Brownstone Institute
The Post-Ideological Age
Fr0m the Brownstone Institute
Conventional wisdom has it that the US and much of the Western world has polarized into right and left. These tribes are hard-core and share mutual loathing. That model of understanding pervades all popular media and consumes the culture, such that everyone feels the need to choose. It’s simple, harkens back to Cold War binaries, drums up media attention, and further divides the population in ways that benefit the leaders of both sides.
The reality underneath the surface is otherwise. The old ideologies are fractured and most serious people are trying to piece together something other than the old frameworks. The turning was slow at first, probably beginning at the end of the Cold War, but culminated in the response to the Covid crisis. Despite the claim, left and right have never been more scrambled. The reassembling is also occurring right now but it looks much more like the ruling class vs everyone else.
The Covid policy response confounded every ideological outlook. For the center-left that had always trusted public health, seeing the principles of 100 years shredded in an instant was a shock. For the center-right, to see the Republicans in power acquiesce to the idea of “shutting down the economy” was truly hard to believe. The concerns of the traditional civil libertarians, including free speech, were trampled. Those who had traditionally rallied around the rights and interests of business big and small watched with horror as Big Business joined the lockdown armies and small businesses were crushed. The believers in science as a standard of truth to rise above it all were astonished to see every journal and every association compromised by state priorities.
As for nearly everyone who believed that we still lived in a representative democracy, in which elected leaders held the power, they were astonished to watch as politicians became fearful and powerless over the many layers of entrenched bureaucratic experts in government, the deepest layers of which seem to be taking charge over traditional civilian agencies. The people who had always regarded pharma as constantly foiled by the FDA watched in amazement as these vaccine-wielding powerhouses called the shots over all approval processes.
As the dissidents began to cut through the censorship that was almost immediate in the spring of 2020, we discovered a fascinating thing. Our traditional allies were not with us. I’ve heard this from the right, left, and libertarians all. Whether in academia or media, no one was speaking out in ways we might have expected. As Naomi Wolf put it in a private seminar, in words that shocked me at the time, “all our past alliances, institutions, and networks have collapsed.”
There was something about the excuse for the imposition of sudden despotism that seemed to confound all the main voices on all sides. That was a clue that something was very wrong, and it was more than betrayal. It was a sign that we had profoundly misunderstood the intellectual lay of the land.
One might have supposed that church leaders would protest the closing of houses of worship. For the most part, they did not. It was the same with old-line civil liberties organizations. They fell silent. The Libertarian Party had nothing to say and neither did most libertarian think tanks; even now the party’s standard bearer was fully in with the lockdown program when it mattered. The left fell in line and so did the right. Indeed, major “conservative” outlets weighed in on behalf of lockdowns and vaccine mandates – same as the traditional “liberal” outlets.
And what did the dissidents have in common? They were concerned with evidence, science, calm, and traditional law and liberty. Crucially, they were in a career position to say something about the problem. That is to say, most of the dissidents were not in a position of dependency on the major systems of power and influence, whether in the nonprofit world, academia, Big Media and Tech, and otherwise. They spoke out because they cared and because they were in a position to do so.
Gradually over the months and years, we have found each other. And what have we found? We’ve discovered that people who were seemingly on different sides solely due to branding of the past had far more in common than we thought.
And as a result, and partly because we were now in a position to trust each other more than we might otherwise, we began to listen to each other. More importantly, we have begun to learn from each other, discovering all the ways in which our previous tribal connections had blinded us to realities that we had right before us the whole time but we simply could not see.
As an example, many on the left who had long defended the rise of government power as a check on the depredations of private business were amazed to see these very powers turned against the classes of people whose interests they had long defended, namely the poor and working classes. If nothing else, the pandemic response was a prime example of class exploitation of the people on behalf of the economic, cultural, and political elites.
Conversely, those of us who had long championed the rights of business were forced to look squarely at the reality that the largest corporations, heavily consolidated after decades of loose credit, were working so closely with government as if there really was no difference between the public and private sector. Indeed it was hard to tell the difference.
Those who had long championed the rights of media against elite attacks discovered that there really was very little difference between mainstream corporate media and government public relations departments, who in turn were carrying water for the most powerful corporations that stood to gain trillions from the whole caper.
Watching all this unfold in real time was an astonishing experience. Above all else, it was intellectually disorienting. And so those of us who care about holding an accurate understanding of the world had to regroup, draw on what we knew to be true which was confirmed but rethinking postulates and dogmas we assumed to be true but which turned out to be false in the emergency.
Yes, these days have ended, at least for now, but they leave a vast carnage of old ideological systems in the dustbin of history. Part of the job of Brownstone Institute, and perhaps even our main job, is to figure out the operations of the world in a realistic way, backed by evidence and the best theory, toward finding our way back to the fundamental principles that have built civilization over the centuries. That goal is inseparable from the very idea of rights, and public institutions that are responsive to the people.
What we have learned is that our ideological system not only didn’t protect us; they could not even fully explain the strange realities that unfolded.
Everyone in the dissident community agrees fully with the main theme of The Lord of the Rings: power is the great killer of the human spirit. Our job is to figure out who has that power, how to dismantle it, and the right path to preventing something like this from ever happening again. And by “something like this,” we mean everything: the exploitation, the restrictions on peaceful behavior, the agency capture and corporate aggression, the censorship and betrayal of the promise of the information age, the crushing of property rights and enterprise, and the violation of bodily autonomy.
In our quieter moments, all of us are wondering how we could have been so confused about the ideological bifurcations of the past. Why were we so entrenched in them? And to what extent did those ideologies create an artificial veneer over the growing problems underneath the binary overlay? This was surely the case and it went on for decades.
We think back now on populist movements of the past and see how many of them, whether ostensibly from the right or left, ultimately came from the same place, the perception that the system was being run by something or someone other than is being advertised. The Occupy Wall Street movement ultimately came from the same instincts as the Truckers Revolt in Canada that came some twelve years later, and yet one is called left and one is called right.
It is impossible to separate the BLM protests and sometimes riots from reaction against being locked up for the better part of two months from a virus that was known to be a threat mainly to the aged and infirm. That unleashed predictable anger that was often deeply destructive. And the shock and outrage at the vaccine and mask mandates stemmed from the same basic impulse: the human desire not to live in cages of someone else’s creation but rather be in charge of our own bodies and lives.
It’s the same with the anti-censorship movements today, and the growing nationalist movements around the world that wonder whether or not nation-states even have authority anymore to control the massive and hegemonic global forces that seem to be pulling the strings behind the scenes.
All these shifts in the firmament of opinion and politics come from the same place: the desire to take back control of our lives.
This means many things. It includes causes that many on the right have neglected: food freedom, medical freedom, corporate consolidation, the rise of the corporate state, private-sector censorship pushed by agency outsourcing, the militarization of civilian agencies, and deep-state power. And the same is true for the honest left, newly aware of the corruption of government, the rights of religious freedom and free enterprise, the evils of central banking and financial surveillance, and far more.
Looking back, much more makes sense. Consider the domestic discontent in the US that culminated in the implausible election of Donald Trump in 2016, an event that confounded the elite classes in media, government, tech, and pharma. Trump stood in symbolic opposition to it all and took some minor steps toward rolling back the empire at home and abroad. He was joined in this effort by political trends in the UK (with Brexit) and Brazil (with the rise of Bolsonaro). A new flavor of populism seemed to be on the rise.
There were many attempts to crush it here and abroad, starting far back but intensifying after 2016. The culminating moment was the Covid regime which was global in scope and involved a “whole of society” approach as if to say: we and not you are in charge. Look what we can achieve! Observe how little you really matter in the scheme of things! You thought the system worked for you but it is designed and run by us!
Is this sustainable? It is highly doubtful, at least not in the long term. What is desperately needed now is a paradigm of understanding that transcends the tribal alliances of the past. It really is the ruling elite vs. everyone else, an outlook that blows apart ideological divisions of the past and cries out for a new comprehension of the present moment, not to mention new plans of action. And this remains true regardless of the outcome of the election in November.
In the language of Thomas Kuhn, our times have seen the decisive collapse of old paradigms. They have fallen under the weight of too many anomalies. We have already entered into the pre-paradigmatic stage that seeks a new and more evidence-based orthodoxy of understanding. The only way we can get there is to enter into and enjoy the clash of ideas, in a spirit of freedom and learning. If nothing else, these are exciting times to be alive and active, an opportunity for all of us to make a difference for the future.
If you are interested in supporting the work of Brownstone Institute – the fellowships, events, books, retreats, and ongoing journalism and research – we invite you to do so. Unlike so many others, we have no government or corporate backing and depend entirely on your willingness to help. This is how we save intellectual integrity and how we save the world.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
No data is 100% secure, and this is mental health data. Data that might be extremely embarrassing, career-damaging, or has the potential to disrupt family relationships. Remember, no one knows what new laws, regulations, or more might come to pass years from now.
True Story: The Health app built into iPhones is now collecting as much personal information on the mental health of each and every one of us as they can get a hold of.
Yet, a search on Google and Brave yielded no results on the dangers of sharing such information over the phone or the internet. Seriously, no single MSM has done an article on why such data sharing might be a bad idea?
To start, in sharing such data, you aren’t just sharing your information; iPhone knows exactly who your family members are. In many cases, those phones are connected via family plans.
iPhone mental health assessments not only ask questions about your mental health but can also infer the mental health status of family members, as demonstrated by the image publicly shared by phone on the benefits of a phone mental health assessment.
What could possibly go wrong?
Although the iPhone has historically been known to keep user data “safe,” this is not a given, and there have been hacks and data breaches over the years.
CrowdStrike happened – from just a simple coding error. In 2015, all of my confidential data given to the DoD and the FBI in order to get a security clearance was harvested by the Chinese government, when they hacked into the government’s “super-secret,” and “super-secure” government data storage site. In response, the government offered me a credit report and monitoring of my credit score for a year. Yeah – thanks.
The bottom line – no data is 100% secure, and this is mental health data. Data that might be extremely embarrassing, career-damaging, or has the potential to disrupt family relationships. Remember, no one knows what new laws, regulations, or more might come to pass years from now. This type of information should not be harvested and stored.
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Furthermore, trusting that Apple will never sell that data or pass it off to research groups is very naive. In fact, mental health data is already being mined.
Apple has partnered with various health organizations and academic institutions to conduct health-related studies, such as Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of Michigan on various health studies. Apple also collaborates with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on a Digital Mental Health Study. This study likely utilizes data collected through Apple devices to investigate mental health patterns and outcomes. Trusting that the user identifiers have been completely stripped before that data is passed on is a risk that one takes when entering such information into an iPhone.
“Connect with resources.”
So how does Apple benefit? At this time, it appears that Apple is selling advertising of various mental health services by “connecting” services to people’s phones. Apple writes that “These assessments can help users determine their risk level, connect to resources available in their region, and create a PDF to share with their doctor.”
That might mean that if one presses the depressed button in the mental health assessment, Apple will place ads on the search engine for anti-depressants or physicians that prescribe them.
Why would that example be relevant, and which pharmaceutical companies might benefit?
iPhone has developed their mental health assessment with an “educational grant” from Pfizer!
Pfizer manufactures and sells Zoloft, Effexor, Pristiq, and Sinequan formulations. Together the sales revenue for these drugs is in the billions each year:
From 2015 to 2018, 13.2% of American adults reported taking antidepressant medication within the past 30 days, with sertraline (Zoloft) being one of the most common. Even off-patent, there were 39.2 million prescriptions filled with an annual sales revenue of 470 million.
Effexor XR is an antidepressant medication that was originally developed by Wyeth (now part of Pfizer). In 2010, when the first generic version of Effexor XR was introduced in the United States, the brand name product had annual sales of approximately $2.75 billion. By 2013, due to generic competition, Pfizer’s sales of Effexor XR dropped to $440 million.
According to IMS Health data, in 2016, Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) had annual sales of approximately $883 million in the United States, although sales appear to have fluctuated over the years.
The bottom line is that Pfizer is not supplying educational grants to develop mental health assessment software for Apple out of the “goodness of their heart.” Mental health inventions via medication are a big business, and these companies are looking to profit.
This is just one way that Apple is using surveillance capitalism by data mining mental health status and then selling access to that data to Big Pharma, Big Tech, physician and insurance companies, etc.
How this information, which once released or leaked, can never be returned with privacies intact, will be used in the future is unknown.
If the setting for sharing research on health conditions has not been deactivated, this information will go into a database somewhere. It is only Apple’s assurance that your identification has been stripped from the data. Further, your mental health information will be uploaded to the cloud and will be used as a behavioral future. To be shared, packaged, sold, used to influence your decision-making, etc.
I am wary of the highly profitable industry that has been built up around “mental disorders.” Over the years, the American Psychiatric Association and the fields of psychology and psychiatry have hurt individuals and families by both classifying diseases and disorders incorrectly and by developing treatments and therapies that were and are dangerous. Many are still in use. Here are a few examples:
- There are estimates that 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States, with most occurring between 1949 and 1952. In 1949, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to António Egas Moniz for his development of the lobotomy procedure.
- Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in 1952 with the publication of the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I) by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It was listed under “sociopathic personality disturbance.” This classification remained in place until 1973.
- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a widely prescribed class of antidepressant medications. There is a link between SSRIs and increased risk of violent crime convictions, and other research has shown an increase in self-harm and aggression in children and adolescents taking SSRIs.
- The APA supports access to affirming and supportive treatment for “transgendered” children, including mental health services, puberty suppression and medical transition support.
- The APA believes that gender identity develops in early childhood, and some children may not identify with their assigned sex at birth.
- Asperger’s syndrome was merged into the broader category of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the DSM-5 in 2013. Since then, a large number of people have faced discrimination and barriers to entry into higher-paying positions. Children handed such a diagnosis also can suffer a lack of confidence in their ability to manage relationships effectively, which can easily carry on to adulthood.
These are just a few of the many, many ways the American Psychiatric Association and the fields of psychology and psychiatry have gotten things very wrong.
- A survey of more than 500 social and personality psychologists published in 2012 found that only 6 percent identified as conservative overall, implying that 94% were liberal or moderate.
- At a 2011 Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting, when attendees were asked to identify their political views, only three hands out of about a thousand went up for “conservative” or on the right.
The liberal bias in psychology influences findings on conservative behaviors.
To bring this back to the use of software applications and the iPhone mental health app in particular, be aware that these software programs are being developed by people with a liberal bias and who will view the beliefs of conservatives negatively. What this means for future use of this data is unknown, but it can’t be good.
If you do choose to use the mental health applications, which mainstream media has nothing but praise for, be aware – there are alligators in those waters.
But sure that the data sharing mode, particularly giving data access to researchers is turned off. But even then, don’t be surprised if your phone begins planting messages about the benefits, SSRIs, or other anti-depressant drugs into your everyday searches. Or maybe your alcohol use or tobacco use data will be used to supply you with advertisements on the latest ways to reduce intake or how to find a good mental health facility. These messages may very well include neuro-linguistic programming methods and nudging, to push you into treatment modalities. But honestly, it is all for your “own good and for the benefit of your family.”
Now, the iPhone and the watch can be valuable tools. The EKG, blood oxygen, and heart rate monitoring are fantastic tools for those who suffer from cardiac disorders. I have found them to be extremely helpful.
My wife, Jill is often motivated by getting more walking steps each week via her iWatch tracker.
Just be aware that these programs can be invasive. Data is never 100% secure and it is being used. We just don’t know all the details.
Republished from the author’s Substack
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
It was one of those conversations you never forget. We were discussing – of all things – the Covid injections, and I was questioning the early ‘safe and effective’ claims put forward by the pharmaceutical industry. I felt suspicious of how quickly we had arrived at that point of seeming consensus despite a lack of long-term safety data. I do not trust the pharmaceutical industry. My colleague did not agree, and I felt my eyes widen as he said, “I don’t think they would do anything dodgy.” Clearly, my colleague had not read the medical history books. This conversation slapped me out of my own ignorance that Big Pharma’s rap sheet was well-known in the profession. It isn’t.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at the history of illegal and fraudulent dealings by players in the pharmaceutical industry; an industry that has way more power and influence than we give them credit for.
Before I continue, a word (not from our sponsor). There are many people working in this industry who have good intentions towards improving healthcare for patients, dedicating their lives to finding a cure or treatment for disease. Some therapeutic pharmaceuticals are truly life-saving. I probably wouldn’t be here today were it not for a couple of life-saving drugs (that’s a story for another time). But we must be very clear in our understanding. The pharmaceutical industry, as a whole and by its nature, is conflicted and significantly driven by the mighty dollar, rather than altruism.
There are many players and different games being played by the industry. We ignore these at our peril. The rap sheet of illegal activities is alarming. It seems that barely a month goes by without some pharmaceutical company in court, somewhere. Criminal convictions are common and fines tally into the billions. Civil cases, with their million-dollar settlements, are abundant too.
A 2020 peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association outlines the extent of the problem. The group studied both the type of illegal activity and financial penalties imposed on pharma companies between the years 2003 and 2016. Of the companies studied, 85 percent (22 of 26) had received financial penalties for illegal activities with a total combined dollar value of $33 billion. The illegal activities included manufacturing and distributing adulterated drugs, misleading marketing, failure to disclose negative information about a product (i.e. significant side effects including death), bribery to foreign officials, fraudulently delaying market entry of competitors, pricing and financial violations, and kickbacks.
When expressed as a percentage of revenue, the highest penalties were awarded to Schering-Plough, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Allergan, and Wyeth. The biggest overall fines have been paid by GSK (almost $10 billion), Pfizer ($2.9 billion), Johnson & Johnson ($2.6 billion), and other familiar names including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Merck, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, Sanofi Aventis, and Wyeth. It’s quite a list, and many of the Big Pharma players are repeat offenders.
Prosecuting these companies is no mean feat. Cases often drag for years, making the avenue of justice and resolution inaccessible to all but the well-funded, persistent, and steadfast. If a case is won, pharma’s usual response is to appeal to a higher court and start the process again. One thing is clear; taking these giants to court requires nerves of steel, a willingness to surrender years of life to the task, and very deep pockets.
For every conviction, there are countless settlements, the company agreeing to pay out, but making no admission of guilt. A notable example is the S35 million settlement made, after 15 years of legal maneuvering, by Pfizer in a Nigerian case that alleged the company had experimented on 200 children without their parent’s knowledge or consent.
Reading through the case reports, the pattern of behavior is reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day with the same games being played by different companies as if they are following some kind of unwritten playbook.
Occasionally there is a case that lifts the lid on these playbook strategies, revealing the influence of the pharma industry and the lengths they are willing to go to, to turn a profit. The Australian Federal Court case Peterson v Merck Sharpe and Dohme, involving the manufacturer of the drug Vioxx, is a perfect example.
By way of background, Vioxx (the anti-arthritis drug Rofecoxib) was alleged to have caused an increased risk of cardiovascular conditions including heart attack and stroke. It was launched in 1999 and, at peak popularity, was used by up to 80 million people worldwide, marketed as a safer alternative to traditional anti-inflammatory drugs with their troublesome gastrointestinal side effects.
In Peterson v Merck Sharpe and Dohme, the applicant – Graeme Robert Peterson – alleged the drug had caused the heart attack he suffered in 2003, leaving him significantly incapacitated. Peterson argued that the Merck companies were negligent in not having withdrawn the drug from the market earlier than they did in 2004 and, by not warning of the risks and making promotional representations to doctors, were guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct under the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act 1974.
In November 2004 Dr David Graham, then Associate Director for Science and Medicine in FDA’s Office of Drug Safety provided powerful testimony to the US Senate regarding Vioxx. According to Graham, prior to the approval of the drug, a Merck-funded study showed a seven-fold increase in heart attacks. Despite this, the drug was approved by regulatory agencies, including the FDA and the TGA.
This finding was later supported by another Merck-funded study, VIGOR – which showed a five-fold increase, the results of which were published in the high-impact New England Journal of Medicine. It was later revealed by subpoena during litigation that three heart attacks were not included in the original data submitted to the journal, a fact that at least two of the authors knew at the time. This resulted in a ‘misleading conclusion’ regarding the risk of heart attack associated with the drug.
By the time Peterson v Merck Sharpe and Dohme, an associated class action involving 1,660 people, was heard in Australia in 2009, the international parent of MSD, Merck, had already paid $4.83 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits in the US over adverse effects of Vioxx. Predictably, Merck made no admission of guilt. The Australian legal battle was a long, drawn-out affair, taking several years with more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose (you can read more about it here and here).
Long story short, a March 2010 Federal Court finding in favor of Peterson was later overturned by a full bench of the Federal Court in Oct 2011. In 2013, a settlement was reached with class action participants which resulted in a mere maximum payment of $4,629.36 per claimant. MSD generously waived their claim for legal costs against Peterson.
What’s notable in this battle was the headline-grabbing courtroom evidence detailing the extent of alleged pharmaceutical misdeeds in marketing the drug. The pharma giant went to the lengths of producing sponsored journals with renowned scientific publisher Elsevier, including a publication called The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine. These fake ‘journals’ were made to look like independent scientific journals, but contained articles attributed to doctors that were ghostwritten by Merck employees. Some doctors listed as honorary Journal board members said they had no idea they were listed in the journal and had never been given any articles to review.
But wait, there’s more.
The trove of internal emails presented in evidence revealed a more sinister level of operation. One of the emails circulated at the pharma giant’s US headquarters contained a list of ‘problem physicians’ that the company sought to ‘neutralize’ or ‘discredit.’ The recommendations to achieve these ends included payment for presentations, research and education, financial support of private practice, and ‘strong recommendation(s) to discredit.’ Such was the extent of intimidation, that one professor wrote to the head of Merck to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers critical of the drug. The court heard how Merck had been ‘systematically playing down the side effects of Vioxx’ and their behavior ‘seriously impinge(d) on academic freedom.’
This alleged systematic intimidation was as extensive as it was effective. Result? Merck made over $2 billion per year in sales before Vioxx was finally pulled from pharmacy shelves in 2004. In his testimony, Dr Graham estimated that between 88,000 and 139,000 excess cases of heart attack or sudden cardiac death were caused by Vioxx in the US alone before it was withdrawn.
These systems of influence, manipulation, and tactics were largely operative when Covid arrived. Add to that the ‘warp speed’ development of novel ‘vaccines,’ government green lights, pharmaceutical indemnity, and confidential contracts. Now you have the makings of a pharmaceutical payday the likes of which we have never seen before.
It should come as no surprise then, the recent announcement that five US states – Texas, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Utah – are taking Pfizer to court for withholding information, and misleading and deceiving the public through statements made in marketing its Covid-19 injection. That these cases are filed as civil suits under consumer protection laws is likely just the tip of the pharmaceutical playbook iceberg. No doubt the discovery process will hold further lessons for us all.
Author
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