Mountains beyond mountains

I am currently getting through the last few pages of Mountains Beyond Mountains which is lauded as a must read for anyone in Public Health. It cannot be denied that Paul Farmer has a deep love for humanity and a willingness to sacrifice himself at its altar - a sentiment which would have resonated with the vendantic karmayogis. It is also clear that he is a brilliant man who is not shy of hard work.

The deification of Paul Farmer goes well beyond this. His story retold with the support of anecdotes from Farmer's family and friends, shows him as approaching perfection. The book develops his character like those of Atlas Shrugged - in one dimension. It leaves him unapproachable and even incomprehensible. I did not enjoy the superficial exploration of his childhood, his relationship with his parents and siblings. It felt that a little more labour would have revealed a rich vein of tales of inadequacy, loneliness and eccentricity that would have hinted at an explanation for this extraordinary man. 

The writing aside, even his model of Public Health left me uncomfortable. Farmer is reprimanded for thinking practically:

"Do you know what appropriate technology means? It means good things for rich people and shit for the poor", the priest growled and refused to speak to Paul for a couple of days.

"Good" and "shit" things are very subjective and generic concepts that cannot be used to quantitatively compare two models of public health. I would imagine a critical analysis to proceed something as follows:

Premise A: X dollars of funding is available

Premise B: There are Y patients in need in the country

Question: What model would allow you to maximise utility in population Y?

Question: What externalities have been missed and how should they be included in the model?

Question: How will future funding be impacted by adoption of this model?

Maximising individual care is wonderful at an personal level but cannot, and should not, be scaled.

A dear friend of mine who has also managed to throw off the yoke of religion had a very strange reaction to my voicing of these criticisms. I mention religion as I feel that on the path to true atheism, a rigorous unemotional analysis of the world has to be conducted, many preconceptions and support crutches sacrificed. I like to think (now I sound patronising like Dawkins. I apologise.) that the atheist will hear out arguments, argue coherently and avoid logical fallacies.  

Apparently, not so. Irrationality is core part of our being and is quick to overpower our much valued rationality as soon as one of our long enduring premises are challenged. I wonder if Rutherford got pissed when Bohr presented his model or if Newton would have been annoyed if he had heard results of Einstein's "thought experiments". 

I hope that in the future, when roles are reversed, to have the strength to have my core beliefs challenged and even refuted. I hope to be able to analyse my own arguments and change my beliefs when faced with overwhelming evidence or a more coherent argument.