Everyone must be tolerated, minus the intolerant
Norberto Bobbio
by Fabrizio d’Agostini — Five association acronyms that state in their very name that their purpose is the defense of the victims of psychological abuses, have recently re-proposed, in a letter sent to some authorities, an “old” moan from the 1970s (mind war in the USA) about the lack of State's attention to the spread of “pernicious conspiracy theories and pseudo-scientific beliefs” by “controversial aggregations” “that attack the fundamental rights of individuals and undermine democratic society itself” and it seems aimed at suggesting the appropriateness of greater institutional attention to the phenomenon and the appropriateness of the adoption of preventive measures (as recently adopted in France).
One must read the text by reversing the arguments: the associations would like more attention and preventive measures from the State, and these demands, far from strengthening a democratic society, would be a diminution of the individual's freedoms and a consequent diminution of democracy (also, infra).
After all, the attention of the institutions on the phenomenon of "controversial aggregations" already exists and, since the 1990s, there has been a Public Security Bureau in Italy dedicated to this purpose, which was already much criticized at the time because it was considered a violation of human rights.
They then claim that there is a "serious normative vacuum that has been determined following the pronouncement of unconstitutionality of the former crime of plagio". The legal vacuum did not exist then, in 1981, and most importantly, jurisprudence has developed categories of harm that were not present and not dealt with at that time. In addition to the criminal protection that existed then and exists today (from circumvention of an incapable person, to private violence, to threatening, to incitement, and so on), general categories of civil damage to the person and multiple emerging protections have been added in addition to stalking. I will limit myself to a summary list. In addition to pecuniary damage, biological damage, psychological damage, existential damage, moral damage, and an infinity of subcategories, and among the emerging protections, personality rights, again with many subcategories, apart from stalking, which is a criminal offence, all civil law protections competing with criminal law protections that were not present or little known in 1981. It is a compact set of rules for the protection of personal rights. Considering then that in the forty years that plagio has been in force there has only been one trial that has ended in a conviction, it is difficult to consider its abrogation on the grounds of unconstitutionality as a "serious regulatory infringement" (again, infra).
When would ‘psychological subjection’ be realized in such a way as to constitute a crime? In France, Russia, Japan, Argentina, China, psychological subjection exists or would exist when the adept, the fan, the believer changes his way of thinking, his way of life, his acquaintances, his friendships. So the object of the indictment is not the psychological awe that is not described but the “change” which, from evidence of a fact, becomes the fact itself.
How, according to this “perverse” view, would “psychological subjection” arise? There is a leader, a guru, a charismatic leader and a doctrine and those who adhere to it, the believer. None of this in Western democracies is an offence; on the contrary, it is repeatedly declared legitimate (Art. 18 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Art. 9 European Convention on Human Rights; Art. 19 Italian Constitution and the EU Constitution itself).
Under the law of “psychological subjection”, what one would like to be sanctioned is not faith in a charismatic, spiritual leader or doctrine. The claim falls on the "change of life". The offence is not the fact of psychological subjection but the "change". It is not small changes that are detected, but only major changes that constitute transformation of common life, social custom, and current identity. One would not want to allow "deviance" and that is precisely to "deviate" from the current culture and way of life. No ideology, no doctrine if believed with deep and intense faith is safe from prosecution. This is the other aspect that constitutes the whole "invention" "of the crime of psychological subjection". "The intensity of faith, the depth of belief". One can believe, one can have faith, but not so deep as to change one's life. As it were, a freedom to believe and a “limited” freedom of faith. In a way, it is a fierce social conservatism.
Article 603 of the Italian penal code provided for “plagio” (plagiarism) as a specific offence, which stated: "Whoever subjects a person to his own power, so as to reduce him to a state of total subjection, shall be punished by imprisonment from five to fifteen years."
The first and only trial for plagio that ended in conviction was the one in 1968 against Mr. Aldo Braibanti. The verdict shows that the real issue was not the "psychological subservience" with which Braibanti exercised his power, but his homosexuality in years when homosexuality was not accepted and the additional circumstance that his friend was an upper-class young man.
The next trial for plagio was the indictment of Father Grasso, a Catholic priest. There was no conviction and he was acquitted because the crime of plagio was declared unconstitutional in 1981. Father Emilio Grasso had both characteristics that for the crime of plagio and for the Italian law were “unbearable”: he had a deep faith and believed that the Gospels' invitation to change one's life by dedicating it to the benefit of others, should be accepted and this is what he taught.
These two cases demonstrate the impossibility of creating an autonomous crime of “psychological subjugation” and how the specific object of the proponents is not the psychological subjugation but the "excessive" change of life and "excessive" faith.
Accused of promoting "psychological subjection" would have been – and indeed was – also Jesus Christ.
France has completed its legal decay with its recently adopted preventive measures, affirming through the MIVILUDES that the testimonies of victims of psychological subjugation have no value, precisely because they are psychologically conditioned. A case more unique than rare in which the victim is not the principal witness. This is, logically speaking, a tautologism: there is psychological dependence because there is psychological dependence. The circumstance that the victim affirms under oath that she is under no duress is irrelevant. But it is also the end of the individual's personal freedom. The judge, moreover, can only rely on the judgment of experts. This is the transfer of judicial activity to psychological or psychiatric or psychoanalyst advisors and anti-cult associations. This would cease the judiciary's tertiarity.
What is ultimately the fate of the citizen-believers, those who could not testify because psychologically conditioned? What will replaces theirs? Are they compared to drug addicts?
As for democracy (supra), the National Guarantor of the Rights of People Deprived of their Liberty operating in Italy since 2016 stated in his report on "plagio", defined as "the impossible crime": "it is important, especially for young people, to know that democracy and the protection of rights in our country come from some fundamental moments, and also, sometimes, from some fundamental acts. One of these is the abolition of the crime of plagio."
The Guarantor has defined plagio as an impossible offence and the same applies to the alleged "psychic conditioning" (also, infra).
It is not possible to identify "psychic conditioning" as an independent offence unless material, patrimonial or moral damage comes into existence, and if material, patrimonial or moral damage comes into existence, the system is well organized to penalize it. To explain better, this is the reason why it is so difficult to prevent feminicides: a man cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment as a preventive measure when he has done nothing and only because he might then kill a woman. Similarly, a person's change of life, therapeutic choice and adherence to a doctrine cannot be sanctioned, just as a woman's decision to separate from her husband or partner cannot be sanctioned. Both events are based on constitutional rights, and none of them contain harm of legal significance per se.
The proof is in the five associations' letter itself. In order to “prove” their thesis, in fact, they demonstrate exactly the opposite, namely that without material damage it is not possible to sanction people's choices and the sanction falls on the damage and not on the choice. The letter proposes as an example the case of a girl who died as a result of being subjected to surgery in what she claims were disastrous conditions and linked to a Holistic Centre and complains that in the ensuing criminal trial the Court of Assize of Appeal, reforming the first instance sentence, acquitted the founder and spiritual leader of the Centre and reduced the sentence to one year and four months to the physician who had performed the surgery.
Ruling that was not appealed before the Supreme Court by the prosecution and therefore became res judicata. We do not know the acts of the criminal case and therefore do not enter into the merits. Two observations only. The first is that on the basis of the narrative in the letter, it appeared that the founder and leader of the Centre, whatever the charge was, was innocent and that the doctor, given the sentence, was not guilty of the crime of manslaughter, and the Prosecution's failure to appeal to the Court of Cassation shows that the sentence was justly and convincingly motivated. However, the second observation is much more important, namely that the criminal justice system is perfectly capable of intervening if harm occurs and that without harm, individual choices cannot be sanctioned.
The idea that one can predict in advance the commission of crimes in the future and sanction them belongs only to science fiction (like in Minority Report movie).
The holistic philosophy is now also widely accepted in clinical use. It complements rather than replacing the therapies of official medicine. In general, the question of therapies other than the official ones arose at the end of the last century in what was called the New Age due to the entry of “new” medical therapies in the West, mostly of Eastern origin (China and India). They are, therapies that are "new" only to the West since some date back to eras before Hippocrates and Western medicine. One of their characteristics is that they conceive therapy as aimed at healing spirit and matter altogether.
Since the letter speaks of “pernicious conspiracy theories and pseudo-scientific beliefs” on the part of “controversial aggregations” “that attack the fundamental rights of individuals and undermine democratic society itself”, it seems necessary to reiterate that these are really “old” and now completely discredited judgments based on defective information. In fact, the five subscribers judge within an "echo chamber" that is always the same and seem unable to get out of the echo of their own convictions. So it is pointless to even discuss. One can only observe that these, those set out in the letter, seem to be the real "pernicious conspiracy theories and pseudo-scientific beliefs" "that undermine the fundamental rights of individuals and undermine democratic society itself" and that make the undersigned associations into "controversial aggregations."
The question of "victims" then does not seem to hold up quantitatively. The alleged four million does not make sense because it is not a question of victims but of citizens who, exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights, have chosen doctrines and communities different from those that the subscribing associations seem to implicitly prefer; not of victims who, in the complexity of late modern society, can also be there and be abused (in the order of dozens and always and only in the presence of damage of some kind – supra and again infra).
Entering into the merits of "psychic conditioning" in relation to society requires a very different narrative. At first, examining the contents of the letter it was noted that it was an "old" moan (supra). Today it no longer has any reason to be; society, customs and culture have changed profoundly. Today, we are at the end of a well-worn story.
Since Vance Packard published The Hidden Persuaders in 1957, it is no longer possible to speak of ”psychological subjugation” as a crime in itself. There is now a boundless literature. Since then, there has been a growing awareness at all levels of the existence of techniques of conditioning from advertising, to marketing, to sales techniques, to politics (and beyond) and psychological conditioning is now a constitutive element, and in some countries regulated, of modern society. Associated with this widespread extension in what we now call late modernity is the quality of psychological conditioning that has reached unimaginable, unbelievable and often disastrous levels through the internet, the cloud and electronic communication, and finally now through Artificial Intelligence: we live in a social reality that is entirely and intimately changed, profoundly changed, perhaps very comfortable, but in the end the evidence is not the greater well-being and comfort but its fierce and destructive nature that imposes itself. Just twenty years ago, it was unimaginable that communications, images, sounds of a thousand and one theses, doctrines, conspiracies, and affabulations could "explode", associating and superimposing themselves with the devastation of villages and cities in a transformation of the world and culture in which death itself has been transformed into a number, the growing number of children killed, and thus into the growing death of the world's future. It is not a simple individual "psychic conditioning". It is not a society at stake: it is an era at stake.
Distracted from the truth, clinging to virtual nothingness we cry the impossibility of peace.
