Johann Hari, a Cambridge-educated Swiss-British writer who has written three different books, has spent three years traveling the world and researching the War on Drugs and primarily, addiction. He did this in order to answer what really causes addiction and why society has not explored different ways to solve it. He observed that our current methods – shaming, have shown very little success, both in his personal life and professional one. In 2015, he spoke at a TED Talk in London, England to report his findings. In “Everything We Know About Addiction is Wrong,” author Johann Hari, uses an empathetic yet didactic tone, along with narration of how he got involved with addiction, analysis of experiments on addiction, examples of where addiction has been virtually stopped, and proposes a solution to make addiction treatment more successful, in order to encourage his audience to open their minds to this new solution and incorporate it into their lives, whether they are professionals who work with addicts or have a loved one with an addiction.
At the beginning of his speech, Hari narrates early childhood memories to explain why he got into the study of addiction as well as analyzing and explaining the steps of the experiment that inspired this new idea in order to prepare his argument that addicts do not need to be shamed in order to become sober. While narrating, Hari uses hyperbole and a comedic tone to engage the audience and capture their attention. It also helps the audience to view the absurdity of the traditional belief that addictive substances have chemical hooks rather than emotional ones: “Imagine all of you, for twenty days, went off and used heroin three times a day… because there are chemical hooks in heroin… at the end of those twenty days, you’d all be heroin addicts. Right?” This allows Hari to move into his argument that the original way society sees addiction is inherently flawed. While analyzing a 1970s experiment, called ‘Rat Park’, Hari uses imagery and repetition to depict the thoroughness of it when compared to an older study that excluded external factors. Our current thoughts on addiction are based on an early 20th century experiment where rats are put into an isolated cage with nothing but two water bottles (Hari). One is regular tap water and the other is laced with either cocaine or heroin (Hari). Almost one hundred percent of the time, the rats would choose to drink the drug water and overdose (Hari). In Alexander’s ‘Rat Park,’ “[the rats] have got loads of cheese, they’ve got loads of colored balls, they’ve got loads of tunnels. Crucially, they’ve got loads of friends.” Rather than being completely alone with the water bottles, the rats have a community and an environment they can bond to rather than the drug. Hari uses this to highlight to the audience the importance of bonding with one’s environment to decrease drug use, as there was a dramatic fall in the amount of overdose. Overall, Hari uses hyperbole, imagery, and repetition, which helps to prepare for his argument that our traditional idea of how addiction occurs is quite silly and to engage the audience; as well as, illustrating the details and results of the Rat Park experiment.
In addition, Hari uses exemplification regarding the new discovery in the aforementioned experiment in order to support and justify his claim that there may be a more humane way of treating addicts, one that has not been tried until the early 21st century. He uses anaphora when depicting scenes of chain gangs in Arizona, forced to wear shirts that advertise their addiction, “we shame them. We punish them. We give them criminal records.” He does this to make the audience feel accountable for the horrors those people were put through to make them aware of the effects of their dangerous stigma. Hari also uses examples to prove to the audience that this new approach, that is more accepting of addicts and is not centered around shaming them, actually works: “in the year 2000, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe.” To solve it, the government collaborated with a group of scientists that instructed them to “decriminalize all drugs”, and to “take all the money used to spend on cutting addicts off, on disconnecting them, and spend it instead on reconnecting them with society” (Hari). He also uses a professional diction and an informative tone to enforce his credibility to the audience as well as further build his argument. In 2015, the results of the experiment have come in: “injecting drug use is down in Portugal… by fifty percent. Overdose is massively down, [and] HIV is massively down among addicts,” (Hari). Ultimately, Hari uses a didactic tone, educational diction, and the success in Portugal which serves to prove his claim to the audience that there are better ways to treat addicts that give them a reason to get up and rebuild their connections with society.
At the end, Hari describes how our society, as a whole, has become increasingly vulnerable to addiction, regardless of the form it takes, and how to fix it in order to compel the audience to rethink their position on the traditional rehabilitation of addicts. Hari uses simile, “for a lot of us, life looks a whole lot more like that isolated cage and a whole lot less like Rat Park,” in order to connect back to the first section. He makes this connection to enforce the idea that the historical ‘treatment’ of addicts is inhumane and needs to be revisited. The employment of a hypophora, asking a question and supplying an immediate answer, connects Hari with his audience and has them put themselves in his shoes regarding his experiences with addiction: “How could I be Portuguese? And what I’ve tried to do now… is to say to the addicts in my life that… I love you… I don’t want you to be alone or feel alone.” Hari does this to connect to the second section in order to show the audience that a changed does not need to begin on a global scale. It can start with their own personal corners of the world and spread to eventually lead to the long-term recovery of addicts in their life. He also employs diction and a sympathetic tone to evoke compassion from his audience. This allows the audience to make an emotional and personal connection with the struggle of addicts and acts as a message of hope that change is possible: “we’ve been singing war song about addicts… we should have been singing love songs to them, because the opposite of addiction… is connection,” (Harri). This summarizes the last century of the harsh treatment of addicts as well as furthering Hari’s claim that society should be more focused on reconnecting them with their society and environment. He wants the audience to sympathize with addicts all over the world who have been isolated because of their mental illness. Overall, Hari uses similes and metaphors to evoke compassion from the audience; furthermore, he employs hypophora to directly answer his question of how he personally will move forward regarding his treatment of addicts in his daily life.
The didactic tone, and the analysis, and the narration had informed and convinced the audience, but there was something in the exemplification that provided a solution for addiction in Johann Hari's speech at TEDx London. Based on his speech and the analysis of it, it is easy to see that there is another way to treat addiction that does not involve further isolating, shaming, and guilting addicts. Instead, lawmakers should be focused on helping them rebuild their connections within society. Despite the difficulty of loving addicts, it is vital to their recovery that they are consistently shown love so that they can re-bond to their environment.
Word count: 1304
Works Cited
Hari, Johann. “Everything We Know About Addiction is Wrong.” TED. Jun. 2015, www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong?language=en. Accessed 22 Jan. 2019.
At the beginning of his speech, Hari narrates early childhood memories to explain why he got into the study of addiction as well as analyzing and explaining the steps of the experiment that inspired this new idea in order to prepare his argument that addicts do not need to be shamed in order to become sober. While narrating, Hari uses hyperbole and a comedic tone to engage the audience and capture their attention. It also helps the audience to view the absurdity of the traditional belief that addictive substances have chemical hooks rather than emotional ones: “Imagine all of you, for twenty days, went off and used heroin three times a day… because there are chemical hooks in heroin… at the end of those twenty days, you’d all be heroin addicts. Right?” This allows Hari to move into his argument that the original way society sees addiction is inherently flawed. While analyzing a 1970s experiment, called ‘Rat Park’, Hari uses imagery and repetition to depict the thoroughness of it when compared to an older study that excluded external factors. Our current thoughts on addiction are based on an early 20th century experiment where rats are put into an isolated cage with nothing but two water bottles (Hari). One is regular tap water and the other is laced with either cocaine or heroin (Hari). Almost one hundred percent of the time, the rats would choose to drink the drug water and overdose (Hari). In Alexander’s ‘Rat Park,’ “[the rats] have got loads of cheese, they’ve got loads of colored balls, they’ve got loads of tunnels. Crucially, they’ve got loads of friends.” Rather than being completely alone with the water bottles, the rats have a community and an environment they can bond to rather than the drug. Hari uses this to highlight to the audience the importance of bonding with one’s environment to decrease drug use, as there was a dramatic fall in the amount of overdose. Overall, Hari uses hyperbole, imagery, and repetition, which helps to prepare for his argument that our traditional idea of how addiction occurs is quite silly and to engage the audience; as well as, illustrating the details and results of the Rat Park experiment.
In addition, Hari uses exemplification regarding the new discovery in the aforementioned experiment in order to support and justify his claim that there may be a more humane way of treating addicts, one that has not been tried until the early 21st century. He uses anaphora when depicting scenes of chain gangs in Arizona, forced to wear shirts that advertise their addiction, “we shame them. We punish them. We give them criminal records.” He does this to make the audience feel accountable for the horrors those people were put through to make them aware of the effects of their dangerous stigma. Hari also uses examples to prove to the audience that this new approach, that is more accepting of addicts and is not centered around shaming them, actually works: “in the year 2000, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe.” To solve it, the government collaborated with a group of scientists that instructed them to “decriminalize all drugs”, and to “take all the money used to spend on cutting addicts off, on disconnecting them, and spend it instead on reconnecting them with society” (Hari). He also uses a professional diction and an informative tone to enforce his credibility to the audience as well as further build his argument. In 2015, the results of the experiment have come in: “injecting drug use is down in Portugal… by fifty percent. Overdose is massively down, [and] HIV is massively down among addicts,” (Hari). Ultimately, Hari uses a didactic tone, educational diction, and the success in Portugal which serves to prove his claim to the audience that there are better ways to treat addicts that give them a reason to get up and rebuild their connections with society.
At the end, Hari describes how our society, as a whole, has become increasingly vulnerable to addiction, regardless of the form it takes, and how to fix it in order to compel the audience to rethink their position on the traditional rehabilitation of addicts. Hari uses simile, “for a lot of us, life looks a whole lot more like that isolated cage and a whole lot less like Rat Park,” in order to connect back to the first section. He makes this connection to enforce the idea that the historical ‘treatment’ of addicts is inhumane and needs to be revisited. The employment of a hypophora, asking a question and supplying an immediate answer, connects Hari with his audience and has them put themselves in his shoes regarding his experiences with addiction: “How could I be Portuguese? And what I’ve tried to do now… is to say to the addicts in my life that… I love you… I don’t want you to be alone or feel alone.” Hari does this to connect to the second section in order to show the audience that a changed does not need to begin on a global scale. It can start with their own personal corners of the world and spread to eventually lead to the long-term recovery of addicts in their life. He also employs diction and a sympathetic tone to evoke compassion from his audience. This allows the audience to make an emotional and personal connection with the struggle of addicts and acts as a message of hope that change is possible: “we’ve been singing war song about addicts… we should have been singing love songs to them, because the opposite of addiction… is connection,” (Harri). This summarizes the last century of the harsh treatment of addicts as well as furthering Hari’s claim that society should be more focused on reconnecting them with their society and environment. He wants the audience to sympathize with addicts all over the world who have been isolated because of their mental illness. Overall, Hari uses similes and metaphors to evoke compassion from the audience; furthermore, he employs hypophora to directly answer his question of how he personally will move forward regarding his treatment of addicts in his daily life.
The didactic tone, and the analysis, and the narration had informed and convinced the audience, but there was something in the exemplification that provided a solution for addiction in Johann Hari's speech at TEDx London. Based on his speech and the analysis of it, it is easy to see that there is another way to treat addiction that does not involve further isolating, shaming, and guilting addicts. Instead, lawmakers should be focused on helping them rebuild their connections within society. Despite the difficulty of loving addicts, it is vital to their recovery that they are consistently shown love so that they can re-bond to their environment.
Word count: 1304
Works Cited
Hari, Johann. “Everything We Know About Addiction is Wrong.” TED. Jun. 2015, www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong?language=en. Accessed 22 Jan. 2019.