HBM027: Balancing Act
Here Be Monsters
Here Be Monsters Podcast
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2013
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For thousands of years, Western Medicine thought it had itself figured out. Everything came in fours. There were four sensations, four fluids in the body, four kinds of people, and four elements making up the world. They were all related. There wasn’t one without the other. Everything was a balancing act, and it was called Humorism.
In recent history, vaccines, sterilization, and other modern treatments have pushed Humorism out of the picture. But traditions ingrained in culture, science, and religion for thousands of years don’t just vanish. While few people still eat lemons to balance their yellow bile, or willingly drain their blood at the barber shop, elements of Humorism still play into modern society. They can be hard to see, but trust us, they’re here.
Music from: Lucky Dragons ||| Nym ||| The Black Spot
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So if you can go through and just read the person's name and the trait that you've written about them. |
| 0:05.0 | Uh, Flagmatic Challeric for Brandon. |
| 0:09.0 | Uh, Challeric for Kirk S. S. S. S. S. S. S. Sanguine melancholy, Andrew C. |
| 0:16.4 | This guy Colonel Spitler, |
| 0:18.6 | he was coming around to different troops |
| 0:20.6 | pitching this through his Boy Scout troop, one that promised to churn out leaders. |
| 0:34.3 | We were just fascinated by this whole thing. |
| 0:36.5 | We had never heard anything like it. |
| 0:38.2 | The boys thought it seemed exciting, |
| 0:40.1 | this new secret way to understand themselves and the control they could have over groups |
| 0:46.3 | just by learning four basic things about human personality and it was just like oh my god this is so interesting and this is how this is how people work and it's almost like a cheat sheet sort of. |
| 0:57.5 | It felt really cool like we were exploring a new way of looking at things. |
| 1:01.0 | At that time, Peter and the other scouts didn't know that this was different from the dozens |
| 1:05.5 | of other leadership trainings for youth. |
| 1:08.5 | This training wasn't dreamt up by some social scientist or self-help author. |
| 1:13.7 | Instead, this particular training dates back to before the birth of Christ. |
| 1:18.5 | It's actually a modern rehashing of the same theory that brought us bloodletting and medical leeches. |
| 1:25.0 | A melancholy flagmatic, Ricky. Perfectionist totally abandoned efforts due to minor mistakes. |
| 1:39.0 | This episode of Here Be Monsters is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio. |
| 1:45.6 | For a free trial and for 10% off your first purchase, go to Squarespace.com and use the offer code |
| 1:51.6 | Monsters Nine. and use the offer code monsters nine. |
| 1:54.0 | And just before the show starts I want to throw two big thank yous out there. |
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