The Pollution of Pango Peach Magic pt I
What to do about propaganda-induced reality collapse
The protagonists of the popular manga/anime series Dorohedoro live in a megacity favela known only as “Hole.” A perpetually dreary grey dystopia whose impoverished inhabitants suffer from the after-effects of spells cast by the elite sorcerers and demons who rule over them from a realm few ever get to visit.
What’s striking about this series is also the core reason for its popularity. People aren’t obsessed with Dorohedoro as fantasy make-believe—they can’t stop watching because it’s a more accurate depiction of our world than the one we can see.
Magic isn’t what you think it is
By now, most of us should have no problem with the Arther C Clarke adage, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
From Wakandan super-Zulus to Asgardian space Vikings, Marvel/Disney has opened our minds to the possibility that “magic” is merely a placeholder for tech we don’t understand.
What most people don’t realize is that the tech known as “magic” is not only very old yet very advanced but still very effective and actively being used against them.
We are, whether we believe it or not, under spells.
Magic is Media
Two reasons we can’t see our own enchantment:
First, almost every piece of media presented to us, from myths to music to movies, depicts magic as a means of quickly and directly changing physical reality.
Point a wand, say some words, and… Poof! Bob’s a lobster.
In actuality, magic is about changing how people perceive reality. Shift what they believe about it, and you can convince them to do things they never would otherwise.
None of us have had our heads changed into hideous crustaceans, but many have been trained to think like lobsters.
Second, because media is the means by which magic is delivered.
When Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message,” he understood that how a message is delivered will have a tremendous impact on how it will be received.
Magicians going further back than the Chaldean magi knew this instinctively, constructing elaborately spooky rituals and ceremonies to shake people out of their everyday waking, rational frames of mind. Performing mass hypnosis to shape the collective will through seduction and fear.
Poof! You’re a pig.
That our collective awakening to reason and science was followed by newer, more powerful technology for delivering the same spells is no coincidence.
Flood your car with a stream of lustful songs, your social feed with nubile women, and your screens with accessible porn, and the effects are stronger than any Babylonian love potion.
How we got here: Fishing with Sherman Tanks
Advertising is a brand new instrument, unique to our age, but at the same time it plays mankind’s oldest themes. The reason is this: in an advertisement’s effort to persuade people of the justice of its cause, whatever it may be, it invariably seeks a common denominator. The more people it attempts to persuade, the more common the denominator, the more basic the appeal will be. When, in addition, the product advertised is virtually identical with its competitors, or when the product’s value to its user is largely subjective, the appeals become so basic that they slide away from fact as we know it. They go beyond reason into something more basic, the most common denominator of all, magic.
Howard Gossage, The Book of Gossage
War accelerates innovation in ways peace cannot compete. Countless inventions we civilians take for granted—from courier services to khakis to the internet—were first developed for military use.
WWII was no different.
In a blinding flash, we were left with city-leveling nuclear bombs, floating fortresses known as aircraft carriers, enhanced radio capable of broadcasting to every corner of the world, and propaganda techniques that could reduce enemies to superstitious cowards, whip our soldiers into murderous frenzies, and convince the populace to spend millions on war bonds.
Both the “Father of Advertising,” David Ogilvy, and Bill Bernbach, leader of its “Creative Revolution," were men who came home from that war. According to the CBC:
“It was there [Ogilvy] mastered the power of propaganda before becoming king of Madison Avenue… ultimately tasked with projects that included successfully ruining the reputation of businessmen who were supplying the Nazis with industrial materials.”
Change how Nazis perceived their vendors, and you can convince them to ruin their own supply lines.
To the veterans-turned-admen of the 50s and 60s, convincing countrymen to consume their clients’ products using the latest weapons of psychological warfare was like “shooting fish in a barrel.”
But what happens to the water after decades of gunpowder, lead, and depleted uranium shells? What happens to the fish? Next, we examine the effects of decades of exaggerations and lies told for the cause of persuasion and how the residue of old spells leads to a current discourse (or lack thereof) where neighbors cannot even agree on basic facts.
Lest you think all hope is lost, we will meet ad man and iconoclast Howard Gossage. An ex-South Pacific Bomber pilot who first noticed the links between magic and propaganda, as well as the deleterious effects it was having on the public consciousness. He would be one of the first to use propaganda magic for good, showing all of us trapped in the current “Hole” what to do about it.
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Thank you, as always, for reading this far. One of my goals this year is to polish up the best articles in this Substack and publish them in a physical book of essays. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in owning, or if you have favorites you’d like to see included, please let me know. You can submit them in the comments or email me directly.
Looking forward to reading from you.
Believe it or not, I was thinking the same thing. How great it would be, to have a physical book of all your best essays, so please go ahead with the project.