If symptoms
persist. .
THERE IS a method known to psychol- ogists as paradoxical intention, by means of which patients bring about a desired end by striving for its opposite. Thus, insomniacs are instructed to apply all their will-power to staying awake at night, and to pinch their thighs if they feel themselves sinking into the arms of Morpheus (to turn poetic for once).
How typical of Man that he should aim at one thing and achieve another! That is why I have never really believed in health education, especially when it is directed at the young, who are generally even more perverse than their parents. Told not to smoke, they will at once light up. I don't suppose I should ever have taken marijuana, amphetamines or cocaine had they received the seal of Good Housekeeping.
When the Government began to spend our hard-earned money on Aids educa- tion, therefore, I knew at once (on gen- eral principles) that its campaign would be at best redundant and at worst harm- ful, to say nothing of its completely pre- dictable mendacity. Of course, there are those who will maintain that the non- occurrence of a heterosexual epidemic of Aids, so long foreseen by experts from the slough of Epidemiological Despond, Is sufficient proof of the necessity and effectiveness of the campaign, and that now is not the moment to drop our guard (or expenditure); but such people may safely be ignored. Their jobs depend upon a permanent effervescence of pub- licly funded panic. No doubt the motives behind some of the untruths which we were told in the course of the campaign, for example that `Aids is not prejudiced', were hon- ourable. The epidemic was sometimes -likened in severity to the Black Death, and, as everyone knows, popular responses to epidemics of plague in mediaeval and early modern Europe were not always fully rational. Scape- goats were found, and in those countries which had not already expelled them the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells. It was probably felt that our popu- lation, being even worse educated than it was in 1348, might respond discreditably to the idea that Aids was a disease of certain groups, and indulge in pogroms against them. It was to avoid such behaviour that the truth was concealed by slick advertisers' slogans. While I have every respect for the abil- ity of the public to grasp the wrong end of the stick, and to worry itself to distrac- tion over small and distant risks while disregarding large and near ones, I feel that honesty would have been a better policy on the whole (though I acknowl- edge that such a policy doesn't come nat- urally to any government). The problem with disseminating untruths is that they will be eventually found out, further destroying belief in legitimate authority and inducing a cynical nihilism.
The Government has spent more than £800 million on the containment of Aids through health education, and it appears that Aids has been more or less con- tained, ergo (some will say) the money was well-spent. Certainly the army of careworkers, co-ordinators, project lead- ers, outreach workers, counsellors and others — larger than the legions of the afflicted — which the disease has spawned have enjoyed seven fat years and helped reduce the numbers of the unemployed.
The question I ask myself, and the real mystery of the epidemic, is where did they all come from, and what did they do before there was Aids?
Theodore Dalrymple
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