did not think the state should control their children. Education was a private matter or a community matter, not a state matter. It was up to parents to raise their own children not the government through force of arms.

Now, parents drive their children to government schools without giving it a second thought. They give their children freely to a state that is not interested in education i.e. supporting critical thinking, creativity and autonomy but in creating better consumers and workers i.e. shoppers and serfs. They don’t think about the indoctrination designed into the curriculum, which is now funded and created at the federal level. No Child Left Unpunished is just the most recent example of the Federalization of education. It is merely one of many corporate welfare and public control measures the state has initiated for the benefit of itself and its friends in the private sector. Government schools are not interested in education in the classical sense but in social control and indoctrination.

Psychiatrists as agents of the state

A misnamed subspecialty of medicine called psychiatry, in pre-modern times actually called the priesthood, which has the power of the state, now decides which behaviors are acceptable and which one’s are not. I say misnamed because medicine is about the physical body, not about the behaviors freely chosen by individuals or how they feel or think. How people behave is a moral and legal issue, not a medical one unless it can be attributed scientifically to a specific real disease. I mean a real disease, not a metaphorical disease such as spring fever or mental illness.

The job of the priest to deal with sin and virtue has been replaced by the psychiatrist whose job it is to control behavior. They do so by giving scientific sounding names to behaviors and calling those behaviors diseases or conditions. They use a manual called the DSMIV to determine who has what condition or disease. Then, they look to their friends in the pharmaceutical industry to tell them which drugs ‘control’ which undesirable behaviors -- undesirable to others, i.e. teachers, family members and psychiatrists.

A great example is ADD – a fake condition that has made the pharmaceutical companies a lot of money, kept the mental health industry viable and has made certain people’s lives easier by controlling children through chemical straight jackets.

Our concern now should not be with a beautiful Christian song being sung on public property, or the word “God” being on government money or the 10 Commandments being placed in the public square. We have replaced one church for another, one God for another, one set of priests for another set of priests. The call should not be for a separation of church and state, because the state has replaced the church for all practical purposes. The call needs to be for a separation of state and individual, which could also be articulated as a separation of state and education, state and medicine, state and psychiatry, state and money, or state and food.

Individuals do not need intermediaries in order to live their lives. We only need our freedom, our friends, our families and any other groups with whom we freely decide to associate. The state should never have the authority to decide how people live, work, and love.

Michael D. Ostrolenk is a Senior Editor of the Free Liberal. He is also a public policy consultant. He represents such groups as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Citizens for Health. Michael is a licensed psychotherapist (CA). He is also the founder and national coordinator for the Medical Privacy Coalition.