November 2020 – INQUIRIM VITAE

Propaganda and Persuasion – Garth S. Jewett

For American propaganda abroad, opinion leaders are a target. In the Middle East, for example, the masses can be reached indirectly through the culturally elite 10% of the population.

“The manipulation of popular impulse propaganda and thought by professional politicians.” Graham Wallas. In America, opinion leaders are usually professionals who are respected by the public (e.g., doctors, outstanding athletes, celebrities). Some audience members accept the message more eagerly than others; some reject it. A French fable reminds us, “Man is like a rabbit; you catch him by the ears.” Musical anthems and patriotic songs.
The analyst should see what visual images are presented through pictures; symbols; graphics; colors; filmed, televised, and Internet representations; books; pamphlets; and newspapers. Also, verbal innovations need to be examined for information, slogans, and emotional arousal techniques. The analyst should go beyond interpretation of the message to a closer scrutiny of the ways the message is presented in the media.

What is the overall impression left with the audience? Essentially, how are the visual and verbal messages consistent with the ideology? The book, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (Hall, 1997), is an excellent resource for understanding the codes and systems of representation and interpreting their meanings.
The analyst needs to be aware of unusual and unsavory media utilization as well. In 1954, for example, China began to send opium to Thailand to promote addiction, dependency, passivity, and lethargy, thus rendering a group of people susceptible to takeover.
According to Noam Chomsky (1992), Western intervention against the Soviet Union dur- ing the Cold War was warranted by language: “Language that was used in the West was that ‘the rot may spread’ and the ‘virus’ may ‘infect’ others” (p. 141).

Positive terms may mask the actual intent of government bills and laws. During the second Bush administration, environmentalists decried the “Clean Air Act” that softened controls on air pollution and the “Healthy Forests Initiative” that increased timber cutting.
In wartime, the enemy is often symbolized as subhuman or animal-like to soften the killing process linguistically. Metaphors of hunting down animals or exterminating vermin were common in the rhetoric of both sides during World War II.
Exaggeration is often associated with propaganda. Goebbels said that outrageous charges evoked more belief than milder statements. A great deal of exaggeration is associated with the language of advertising. Everything is the “best there is,” and “satisfaction is guaranteed.” During the Cold War, the Soviets called Americans “imperialists” but referred to the Soviet Union as the “camp of peace and democracy.”
Innuendo is also associated with propaganda, implying an accusation without risking refutation by saying it causes people to draw conclusions. If one says, “The captain was sober today,” an audience might draw the conclusion that she or he is usually drunk.
Institute for Propaganda Analysis (see Chapter 5). Propaganda is too complex to limit its techniques to a short list.

The Context in Which the Propaganda Occurs: The Medicalization of Society
We live in a health-obsessed culture with daily news concerning break- throughs in disease treatment and prevention. We are told what foods are healthy and which vitamins are good for us. Obesity is being fought, and frequent exercise is recommended. Advertisements tell us that there is a drug for every ailment. A House of Commons report in England announced: “What has been described as the medicalization of society-the belief that every problem requires medical treatment-may also be attributed in part to the activities of the pharmaceutical industry” (The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, 2005, p. 3). Pharmaceuticals play an important role in the culture, and the drug companies have become social phenomena determined by government, regulatory agencies, industry, health organizations, professional organizations, universities, patient groups, doctors, patients, and financial markets. Britten (2008) argued “medicalization is a means by which professionals exert social control. Pharmaceutical companies have much to gain from redefining social problems as medical and have been accused of disease mongering to create new markets for their products” (p. 112).

Pharmaceutical companies are also a major part of the global economy. Petersen (2008) discussed an economic pattern that started in 2000 when buying and selling stocks became a boom as day-traders found ways to make money via the Internet. Pharmaceutical companies offered fast growth with little risk because their profits had been two times greater than those in the market for the past 20 years. The so-called “new” drugs that were amassing big profits were actually older drugs with new names and marketing campaigns. This is known as “condition branding,” a widely used marketing technique for selling drugs. “Condition branders,” according to Shannon Brownlee, use ‘information’ about medical conditions to forge links between disease and treatment in the minds of both patients and doctors. If companies have a drug but no condition, they will simply invent a disease” (Brownlee, 2008, p. 25). Brownlee cites such invented diseases as “pre-high blood pressure” and “pre-diabetes.” The ads turn mild problems and common complaints into serious diseases, for example, shyness becomes a “social anxiety disorder,” and premenstrual tension becomes “premenstrual dysphoric disorder.” Barry Brand, the product director for Paxil, a drug for social anxiety and shyness, said, “Every marketer’s dream is to find an audience.”

Counter-propaganda: Two groups have organized to oppose Big Pharma’s practices: Pharmed Out is an independent project with a mission to counter inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion practices. Its webpage (https://www.pharmedout.out) has up-to-date information on prescription drug issues. No Free Lunch was founded in 2000 by Dr. Bob Goodman of Columbia University Medical Center to educate consumers and to get doctors to pledge not to accept gifts from pharmaceutical representatives. Many doctors and former pharmaceutical insiders have become vocal in opposing drug marketing. The Association of American Medical Colleges has been working on a model policy to govern the relationships between the 129 U.S. medical schools and the drug industry. The policy includes a ban on free food, gifts, travel, ghostwriting, and drug industry-sponsored speakers. Medical school students, such as those at Harvard, have secured requirements for professors to disclose their drug industry ties (D. Wilson, 2009). Research hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School have imposed restrictions on outside pay for senior officials who are on the boards of pharmaceutical companies (D. Wilson, 2010). The U.S. Justice Department has fined Pfizer $2.3 billion for civil and criminal practices, for promoting drugs for unapproved uses by taking doc- tors to resorts, paying their expenses, and providing perks (Associated Press, 2009).

Cigarettes are Sublime – Simon Leys

“As smoking is going out of fashion, insanity is growing more frequent.” Samuel Johnson. Today, the manic fanatismo of the anti-smoking lobby eloquently confirms the accuracy of this observation. I always instinctively opt for the smoking section in coffee shops, waiting rooms, restaurants and other public places: the company is better, In one respect, smokers do enjoy a spiritual superiority over non-smokers – or, at least, they possess one significant advantage: they are more immediately aware of our common mortality. On this particular point, they certainly owe the anti-smoking lobby a debt of gratitude. The warnings that, by law, must now be printed on all tobacco products unwittingly echo a beautiful ancient ritual of the Catholic Church: on Ash Wednesday, as every faithful is marked on the forehead with the blessed ashes, the priest reminds him , “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Most of the time, modernity endeavours to blunt or to obliterate this awareness of mortality. It should not be confused with a morbid cult of death – which is abhorrent to Christian humanism. (Viva la muerte! Was an obscene fascist slogan when one of Franco’s generals launched it at the beginning of the SpanishCivil War. Unamuno – who was then at the end of his life – denounced it in a speech of sublime passion); on the contrary, this awareness is a celebration of life. Mozart confessed in a letter that the thought that death accompanied him every day, and that it was the deep source from which all his creation sprang. I do not mean that the inspiration which can be drawn from the ominous warnings issued by official Health and Correct thinking agencies will turn all smokers into new Mozart’s, but they will certainly endow smoking with a new seduction – if not metaphysical meaning. I confess when I look at them, I am seriously tempted to buy cigarettes again.

Aldous Huxley, The Most Beautiful Death

The period from the 15th to the 22nd marked, it seems to me, a period of intense mental activity for Aldous Huxley.

We had diminished, little by little, all the tranquillizers he had been taking four times a day, a drug called Sperine which is akin, I understand, to Thorazin. We had diminished it practically to nothing.

And only used painkillers like Percodon, a little Amitol and something for nausea.

He took also a few injections of 1/2 cc of Dilaudid, which is a derivative of morphine, which gave him many dreams.

During the last two months I gave him almost daily an opportunity, an opening for speaking about death.

We read the entire manual of Dr. Leary extracted from The Book of the Dead.

Then about nine a.m. Aldous began to be so agitated, so uncomfortable, so desperate really. He wanted to be moved all the time. Nothing was right. Dr. Bernstein came about that time and decided to give him a shot which he had given him once before, something that you give intravenously, very slowly – it takes five minutes to give the shot, and it is a drug that dilates the bronchial tubes, so that respiration is easier.

This drug made him uncomfortable the time before, it must have been three Fridays before, when he had that crisis I wrote you about. But then it helped him. This time it was quite terrible. He couldn’t express himself but he was feeling dreadul, nothing was right, no position was right. I tried to ask him what was occurring. He had difficulty in speaking, but he managed to say, “Just trying to tell you makes it worse.” He wanted to be moved all the time – “Move me.” “Move my legs.” “Move my arms.” “Move my bed.” I had one of those push-button beds, which moved up and down both from the head and the feet, and incessantly, at times, I would have him go up and down, up and down by pushing buttons. We did this again, and somehow it seemed to give him a little relief. but it was very, very little.

If I die.” This was the first time that he had said that with reference to NOW. He wrote it. I knew and felt that for the first time he was looking at this. About a half an hour before I had called up Sidney Cohen, a psychiatrist who has been one of the leaders in the use of LSD. I had asked him if he had ever given LSD to a man in this condition. He said he had only done it twice actually, and in one case it had brought up a sort of reconciliation with Death, and in the other case it did not make any difference.

I knew that he knew that he was going. However, this inability to express himself was only muscular – his brain was clear and in fact, I feel, at a pitch of activity.

He wrote, “Try LSD 100 intramuscular”.

The TV which had just announced the shooting of Kennedy.

The doctor said, “All right, at this point what is the difference

I gave him his first shot of 100 micrograms of LSD.

It was 11:20 when I gave him his first shot of 100 microgrammes. I sat near his bed and I said, “Darling, maybe in a little while I will take it with you. Would you like me to take it also in a little while?” I said a little while because I had no idea of when I should or could take it, in fact I have not been able to take it to this writing because of the condition around me. And he indicated “yes.” We must keep in mind that by now he was speaking very, very little. Then I said, “Would you like Matthew to take it with you also? And he said, “Yes.” “What about Ellen?” He said, “Yes.” Then I mentioned two or three people who had been working with LSD and he said, “No, no, basta, basta.” Then I said, “What about Jinny?” And he said, “Yes,” with emphasis. Then we were quiet. I just sat there without speaking for a while. Aldous was not so agitated physically. He seemed – somehow I felt he knew, we both knew what we were doing, and this has always been a great relief to Aldous. I have seen him at times during his illness very upset until he knew what he was going to do, then even if it was an operation or X-ray, he would make a total change. This enormous feeling of relief would come to him, and he wouldn’t be worried at all about it, he would say let’s do it, and we would go to it and he was like a liberated man. And now I had the same feeling – a decision had been made, he made the decision again very quickly. Suddenly he had accepted the fact of death; he had taken this moksha medicine in which he believed. He was doing what he had written in ISLAND, and I had the feeling that he was interested and relieved and quiet. I let another half hour pass, and then I decided to give him another 100 mg. I told him I was going to do it, and he acquiesced. I gave him another shot, and then I began to talk to him. He was very quiet now; he was very quiet and his legs were getting colder; higher and higher I could see purple areas of cynosis.

Then I began to talk to him, saying, “Light and free,” Some of these thing I told him at night in these last few weeks before he would go to sleep, and now I said it more convincingly, more intensely – “go, go, let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going towards the light. Willing and consciously you are going, willingly and consciously, and you are doing this beautifully; you are doing this so beautifully – you are going towards the light; you are going towards a greater love; you are going forward and up. It is so easy; it is so beautiful. You are doing it so beautifully, so easily. Light and free. Forward and up. You are going towards Maria’s love with my love. You are going towards a greater love than you have ever known.

Now from two o’clock until the time he died, which was five-twenty, there was complete peace except for once. That must have been about three-thirty or four, when I saw the beginning of struggle in his lower lip. His lower lip began to move as if it were going to be a struggle for air. Then I gave the direction even more forcefully. “It is easy, and you are doing this beautifully and willingly and consciously, in full awareness, in full awareness, darling, you are going towards the light.” I repeated these or similar words for the last three or four hours. Once in a while my own emotion would overcome me, but if it did I immediately would leave the bed for two or three minutes, and would come back only when I could dismiss my emotion. The twitching of the lower lip lasted only a little bit, and it seemed to respond completely to what I was saying. “Easy, easy, and you are doing this willingly and consciously and beautifully – going forward and up, light anf free, forward and up towards the light, into the light, into complete love.” The twitching stopped, the breating became slower and slower, and there was absolutely not the slightest indication of contraction, of struggle. it was just that the breathing became slower – and slower – and slower, and at five-twenty the breathing stopped.

I had been warned in the morning that there might be some up-setting convulsions towards the end, or some sort of contraction of the lungs, and noises. People had been trying to prepare me for some horrible physical reaction that would probably occur. None of this happened, actually the ceasing of the breathing was not a drama at all, because it was done so slowly, so gently, like a piece of music just finishing in a sempre piu piano dolcemente. I had the feeling actually that the last hour of breathing was only the conditioned reflex of the body that had been used to doing this for 69 years, millions and millions of times. There was not the feeling that with the last breath, the spirit left. It had just been gently leaving for the last four hours. In the room the last four hours were two doctors, Jinny, the nurse, Rosalind Roger Gopal – you know she is the great friend of Krishnamurti, and the directress of the school in Ojai for which Aldous did so much. They didn’t seem to hear what I was saying. I thought I was speaking loud enough, but they said they didn’t hear it. Rosalind and Jinny once in a while came near the bed and held Aldous’ hand. These five people all said that this was the most serene, the most beautiful death. Both doctors and nurse said they had never seen a person in similar physical condition going off so completely without pain and without struggle.

We will never know if all this is only our wishful thinking, or if it is real, but certainly all outward signs and the inner feeling gave indication that it was beautiful and peaceful and easy.

Aldous’asking for moksha medicine while dying is a confirmation of his work, and as such is of importance not only to us, but to the world. It is true we will have some people saying that he was a drug addict all his life and that he ended as one, but it is history that Huxleys stop ignorance before ignorance can stop Huxleys.