Matters of Life and Death
April 2004
Banner photo: ©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO
Norman Cousins--The Conscience of America
Norman Cousins
One of the ways you can learn the true character of an individual is through their approach to problems. One type of person tends to think, "I know I should take action, but it will be very difficult," and ends up doing nothing. The other, however, thinks, "It will be very difficult, but I must take action," and does so without fail.
Dr. Norman Cousins was a fine example of the latter type. He was a realist, but also an idealist, never failing to recognize the need for action, and taking it without hesitation.
In February 1987, he drove to the newly opened Soka University campus in Los Angeles (forerunner of Soka University of America) on his own, with just a road map to guide him. And though he was then past 70, his step was as buoyant as that of a youth. The blue California skies and his sunny, reassuring smile made a wonderful picture. He had tremendous charisma: he radiated some indefinable quality that inspired and encouraged people.
After the Second World War, as editor of the American literary magazine Saturday Review, he urged readers to become foster parents to over 400 Japanese children orphaned by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. His proposed "Moral Adoptions" plan came to fruit in 1949, and, thanks to his efforts, many children were able to receive fine educations. He himself became one of the foster parents.
To Dr. Cousins, freedom of expression did not mean simply writing whatever one pleased, with no sense of responsibility for the results. Rather, it was his tireless struggle to help others that compelled him to write what had to be said. For example, he learned of a group of Polish women who had been subjected to horrible medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps, where prisoners were used as human guinea pigs during the war. They had never received any reparations after the war, and they continued to experience great physical and mental suffering. Dr. Cousins took up these women’s cause. He did not give up until he finally won reparations for them from the West German government.
Dr. Cousins recognized that "what was needed was a hot poker to prod some consciences," and so he decided that he "could at least attempt to heat up the coals."
He also devoted his energies to making it possible for the "Hiroshima maidens"--a group of young women who suffered varying degrees of disfiguration as a result of the atomic blast--to receive plastic surgery in the United States. To his mind, the atomic bombs were not dropped on an enemy country, but on all humankind. He expounded this view in a Saturday Review editorial titled "Modern Man Is Obsolete," proclaiming that on August 6, 1945--the day the atomic bomb was used for the first time against human beings--a new age was born.
With the dropping of the atomic bomb, wars between nations now took on a far more fearful dimension. Nations could no longer guarantee the safety of their own citizens--any aggressive move could spell destruction for the entire human race, including the aggressor. This led him to declare, "The greatest obsolescence of all in the Atomic Age is national sovereignty." Thus, it was vital that humanity change to keep pace with this decisive change--in a "transformation or adjustment from national man to world man." He pointed out the need for far-reaching transitions--from nationalism to humanitarianism, from national benefit to global benefit, from world warriors to world citizens, from competition to cooperation.
This editorial was written on August 18, 1945--a mere 12 days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. From that time on, often in the face of stiff opposition, he argued courageously for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Dr. Cousins was committed to giving others courage; he could not turn a blind eye to those in despair, to those most in need of hope. Why? I believe that his actions can be traced to his own struggle with illness as a child. At the age of 10, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium. That was in the 1920s, when tuberculosis was still a deadly disease. He saw many lose the battle with illness, but he noticed a strange thing. Though two patients might be in the same condition medically, the one who was confident of recovery was far more likely to actually recover. That observation led him to realize the power of hope.
There are circumstances where even imagining oneself leading an ordinary life--having a job, creating a family--is impossible unless one summons forth incredible reserves of hope. This was true for the Hiroshima maidens, for the Polish women victimized by the Nazis and for the young Norman Cousins as well. A person who has not experienced the terrible uncertainty of life, Dr. Cousins later observed, cannot know how important hope really is.
Pursuing this power of hope to its ultimate degree became Dr. Cousins' life. He built not one dream, but a whole raft of dreams for the future. In this age of increasing specialization, he aimed to be a complete human being, like the giants of the Renaissance. The scale of his achievements is in proportion to the power of his hope. Those who have experienced that kind of power can never again put limits on their own potential.
As a senior lecturer at the School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he had a great influence on research into the relationship of mind to body. According to Dr. Cousins, we human beings have, in addition to our various physiological systems such as the circulatory, nervous and immune systems, two other equally important systems: the healing system and the belief system. The healing system functions to mobilize all the body's resources to fight illness, while the belief system works with it to achieve that goal. The positive spiritual activities of the belief system--hope, the will to live, a feeling of confidence and serenity, love, a sense of mission or personal purpose and optimism--help activate the healing system and the complex pharmacology that is the human body. His insight reminds me that my dear mentor, Josei Toda, second president of the Soka Gakkai, also likened the human body to a giant pharmaceuticals plant.
Dr. Cousins survived a life-threatening connective-tissue disease when he was 50, and recovered from a cardiac infarction at 65. He said that when the doctors told him he had no chance of recovery, he felt a tremendous energy rise within him, a powerful determination to beat his illness. He relished the prospect so much that a smile came to his face. He later wrote: "Nothing is more wondrous about the fifteen billion neurons in the human brain than their ability to convert thoughts, hopes, ideas, and attitudes into chemical substances. Everything begins, therefore, with belief." The moment one thinks, "It's all over," the body follows that order from the brain and starts to give up. As a result, we can either let our lives be a story of "I couldn't do it because I didn't try," or one of "I could do it solely because I tried."
The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima
This perspective has much in common with Buddhism. Learning of Dr. Cousins's ideas, I couldn't help but recall my mentor's words that the advance of science would increasingly validate Buddhist theory. The brain has enormous untapped reserves. We are all potential geniuses. The motivation of my own life has also been to demonstrate just how much one individual can achieve.
I heard the news of Dr. Cousins's death a mere 10 days after I received his introduction to our dialogue, Sekai shimin no taiwa (Dialogue Between World Citizens), in November 1990. I still remember vividly his shining eyes--as bright as an eagle's, yet at the same time warm and comforting. Having prolonged his life several times in the face of illness, he had reached the worthy age of 75. His life is a call to all of us: "Never give up! Never believe you are powerless! Put your precious gift of life to its fullest and most valuable use!"
I believe we can see now that Dr. Cousins, whose life spanned the 20th century, was actually a man of the 21st.
