Psychology, advertising and propaganda
Watch this first.
It's a high speed little drama, and you are bored and distracted, so you'll love it. As it says on the site, the adverts are the best thing on telly, a lot of effort goes into making them, far more than goes into ordinary programming. There are several different ones there, so you can pick the one that is for you.
The drama starts with a scene of contentment and ordinary life and you have a few seconds to identify with the protagonist, who is getting on with life completely oblivious to the horror that has already engulfed the domestic scene, because ...
Loud klaxon, Giant all caps headline in warning flashing print; You've gone NOSEBLIND. This is terrible; my spellcheck doesn't think it's even a word, and you don't know about it because you can't smell anything. But everyone else can. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
What a disgusting person you are! Your friends and family will abandon you.
But you can keep your friends and your contented life, fear not. All you have to do is spray everything in sight with a special product that eliminates these un-smellable odours. And then your girlfriend will be happy to sniff your trainers as a tribute to your olfactory purity.
Now whether or not you buy the product, the klaxon, the flashing lights, the undetectable threat, all disturb you, make you a little anxious, a little paranoid about what your friends really think of you. And this little disturbance is multiplied millions of times around the world, and there are hundreds of thousands of other dramas disturbing the equanimity of folks.
They are quite deliberately trying to drive everyone mad. And they are succeeding. The reason for this is that the contented protagonist needs nothing, buys nothing. The happy family, the secure and contented life is the enemy of consumer society, and must at all costs be destroyed, in order to be restored with product. But the product cannot ever satisfy, but must always give rise to a new dissatisfaction.
Are you worried that your undetectable odour eliminator isn't quite eliminating all your disgusting undetectable odours? Well you will be very soon, when we start advertising our brand new undetectable odour detector. Just pass the nozzle over all your stuff, and it will detect odours that even your friends don't notice, and automatically adjust the intensity of odour eliminator spay (sold separately) to cost you considerably more than even your induced paranoia would demand, and give you peace of mind until we can decide what is wrong with the detector and how you can fix it with something else.
Coming soon to this thread: propaganda. How to have a war that nobody wants, and make everyone blame Johnny Foreigner for the misery we have imposed on you.
It's a high speed little drama, and you are bored and distracted, so you'll love it. As it says on the site, the adverts are the best thing on telly, a lot of effort goes into making them, far more than goes into ordinary programming. There are several different ones there, so you can pick the one that is for you.
The drama starts with a scene of contentment and ordinary life and you have a few seconds to identify with the protagonist, who is getting on with life completely oblivious to the horror that has already engulfed the domestic scene, because ...
Loud klaxon, Giant all caps headline in warning flashing print; You've gone NOSEBLIND. This is terrible; my spellcheck doesn't think it's even a word, and you don't know about it because you can't smell anything. But everyone else can. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
What a disgusting person you are! Your friends and family will abandon you.
But you can keep your friends and your contented life, fear not. All you have to do is spray everything in sight with a special product that eliminates these un-smellable odours. And then your girlfriend will be happy to sniff your trainers as a tribute to your olfactory purity.
Now whether or not you buy the product, the klaxon, the flashing lights, the undetectable threat, all disturb you, make you a little anxious, a little paranoid about what your friends really think of you. And this little disturbance is multiplied millions of times around the world, and there are hundreds of thousands of other dramas disturbing the equanimity of folks.
They are quite deliberately trying to drive everyone mad. And they are succeeding. The reason for this is that the contented protagonist needs nothing, buys nothing. The happy family, the secure and contented life is the enemy of consumer society, and must at all costs be destroyed, in order to be restored with product. But the product cannot ever satisfy, but must always give rise to a new dissatisfaction.
Are you worried that your undetectable odour eliminator isn't quite eliminating all your disgusting undetectable odours? Well you will be very soon, when we start advertising our brand new undetectable odour detector. Just pass the nozzle over all your stuff, and it will detect odours that even your friends don't notice, and automatically adjust the intensity of odour eliminator spay (sold separately) to cost you considerably more than even your induced paranoia would demand, and give you peace of mind until we can decide what is wrong with the detector and how you can fix it with something else.
Coming soon to this thread: propaganda. How to have a war that nobody wants, and make everyone blame Johnny Foreigner for the misery we have imposed on you.
Comments (251)
I've had people near me on the subway, at the gym, etc. where I've thought, "Jesus Christ, dude--take a shower/put on some deodorant for once." But I've not said that to them. I would if I had to be around them all the time, though. The gym I go to has a notice requesting that folks don't wear the same clothes for more than one workout prior to washing them, and thankfully most folks seem to follow that advice.
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials.
Be afraid, be very afraid. It doesn't matter what you are afraid of, going noseblind, or hordes of Mexican rapists, the fearful are gullible and biddable. Just be afraid, and I'll tell you what to be afraid of and what to do about it later.
Be miserable, be depressed, you must be, there is nothing you can do about it. Later I will tell you who is to blame and make sure they are even more miserable than you. I'm good at that.
Be isolated. Don't talk to anyone, they are probably your enemy, or would be if you revealed yourself, because everyone is horrible. Even your friends are disgusted by your undetectable odour, and if you step out of line, you will be one of the people to blame for everything. You'd better believe me, because I will be deciding who those people are. I'm good at that. Everyone is an isolated individual and it is immoral to have close relationships.
Relate only to abstractions; democracy, nationality, race. Immerse yourself in these to assuage your feeling of isolation. Do not step out of line, punish and shun those who do, they smell, don't they.
Well probably not, really. But your olfactory outrage has been manufactured. You are not going to get very far with this thread without questioning your own feelings a little.
There's no doubt that some people think I'm ugly.
And surely some people don't mind or even like the smell of someone who hasn't showered in days and who doesn't wear deodorant. I don't want to be standing next to them on a crowded subway though.
Your only best last hope for the liberty of your own mind is philosophy. Buy some today and install it at once. You really cannot afford to miss this discussion.
I don't agree with most of the theory about this,though, and Freud was particularly ridiculous in my view.
Certainly there is propaganda and people can be influenced, but there's a shitload of crap theorizing about advertisements.
are confident they are acting on their own free will.
Joseph Goebbels.
Let me tell you a comfortable lie. All this stuff only works on the great unwashed. You are educated and intelligent, and so your freedom and independence are assured.
I don't want to be sitting in a room that has been coated in Fabreeze. Have always been a bit paranoid about industrially manufactured mystery concoctions, but still use conventional laundry detergents.
Commercials are often loud, obnoxious and dumb. Hopefully the era of online streaming will do away with them.
Feel free to do what you preach. Self-examine. If you can't be bothered to do that.. fuck off.
>:O
Quoting unenlightened
:-x
Yes the sweat smell thing is interesting. Personally, despite very strong pressures from my environment and from my parents as a teenager to inoculate in me the idea that sweat is disgusting and no one can stand it, I never felt that way. I never felt "bothered" by staying next to someone who smelled. Maybe I was concerned about being seen around such a person, but never so much by the smell itself. So I agree with you, that seems to be something that has been socially imposed on us.
Now, to talk of something really disgusting, which almost made me vomit, despite no propaganda being involved - please brace yourselves. Once upon a time I ate a lot of sesame seeds. The next day, when I went to the toilet (to do a dirt, not a wee as Borat would say), I saw that my stool was covered completely in those sesame seeds. I can swear that I've never seen a more disgusting scene than that - it wasn't just that I didn't like it and found it somehow disgusting, but that it was repugnant - as in I felt it driving me away, and my stomach physical turned upside down at that sight. Ever since, I'm actually afraid of eating sesame seeds in large quantities because of that. So what explains such a phenomenon? I think this particular repugnance is natural - in our mind, a repugnance of such a sight has been built by evolution - the seeds being associated with the presence of worms or parasites, that we would be compelled to avoid - hence the strong reaction. Anyway, when this happened I was left a bit stunned, because I'm generally very hard to disgust. A dog licking me on the face for example isn't that disgusting as it is for some (not that it is enjoyable, of course I don't like it - but I'm not exactly repulsed by it automatically). If I saw someone eating shit, I wouldn't be that disgusted either. But this was something coming from a deep deep level, I could feel it. It was a revolution that was very deep below the level where reason activates.
So I think there are both naturally occurring responses and induced ones.
(N) :’(
Natural disgust prevents you from re-eating those tasty seeds, thus protecting you from worms and e-coli infection. Advertising does not create anything in humanity that is not already there, it elicts, distorts, redirects, exaggerates, trains, feelings that are pretty universal.
But by re-directing them it seems to me that it can create entirely new combinations of feelings and reactions that we would never have before. And this isn't only in terms of intensity, but in terms of the whole experience of whatever the situation is.
The way I see it, this modern culture not only attempts to reshape people's reactions and way of life, but more importantly, it succeeds in doing so - it has people who aren't affiliated with the propaganda actually participating in it and promoting it, without understanding what they're actually doing. It uses them - like an ideological virus, infecting minds and being further spread by it.
Quoting unenlightened
See, this is the problem, even among the truth there is infiltration.
I'm helping!
I did contribute, hypocrite.
Can it be, hypocrite preacher, that you too do not like being called names and sworn at?
Sig Freud!
You'd better come into the office and lie down on the couch right away. You're a very sick man.
It is interesting that you wouldn't mind standing next to someone who was smelly, but wouldn't want to be seen by others as having tolerated their smelliness. Shades of other-directedness.
At some point, life becomes easier when we come to terms with our own shit, literally. Raising children (which I haven't done) and raising dogs (which I have) are effective at busting up our cleanliness obsessions, and alleviating the shock of the stool -- that what goes in comes out and in sometimes quite identifiable condition. Once our young dog got into the dog food and stuffed herself. A bit later, while I was sitting on the back step, she crawled into my lap and vomited up an enormous Science Diet slushy. Yuck. But, because it was OUR dog, I wasn't freaked out--as I would otherwise have been. What she ate was sometimes quite identifiable when I picked up her stool for disposal. Like bits of raw carrot. Chewed up and swallowed bits of fabric. Wild baby rabbits swallowed whole were still whole.
Why feed a dog expensive dog food? Because it promises to produce a very firm, drier stool -- easier to pick up. Turned out to be true.
Having chronic bowel problems has helped many people understand that unexamined shit may not be worth excreting. Stools are a window into our bowels -- a place we do not want to go ourselves.
To some extent, advertising aims to be subliminal. This works by contacting deep seated biases. In other words.. people believe what they want to believe. Propaganda just helps get all the lemmings facing in the same direction.
You unenlightened, recently presented a variety of speculations about the US as if they're facts. Coincidently, these speculations have been presented by various media outlets... some of which have a known and self-acknowledged bias.
In the face of not knowing all the particulars... how did you come to be so convinced? You believe what you want to believe.... that's how. Question is: why did you want to believe it?
Global warming is going to kill people. Fact? Nope. Anytime you get a whiff of apocalypse, look for the myth below the surface. I could go on and on...
Quoting unenlightened
Sorry. I actually did think you were being hypocritical, though. Should I have just kept that to myself?
:D But I do know all this, and I do have a look at my stool briefly every time I go to the toilet. I'm not freaked out by stool regardless of what I see - I've seen for example dried pieces of tomato, I've even picked up pieces of stool, I've even seen blood in stool. That's why I say I was shocked - I'm not a person who gets easily disgusted, and especially not by my own stools. But that was something entirely different. I wouldn't have imagined that if I would see such a stool I would have such a reaction. It was a primal and more basic reaction.
Folks have always had, and continue to have, a folk psychology, otherwise known as a 'theory of mind'. Such theories are culturally informed by religion, philosophy romantic tradition, notions of gender identity and so on. My psychological theory affects how I experience others and how I behave with them. I treat you all so badly because my theory of mind tells me you are are all as horrible and pathetic as I am, however well you hide it.
Now even without the benefit of a university course, everyone here has a notion of what Freudian is what behaviourism is and so on. It may be vague, but it enters the psyche along with all that advertising and propaganda some to be dismissed, and some absorbed. So it is not to be wondered at that the techniques of the shrinks not only enter into the schemes of advertisers and politicians but also into the interactions of philosophers in discussion forums. I started with an advert, because it is paradigmatic, but it is only a simplistic and transparent example of what has become a way of life, a pervasive form of our culture.
There is a knot here; put very simply the theory of psyche is part of the psyche. It is as if the fundamental particles of physics changed their properties according to which laws of physics they decided to adopt. Psychologists have changed the way we think, the way we see, our whole culture, and in doing so, they give rise to a new psyche which needs a new theory. Fashion in psychology mirrors the fashion of youth that always has to be different to that of the previous generation. Today one talks of neural plasticity, and it is neural plasticity that makes this talk possible.
The knot is the bane of the psychologist and manipulator. The cleverer he is, the better the theory, the more it transforms the people it is a theory of. The more we the atoms see the manipulator scientist coming, the faster we adapt to his manipulations and frustrate his intentions. And we too are all manipulator scientists.
And you're bound by this knot as you speak of it. So you've painted yourself into a corner. I won't ask if that was your intention... that would require the illusive transcendent vantage point.
Some stuff is hard wired and ain't changing no time soon, no matter how well informed we are about it.
I don't think it does. One can admit any amount of neuro-concrete along with the neuro-plastic. It is only our understanding of ourselves and each other, and thus our social conduct that is required to be radically plastic.
Quoting Mongrel
That my explanations and understanding are bound by the same knot I fully agree, and this means that even to the extent that all this might be a powerful or useful way of looking at ourselves, it is historical rather than foundational. But in terms of being and becoming, the knot liberates us from the whole idea of psychological law. There is no law, even statistical law, except the law we make up, and if we don't like the law as it stands, we can make up new laws or dispense with it altogether.
The psychologist as scientist becomes a manipulator. This is what happens when the supremely successful methods of science are turned from the physical world to the mental world from the observed to the observer. This is what has been done for a hundred years, and it has made us more unhappy and more insane. It works, but it works to destroy us.
But there are other ways of relating than as subject and object...
To get some hard data here...
"Media messages about the political realm can cancel each other out, mute the effects of other
messages, or, by failing to present another perspective or new idea, prevent its spread. If this seems counterintuitive, it should not. This is precisely the situation that obtains in another, perhaps more familiar area of media effects: advertising.
Practitioners of advertising and marketing would be a very hard sell for the “minimal effects” approach to media. Advertising had a humble role in the 19th century, essentially providing simple price and product information to consumers (in the way that neoclassical economic theory still assumes obtains today). But by the early 20th century, advertising began to resemble propaganda rather than price- and-product information, its effectiveness became widely acknowledged, and total advertising spending ballooned to 2% of GDP by 1920. From then until the present, total annual advertising expenditure has averaged 2.2% of GDP, with current annual spending hovering around $300 billion. That is quite a price tag for a “minimal” effect.
A recent meta-analysis of studies of advertising on children and adolescents reveals that expo- sure to advertising results in more positive associations with the brands advertised, increased brand comprehension, and leads to selection of the products advertised. The effects were small, but this is what would be expected in a market already saturated with advertising. (Also, 70% of consumers report skepticism about advertising, further reducing its effect.) A review of research on advertising to adults found mixed results, with similarly small effects. These results might lead to questions about the viability of the $300 billion a year advertising industry, but such doubts are answered in the same way as are doubts about the effects of media in the political realm: commercial messages, like political messages, often cancel each other out. But try to sell a new product without advertising – or a new political idea or without media exposure – and the power of the media enters clearly into view. Maxwell McCombs summarizes this commonsense view: if the media did not “yield significant outcomes, the vast advertising industry would not exist.”
- Crooked Timber and the Broken Branch The Invisible Hand in the Marketplace of Ideas
That is, of course, the new trend in advertising. Instead of just providing the information, what is available and at what price, advertising has moved toward convincing you that you "need" X. When there is no rational need for that need, the "upset" produces that need through irrational means.
I reserve "upset" for a sort of distressed emotional state (not necessary a strong emotional state, but a distressed emotional state nonetheless). I'd have to guess that you don't reserve "upset" for that, because clearly, most people are not in distressed emotional states upon watching commercials. So I have to wonder just how you use "upset."
Not so new really. It's being going on since the 'hard sell' of the 1930s, at least, and right up through the brand revolution of the 70s-80s when methods became more refined as style pretty much triumphed over substance. It's just more effective now, particularly with the advent of neuromarketing, which involves direct knowledge of how the brain reacts to specific imagery etc. (research is carried out using MRI machines and the like). Anyway, anyone who thinks they are immune to this is fooling themselves. There is no absolute intellectual override. Watching advertising is a psychologically debilitating activity and designed to be so.
I think it's a fair word to use if admittedly somewhat misleading. What's upset in my view is the kind of psychological balance we casually refer to as 'satisfaction', or more broadly, 'happiness'.
I've actually been schemeless, and it's a drag. Psyche is just an aspect of All. Psychic scheme plugs into All-scheme even if you're eliminative.
Scheme orders experience. It's a buffer. All your coping mechanisms arise from it. People who have no coherent scheme at all are crazy and not in a good way.
We functional people have some scheme though we may know it's a working scenario.
'Distress' will do as well, as a word. The effect of watching a single ad with a sudden klaxon and flashing warning sign is very very small and easily dismissed. But the overall effect is large. One cannot go out without a shower and deodorant, makeup, or whatever, one cannot admit guests without cleaning the house; one is made anxious, one is undermined, one is made fearful, not by a single attempt at manipulation, but by a lifetime of manipulation, such that this condition is taken as 'natural'.
The process of creating an ideal out of an object, trying to confer transcendental status upon the object, giving it power by making its presupposition necessary for the achievement of an ideal (we all want to be in Salem Country, but you can't unless you puff a Salem ;) ). This is what fetish ( 'compelling') is about, in my opinion. Ads strive to work in ways similar to the way stilettos, undergarments, black leather and the rest do the trick for some. Gratification is contingent upon purchase (and of course proper use) of the advertisers product. Get your rocks off ...take a puff.
(not saying 'compelling' is always sexually driven, but...)
Too many products literally do the opposite of the thing they're supposed to do.
I would say that when there is produced within a person, the feeling of need, when that apprehended need has no rational basis, this constitutes a distressed emotional state. This would be comparable to an addiction which is not recognized by the addict as an addiction. There is a distressed emotional state which is not recognized for what it is.
Clio Awards ("Clios" are advertising awards.)
Interesting.
Addiction and aspirations intersect in the case of advertising for cigarettes: The pleasure that cigarettes deliver is "hit relief". Smokers are addicted to nicotine which has a short, dose effect on the body--it might be as short as 20 minutes. Once the nicotine has been metabolized, the need for another dose rises, and the smoker feels uncomfortable. "I want another cigarette." Nicotine is absorbed quickly, so the first few draws bring relief, which is experienced as a small pleasure. The purpose of advertising is to associate the addicts relief with a particular brand: Salem, Kool, Marlboro, True, American Spirit (an organic brand)... whatever. The imagery varies by brand. The Marlboro masculine cowboy is a prime example.
If I were to return to smoking (haven't smoked for 22 years) I'd resume where I left off with Marlboro. Why? The nicotine in Marlboro is the same as it is in every other tobacco product, the the taste is not all that much different from other brands. But... I identified with the brand, the label, the box, the imagery -- even though I am about as far from being a cowboy as everybody else is.
The image of the Marlboro Man
Were I to resume smoking, nicotine addition would be awakened almost immediately, and then the whole need/relief cycle would resume.
Deodorants mask smell. Antiperspirants plug up pores from which sweat is excreted. Some people stink more than others -- not a fault, just a fact. Masking body odor (or washing away the source) does work. The flora and fauna on the skin is affected -- washing will change the mix a bit, not a lot. Using harsh disinfectants would change the mix hugely, but people rarely take a soak in chlorine bleach. But soaps, deodorants, and ordinary cleansers don't change the flora/fauna mix that much. Besides, it's always changing anyway, soap and water or not.
I believe what you say about Listerine™ -- the stuff is ghastly. However, bad breath was around before listerine. Sonnet 130 by Shakespeare says
"And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks."
As for teeth, unless you are using a wire brush and sand on your teeth, you are mistaken. Good dental hygiene helps teeth last for a long time.
Are you seriously saying that putting deodorant on is only something you'd do because you've been upset, or that it's some perpetual state of being upset that leads to you showering and taking care of hygiene issues in general?
Okay, but that's very different than the "upset" I'm thinking of. If we're simply saying that someone might want (to buy) something rather than not wanting that, I don't see what the issue is.
Also, do you folks clean yourself including your hands after you go to the bathroom, or is that an evil plot against you in your view, too?
It's 3 hours long; but, can be split up in 3 parts for watching. Never felt so enlightened watching something about the evolution of the American psyche.
Here it is in case one is lazy (as I am):
I meant professional cleaning, and whitening, not simply brushing, unless you're doing it too much, and while the enamel is soft.
Yes, I meant antiperspirants. I use perfume of course, lol. The other point that it won't actually change it a lot isn't what I've read. You can tell how stinky you are by how dry your ear-wax is, the drier the better.
I'm sure that some people did have bad breath, but was everyone washing their mouths out with soap prior to an aggressive campaign? Surely that would have been in relation to the norm which wasn't minty fresh, and could be a sign of stomach problems or infection, metabolic syndrome, and things like that.
Women actually like your BO if you're attractive. Women like masculinity, and are generally turned off by men as worried about their appearance and hygiene as they are, believe it or not.
What are they doing to you up there in MN? 4 minute commercials?! Sounds like cruel and unusual punishment. :)
Mannequins literally freak me out, my skin crawls. I am walking through a store and turn almost bumping into a mannequin, it takes me less than a second to realize it is unreal, and it takes me moments longer to regain my equilibrium.
The live models & the mannequins that participate in this commercial (its facile irony aside) are all young, wearing casual apparel. The models are all different shades of color and shapes, but none of them, neither model nor mannequin, are old & grey.
Message: If you want to look young, active and thereby be perceived as young attractive and vital, use Dove... its purification will enable you to appear young attractive and vital. You too can win the challenge of a having a clean desirable appearance.
Needs always hinge on wants/desires though.
LOL
I have a bath and change my socks almost every week whether I'm upset or not.
What I am saying is that advertising and propaganda deliberately set out to raise levels of anxiety and undermine confidence as a means of control, and that they have some effect is supported in the widely reported increase in mental illness. I'm saying that in the scheme of things, getting a whiff of body odour is not even worth talking about, likewise the eyelash lengthening effect of the latest mascara brush.
But even philosophers seem to think these are important moral issues or something. However, important though you may find it, this thread is supposed to be about mental health more so than the state of my underarms, so can we move on, please?
These women all Canadian?
Look it up. Though I won't keep distracting from the topic... you crazies need this therapy!
Are you uncomfortable talking about yourself?
I never thought about it as an important issue for some reason.
I mean I can't imagine what could be done to regulate that sort of thing?
I also tend to assume that the consumer has some onus to educate themselves on such tactics, I even seem to recall being taught about propaganda and advertising in school.
Unfortunately there isn't anything you can do about it.
Quoting Wosret
"Attractive" is a critical caveat. "Attractive" is very important in one's youth. It's important later on, too, but as one ages, natural attractiveness tends to go out the window. Lots of money is a perfectly acceptable substitute for any natural features one might wish for, however hideous the aged might have become. "Lots" = more than one knows what to do with.
Back in my salad days when I was young, fit, and/or reasonably attractive (Say, prior to 1990) I found that I had my best luck at my favorite cruisy gay bar if I hadn't carefully groomed (or groomed at all) for the occasion--like not removing all traces of my caucasian yellow, sticky ear wax. Could have been that I was more relaxed (fewer expectations) when just stopping in, unplanned. Or maybe it was pheromones. Maybe I had a certain apache vibe that other guys found appealing.
Usually, the education one might end up with is focused on the techniques of misinformation and certainly awareness can help one resist the implanted messages. One can become aware of shelf placement, of not very special offers, of the myriad tricks of packaging, brand promotion etc.
But the effect I am trying to point to is not one that can be resisted very easily. As soon as I am aware you are trying to get me to buy X or vote Y, I can resist. I can be contrarian. But the anxiety, the fear, the undermining, these remain as a residue, even when the resistance is total, and education and awareness is bang up to date. Not, though, that we punters can really hope to outsmart the armies of experimenters and experts dedicated to our manipulation.
It's extraordinary, really. Look at the depth of concern expressed in most of the responses on this thread about trivial bodily matters by supposedly sane and intelligent people. It's far worse than I had imagined; people are incapable of reasoning at all on the topic.
I am kind of at a loss as well.
I am not sure how to reason about it either myself.
I mean at some level I guess I realize that modern hygiene is more of a luxury than a necessity but I can't imagine not buying hygiene products as a boycott of the advertising methods employed.
I am also not sure if it is such a problem that, as a society, we should legislate and regulate the advertisement industry further.
It seems to me people are more concerned with other issues.
People, I notice are really really unhappy. And nobody knows why. We have more and more stuff and we are more and more unhappy, insecure, mentally ill, unstable, angry, depressed. And yet everyone wants to talk about fucking deodorants, and why I'm a hypocrite. I guess it's not really a problem after all.
I was just using that as an example.
I don't imagine a lot of people boycotting products because of the way those products are being marketed.
And I don't imagine the issue of psychological manipulation from marketing becoming a priority in politics.
I agree that people are unhappy and mentally ill, but to the extent that advertising methods contribute to this....I don't know it just seems to me like most people would consider other issues more important factors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_Corpse
Yes, and I'm one of them. Ads are a small part, an easily analysable manifestation of of this much bigger thing called scientific psychology which is a way of understanding and relating which is fundamentally manipulative and pervades human relations at every level, from politics to personal relationships. Treating people as objects drives them mad, and we are doing it to each other more and more. I wonder if it is possible to talk about this?
Yes; but, they're still human.
I'd invite you to start your life over as a female and then if you're still inclined to discuss objectification with that brain trust of the species we call The Philosophy Forum.. go for it.
The topic puts me in mind of a little astrological symbolism. Capricorn is often symbolized by a goat standing alone on top of a hill (usually smiling.) The image is of a state in which one stands apart from the crowd and sees how sheep-like most people are. They long to be told what to wear, what to listen to, who to trust, who it's OK to shit on, what to say, how to smell, what to believe, etc.
You don't really need any jarring commercials. Just whisper in their ears. Now if you reject this perspective, I have 11 others you can choose from.
Which, I think, is a good way for thinking about psychology. One of the question's Kant sort of "waffled" on was the question of anthropology (at least, philosophically speaking -- he was also a man of his times) -- you can find tensions within his philosophy between whether or not man himself can be the subject of knowledge, or if the nature humanity is one of the questions which reason is destined to both ask and never answer.
In relation to the OP, while usually we are other-focused on ethics, one thing that's interesting about the 2nd CI is that it is the humanity within all of us, including ourselves, which we are to treat as an end -- one common way of interpreting this is to say that we should respect both others and ourselves.
Which would mean thinking of us and others in some way other than how we think of objects, and relating to them in that way.
Or, at the very least, we should recognize -- ala the CI at least -- that we are already valuable as human beings, and deserve respect regardless of what our "empirical psychology" might be telling us about us or others.
What do you mean by treating others as objects?
If you don't take a pre/post Fall view, then it's advertising and manipulation all the way down - just replace advertising with social organization based around shame. If the lion's share of our social behavior becomes consumption, then that's where the social organizers will focus (have focused, are focusing.) How do you get people to live together and work in concert without directing their behavior on a deep emotional level?
And more to the point: If you can't do that without this kind of thing, then do we have any more reason to gripe about it, then we do about the state's contractors fixing potholes a few weeks late? (Except of course that griping's good, because we get to let off steam, and not shoot-up the office, before going right back to it.) But really though, is the dream of not having anyone mould our shame and direct us to temporary respites a good one? Does anyone really want to try it out?
Intellectuals are here to shame us kids (ie the ugly and unformed) from grown up talk (ie. refined subtle ideas that pleasure you so).
Life is constant moral posturing, vying for status, tribal virtue signaling, work, work, work. Social pressure never lets up. No wonder people are unhappy. I can't compete with this stuff.
We live in a society where you are suppose to compete for your position. Nothing is assured. It's about winning, just like dipshit Trump says.
Maybe if I had a product to make me smell smarter, like a roll on brain deodorant stick.
That kind of makes sense, considering it is a philosophy forum.
At some point I expect you'll be wanting to change your handle to "Bitter Crank".
I guess I hear you saying that we are a bunch of heady males.
Probably.
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Sut Jhally - Advertising & the Perfect Storm:
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Selling stuff has been going on for a long time. IF there is anything different about what is going on now, (and I'm not sure there is) it's that there is more stuff to sell to more people, and more complicated ways of doing it.
Complicated, psychologically intrusive, and manipulative methods aren't needed to sell rutabagas and cabbage. Pork chops and beef roasts sell themselves to people who are capable of cooking. Transit companies don't bother to suggest that riding a bus is sexually enhancing. If you have to ride the big, stinking thing, you will, and they know that.
Because we live in a multinational capitalist economy where profit is the point, companies are driven to sell more of whatever they have. If it's toothpaste, toilet paper, or tampons, they don't just want you to buy their products, they very much NEED you to buy it. Hence, the intensity of the advertising methods--the propaganda of products.
5 largest advertising agencies and their 2014 revenues:
These 5 companies are not raking in $57 billion because they employ cynical assholes with nothing better to do than to annoy people. Global advertising generated around $660 billion in 2016. Why? Because the companies that make trillions of dollars worth of goods need to [s]unload[/s] market them at a profitable price.
Because corporations compete, they have to convince you to buy Proctor & Gamble soap rather than Unilever soap. It's in areas of stiff competition that the manipulative stops are pulled out. The main source of profitability is sales to consumers, and if they don't sell enough, they go broke. So it's us or them.
Proctor and Gamble introduced Tide™ in 1949. Since then it has been the leading laundry soap in the US. Is it #1 just because it gets clothes clean? No, indeed. There are a couple of dozen other detergents that will do the job reasonably well. Tide wasn't just manufactured and put in a box (or later a bottle). It was advertised as THE effective and reliable laundry soap to get clothes cleanest and brightest--a credit to the women who washed their clothes with TIDE.
I would say it's not about whether you can resist it or not. That's a red herring. There is no resistance in the sense of being able to "see through". You can only try to avoid it. Seeing through advertising is relatively easy. If you did a poll to ask people whether they thought ads were honest, you would probably get a majority negative (but hook anyone up to an MRI machine and watch the effect of a given ad and I doubt you'd be able to tell the cynics from the pollyannas). In fact, thinking you can "see through" advertising is probably as good or a better result for the advertisers than knowing you can't if the former means you don't feel the need to reduce exposure.
Quoting csalisbury
And what is it all the way up? Not all forms of socially organized shame-inducing are equal. If I must ingest a poison, I'll take sugar over cyanide. Emphasizing their chemical similarities isn't going to change my mind. It's not just advertising though, it's the whole media entertainment constellation which revolves around it. If it doesn't concern people that the only way this system can survive is through the creation of dissatisfaction and unhappiness, then it's done its job fantastically well, hasn't it?
I would say it's almost all carrot. But the carrot is rotten, and its effect is to impair our ability to distinguish the rotten from the fresh still further.
I'm not suggesting that objectification began C.1900. Women have seemingly forever been dehumanised, black people for a long time. And your reciprocal dehumanisation of the (male) members of the forum is quite understandable. But I am going for it anyway, even as I inevitably fall into the pit I am pointing to.
I'm aware of the connection with Kant. I would say that Kant and Hume are the philosophical ancestors of psychology, speaking before the subject was claimed by science. These days, one is not worth talking to unless one has access to an MRI scanner. Perhaps the whole thing can be blamed on Hume's scepticism, which triumphed over Kant because Hume was an engaging fellow and great writer, while Kant was an impenetrable weirdo that I really can't bring myself to read, though I really should.
But the thing I want to emphasise from your post as a particular modern twist on the dehumanising process is exactly that it becomes self-referrential. Whereas we have commonly objectifiedthem (Jews, Blacks, Women, peasants, etc) psychology leads us inexorably to objectifyourselves. Human nature dissolves into nature with the death of god, and we ourselves are mere phenomena to be studied and manipulated and exploited along with all the other collections of atoms.
:-} Where is Rush Limbaugh?
Quoting unenlightened
I disagree. It has largely been a matter of social class instead of gender. Poor women in the Roman Empire were dehumanised - as were poor men for the most part as well. Rich women though lived quite fine lives for the most part. Now the fact that a man abused a woman more frequently than a woman abused a man (if we're talking strictly sexually and physically here) was simply because men had such capacities available - they were generally physically stronger. If the women had been granted equal capacities, they too would have abused men. People have, and will always have a tendency towards immorality, but the moderns today don't want to accept that fact - they want to change it, which, although well-motivated, is ultimately impossible. Yes - life as a woman is definitely different than life as a man - but I don't necessarily take that to be bad - difference is only natural, it doesn't mean one is inferior or superior. Women have advantages that men don't, and men also have advantages that women don't.
Women need different skills to live happy lives than men do. That's all there is to say about it. Women depend on their social environment for example, much more than men do. The fact that some feminazis are looking for "payback" or "revenge" on men in today's world, because they have captured the reigns of power finally, seems nothing but idiocy to me. The whole scenario is in fact stupid.
I'm not in a position to encapsulate it in a neat definition, but apart from Kant, Martin Buber talks about it in I and Thou. It is I suppose the ignoring or denial of the uniqueness of the individual and of their sovereign agency. But don't entirely hold me to that. And note the previous comment that we now objectify ourselves.
It's more about treating others as means to some other end that is the problem - that's what objectification ultimately is. Treating people as tools to achieve something. And both men and women do this - now and in the past - in different manners. Women manipulate men using their physical beauty, intellect and/or political capacity - or seek to do so - and men use their physical (or economic or political) power to control women. They're both dehumanising each other. Furthermore, this is one of my main arguments against sexual promiscuity.
Shame on you, Nils. ;) One is not dehumanised by being asked to wipe one's boots, nor by being shown the door if one starts kicking the dog.
The Chinese Daoists understood this better than everyone else. Virtue cannot fail to bring about worldly success - in the long run. Sure, you may die sooner than virtue could have brought you worldly success, but if you stick to it, you cannot fail.
People who engage in "moral posturing" and the like will be wiped out - in the long run. Their gains are the currency they contribute every day to finance their future downfall.
That too, and for sure it is not an entirely modern phenomenon. But I'm coming to the view, as a result of this discussion that the modern feature, the turn of the screw made by experimental psychology is that it is no longer just them that I dehumanise, but also us which means me as well. I'll try and characterise this a bit more clearly as we go on.
Hmmm - I don't quite understand this distinction yet.
In my own honest and fucking humble opinion, there are two kinds of women. Those who are worth attracting, and those who aren't worth attracting. The situation is such that the set composed of the former is tiny compared to the set composed of the latter. Those who are not worth attracting are attracted by one thing only - power. Whether this is economical power (money, position, etc.), physical power (big muscles, good looks, etc.), political power, social power (for ex. fame) or whatever other kind of power. And I've experienced this - when you have any one of those powers to a high degree - whether you're the coolest kid at school, or you have a prestigious job, or you're the guy who fucks all the girls, etc. - then these women will swarm around you like flies swarm around shit. If a famous football player goes to a club, all the girls will surround him - which only goes to show that women who attend nightclubs have no character. What's the point of even being affiliated in a romantic way with such a person? That's more like cutting the very branch on which you are sitting... >:O
Now the women who are worth attracting - you won't find guidebooks and guidelines about how to attract them online or in print :P - all the tips and tricks you find in print only work on those who aren't worth attracting to begin with. And they can't be attracted by any generalities, it will be very specific particulars which attract them, which are intractable - can't form a system around it because they would differ widely from one woman to the next. So if you want to attract those, I can't help you.
If you want to attract those not worth attracting though - just make yourself powerful (or just appear powerful) and advertise >:O - or wait for fortune to make you powerful, either can actually happen. And if fortune makes you powerful, don't forget about advertising! :-$ The flies won't come to the shit if there's no smell calling them...
But then i take my anti-depressant pill, and then the tv stops trying to control me and all is calm once again. For awhile.
[(please imagine this being spoken very rapidly, so as to avoid comprehension) Some side effects may include... Serotonin Syndrome: A potentially life-threatening problem that can happen when medicines such as (X) are taken with certain other medicines. Symptoms may include agitation, hallucinations, coma or other changes in mental status; problems controlling movements or muscle twitching, stiffness or tightness; fast heartbeat, high or low blood pressure; sweating or fever; nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.
Abnormal bleeding or bruising: (X) and other serotonergic antidepressant medicines may increase your risk of bleeding or bruising, especially if you take the blood thinner warfarin (Coumadin®, Jantoven®), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), or aspirin. Manic episode: Symptoms may include greatly increased energy; severe trouble sleeping; racing thoughts; reckless behavior; unusually grand ideas; excessive happiness or irritability; talking more or faster than usual. Visual problems: May include eye pain, changes in vision, swelling or redness in or around the eye. Only some people are at risk for these problems. You may want to undergo an eye examination to see if you are at risk and receive preventative treatment if you are. Low salt (sodium) levels in the blood: Symptoms may include headache; difficulty concentrating, memory changes or confusion; weakness and unsteadiness on your feet; and in severe or sudden cases hallucinations, fainting, seizures or coma. If not treated, severe low sodium levels can cause death... and so on and so forth... ]
Did he get there because a woman manipulated him since he's a brute who can only think with his lower head, and thus was helpless to her actions? :D
Yes yes, but how did he end up in such dire straits?
The bigger issue is the way that the advertising industry (along with its psychological abuse) is integrated into the entertainment industry as a whole, such that the entire entertainment industry can now be said to exploit people psychologically. It is very rare to find pure entertainment, entertainment for the sake of entertaining, as entertainment is overwhelmingly produced for the sake of making money. Now if we add the dimension of psychological exploitation, which comes along with this commercial activity, we can understand how entertainment is becoming more and more a source of psychological distress, which is opposed to its true purpose, or true use, which is as a source of relief from such stresses. There is something very unhealthy to be found in the way that the news media has become unified with the entertainment media.
No :D
Would you mind expanding on that? I don't think I understand what a pre/post Fall view is, or how that relates to the consequent in the above.
That rings true for me. In particular, though I am prejudiced to think in this manner, at the workplace -- there are roles one wishes to fit into in order to obtain the material and social goods they desire (whatever those happen to be -- from daily subsistence to social glory and influence). In order to do so one has to operate on themselves to gain these goods. And the language of self-improvement is quite pervasive in the workplace not merely as a way of justifying position, but as a kind of ethic of the self which people in all positions at the workplace -- though not all people do this, just noting that there is no unique position in the hierarchy -- express belief in and practice.
Actually, oddly enough considering his real life associations, but Heidegger also comes to mind in relation to the OP since one reading of his philosophy -- though as with all things H. it can be contested, I don't mean this as a hermeneutics but just one reading I've seen presented -- is to see it as an attempt to dig out of the domination of a naturalistic picture. Not that naturalism is wrong as far as it goes, but rather that technology has come to dominate man's authentic being -- hence the phenomenology into Greek terminology to attempt to recover the very question from naturalistic interp.
One consequence of this, so I would say, is that those inspired by H -- such as Derrida and Levinas -- would also prove fruitful to read, I think.
Actually, Foucault's history of sexuality part 2 is also a fruitful book because it deals with techniques and practices of the self -- in particular our self-relation. I'm still in the middle of reading that right now, but it seems apropos.
Sorry for the name-dump. They all seem really relevant though.
So, I wrote that post in a fit of spleen. But what I mean by pre/post fall is the narrative that there was an idyllic period, then something bad happened (freud, madison ave, Bernays) and that led to our particularly dystopic present. My sense is that being a 21st century consumer in a first world country is a far better lot than 99% of all past lots. I mean, it's not that great. But it's a little less nasty, brutish and short.
Yeah, I have some sympathy for this view. Though I think you may have gone too far in the other direction in correcting the idea of seeing-through. It's not as though advertisements have a quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs, affecting each purely passive body/soul equally, so that all we have can do is run from the beams etc.. You are right that it's sometimes easier to con the guy who thinks he can't be conned. But often it's easier to con people who don't have a sense of how cons work.
I'd prefer sugar too. You have some? What is it?
I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that advertising and the media has created dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I think it's more likely that it only moulds it in certain ways. I think, by and large, people are most dissatisfied when they aren't given some direction on how to become satisfied. So another way to say this: I don't think that the natural state of people is relative satisfaction, then mad men who've read Freud come in and make people dissatisfied. Maybe that's because they've drilled down to my core, but I don't think so.
WE did not call forth advertising because we are sex obsessed, sex deprived, or obsessed with trivial concerns. We might be all of that, but advertising wasn't our idea.
As a primate species, we tend to be insecure about our place in society. We neither emit nor detect pheromones so specific that we can tell where our standing in the hierarchy is. We are very often at least somewhat uncertain about it. We use other devices to display our status. Are we attractive enough? Is there something about me turning off that guy/girl? Why don't people ask me to go to lunch with them. And so on...
We had been psychologizing long before William James became the first Professor of Psychology", and Bernays didn't "invent" methods for manipulating people--all that had been going on for a very long time. What he invented was an industry. Industries like "Public Relations" or "Advertising" came into existence because the economic means made them possible. The first four media of mass advertising -- fast, high quality printing in color, radio, television and movies came about for the same reason: the means of production (electronics, factories, broadcasting technology, motion/sound/color film production) were in place by the early (and for TV, mid) 20th century.
advertising preys upon our insecurities and frustrated aspirations. Not everyone is equally insecure; not everyone worries about their embodied social presence; not every man's grasp greatly exceeds his reach. But MOST people do feel insecure, most people aren't quite sure whether they are have it all together (right clothes, right shoes, right hair-do, right powder, right perfume...) and most people have not yet come close to grasping their highest aspirations. They are nervous. They weren't made nervous by advertisers. Advertising only capitalizes and aggravates insecurity.
It is fruitless and pointless to complain that people are chumps; fall prey to advertisers blandishments; are too stupid to see what is going on; are too venal to resist; are too shallow to care, and so on. We live in a social world which is competitive. Because we are sentient, we can not ignore the fact that there is a hierarchy, a competition for scarce resources, a competition for social status, for comfort-enhancing acquisitions.
Can one drop out of this scene? Sure. You may have noticed a grating covered with a thick layer of bird shit and tragically splattered aspirations at the bottom of the hierarchy -- one can slip through the gaps in the grates. Once out, it's somewhat-difficultt to damned-near-impossible to get back in, however. The other approach is to float out through the top -- easy to do if you have a cart of gold bricks to finance the project.
Life below the grating is not hell on earth -- some people like it. But it is a life which requires a great deal of self-direction, a strong moral compass (whether it points toward good or not), fairly low material aspirations, tolerance for low status, and all that. You can't have high-status cake and eat it down below the grate.
So: That's what advertising leverages its messages against.
None of this is much more mysterious than having your mood and thus your behaviour changed by a piece of music. You may be perfectly aware of the process but it hardly matters, it doesn't work on the on that level (unlike a "con"). Does that mean music has a "quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs"? Well, if you want to put it colourfully, it does. At a higher level a hypnotist can put you in an extremely suggestible state against which incredulity at his powers is not necessarily a defense. And advertising falls somewhere in between. No claims of magic here; it's a science, if an inexact one.
Quoting csalisbury
OK, but in the case of advertising that has been more or less the stated goal since production methods became so efficient in the early twentieth century (starting in the U.S.) that potential supply began to far outstrip demand and economic growth required the creation of new demands. New demands require new desires require new dissatisfactions and so on. Trillions of dollars have been spent on advertising on the basis that this is what it does and that it works.
Quoting csalisbury
Think Pavlov/Skinner not Freud. The traditional basis of advertising psychology isn't all that exotic. For example:
[quote=Journal of Consumer Research]
The present paper examines the implications of recent developments in classical conditioning for consumer research. It discusses the finding that the conditioned response need not resemble the unconditioned response, and that the conditioned stimulus must predict but not necessarily precede the unconditioned stimulus for conditioning to occur. The paper also considers the implications of several situations in which classical conditioning may unexpectedly fail to occur, several of the characteristics of classically conditioned behavior, and the role of awareness in conditioning.[/quote]
Link
Quoting csalisbury
Nobody has to drill into your core to make you not aware of something though.
Yes.
I hope that folks will entertain the ideas here, rather than be entertained by them. In being entertained by talent competitions, police melodramas, or war games, one becomes uncritical, passive to the message.
This is the heart and soul of the inhumanity, directed inwards. It's worthy of its own thread, but I'll just concur that to operate on a person, (oneself or another) as if they are a thing to be shaped and polished and used, is exactly the mistake I am trying to indicate. Not that one should not learn and practice to better oneself in a straightforward way, exercise to become stronger or whatever. One can lift oneself up by using the stairs, but not by using one's bootstraps.
Well the fall as I read it happened a while before that, and was the fall from animal innocence. But please, there is no question but that science directed outwards to the world has been hugely effective and beneficial. My criticism is that it is ineffective and counter-productive when turned inwards to humanity itself. Experiment and manipulation works on stone and wood; it does not work on persons, but distorts rather than refines.
No one is claiming they invented it; but they promote it, and elicit it.
And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping.
Ineffective and counter-productive? Would it be better to be effective and productive? What are you selling?
You know that the rise of psychological science allowed the mentally ill to be looked at non-judgmentally and therefore more compassionately. But the anchor of compassion (in my experience) is that big s-word: self. Have you become a self-realist?
Wait a minute--what are we taking to be evidence of a "widely reported increase in mental illness" (as well as unhappiness as someone else said), and in particular, since it's the thesis here, an increase since the advent of widespread advertising (at least outside of newspapers, since they're much older than TV, radio, etc.)? Just what data are we relying on about mental illness rates pre the late 1940s, pre the 1920s, etc.?
First off, no matter who you are, no matter what your disposition, you need food, clothing (in most climates), shelter (again in most climates), some items for your shelter, for food preparation, etc., and you'll need some health care items if you don't want to just be ill and injured while waiting for your body to repair itself, if it can.
But aside from that, the idea that in order to desire anything that you could buy, you need to be unhappy or mentally ill is ridiculous.
What would be better to explore in my opinion is why there's a niche of people who have such averse, such conspiracy/evil-plot-oriented attitudes towards marketing. What's going on with those folks psychologically that they effectively see advertising/marketing as an affront?
This is morality though, in a nutshell. It is experimentation and manipulation turned inwards on humanity itself. So this same inward experimentation and manipulation can go two ways, bad or good. Plato recognized this, that is why he advocated strict controls over the arts, He didn't say to shut the arts right down because this is all bad, he said to control it, so that it is good.
But when we're talking about "experimentation", there is a degree of unknown, inherent within. The unknown needs to be balanced and overcome by the known, to bring out the good of the experiment. Consider Jesus and his disciples, wasn't this just a big experiment on the manipulation of humanity? The thing about experimentation is that even if it goes bad, we can learn from it, and derive good from a bad experience. That's how we should look at the experimentation and manipulation of advertising which you refer to. It's already happened, it's ongoing and can not be stopped. But even if it's bad, we can learn from it, and therefore derive good from it.
Only someone completely ignorant of the history/psychology of advertising could come up with such a silly comment. So you don't like people who criticize business? Good for you. Give yourself a a pat on the head. But unless you can identify the conspiracy theory being put forward here, that's all you get.
That might explain why no one has made that claim.
Seems like you took offense at my comment. Presumably you're someone who sees advertising/marketing as an affront? We could explore why you feel that way about it.
Re "identify the conspiracy theory," I'm simply referring to ideas such as those presented in this thread--that advertisers are plotting how to make people feel unhappy, distressed, etc.
Were you just saying that you a desire to buy something is required, and no particular emotional state other than that?
I don't think any theory at all has been presented. Terms were brought up and left undefined. Odd contradictory assertions were made and left unjustified. Whole bunch of nuthin' I guess.
Surely if I mentioned the word "theory," I meant that quite literally.
Haha
One idea I have about people who see marketing/advertising as an affront is that they're perhaps people who tend to be very suggestible and who tend to understand things in a "literal," surface manner, so that would go along with the old cliche of "you must not understand x if you don't buy the (or a particular) party line of x" with respect to a certain niche of academic criticism of marketing culture.
Again, complete ignorance. This discussion is not about the personal psychology of the interlocutors, it's about advertising and psychology in general, which you know nothing about. There are other discussions on these boards, you know...
Put that mirror down.
Well, I did design and run a university course on advertising that went over a lot of this stuff. That may not count for much, but I'm not completely ignorant. Now as I said, if you are not willing to even Google the basics, why not run along?
No one is doubting that you have the beliefs that you do. And of course, the party line comment above applies here.
I thought I had been doing that. Do you have a more specific question or response to one of my comments?
I wonder how the advertising industry is planning to adapt to this change as it becomes more prevalent. Any thoughts on that?
When did the problem of other minds first occur to philosophy, Was it Descartes? Someone educate me.
To the ancients, other minds were the explanation for everything. All nature was the manifestation of other minds; thunder gods, sea gods, wood sprites, and so on. What was a struggle, a problem, was the depersonalisation of nature. Plato, I seem to remember was still struggling with the gods to subdue them.
One might say that the problem of other minds is the problem of knowing when to stop. It is no use to talk to a volcano, to reason with it or placate it, or apologise for upsetting it. No use trying to understand its point of view, as one might try to understand the point of view of an elephant. Or a fly? Or a madman?
Looking at the history of it being made explicit in philosophical literature: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#2
Well, it seems to me that in the future, without mass TV viewing to rely on, advertising is likely to be more targeted, dispersed, invasive and diverse.
See neuromarketing:, for example:
"Neuromarketing engages the use of Magnetic Resance Imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), biometrics, facial coding, eye tracking and other technologies to investigate and learn how consumers respond and feel when presented with products and/or related stimuli (Kolter et al., 2013). The concept of neuromarketing investigates the non-conscious processing of information in consumers brains (Agarwal & Dutta, 2015). Human decision-making is both a conscious and non-conscious process in the brain (Glanert, 2012). Human brains process over 90% of information non-consciously, below controlled awareness; this information has a large influence in the decision-making process (Agarwal & Dutta, 2015). "
More on subways, buses, taxis, lifts, anywhere where people congregate. Louder, flashier etc.
Constant innovation. What was that movie with Cruise where he gets offered a Guinness by a hologram? Coming soon...
Other?
In English we say "I am cold."
In German, it's "I have cold."
Russians say: "The cold is upon me."
Greek scholars say that Homer should be read the Russian way. All the stuff we think of as internal psychic forces is external in Homer. It's like the psyche turned inside out.
They would probably think we see ourselves as divine.
Seinfeld did an internet show called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. It's pretty good. It's funded by Acura (why do I remember that?) and every time an Acura appears on the show, Seinfeld points out that it's "product placement."
Funny.
So in looking at this, I am manifesting my own psychological way of seeing. I am not selling it, but giving it away - confessing it. Here is my slogan:
If you regard people objectively, you will only ever learn how to manipulate them.
Where did I say that?
Wait.. I think you answered me without understanding what I had asked. Just a lot of talking past one another. OK. I'm out. Peace, dude.
In order for it to be a science, given the conventions that make something a science in the first place (such as observation, theoretically replicable experimentation, etc.), it can't deal with subjective phenomena directly, because subjective phenomena are inherently first-person/not third-person observable.
Exactly. And a person without subjective phenomena is a zombie. Treating people like zombies is the best way to turn them into zombies.
Well, it's not as if science can change this situation without simply no longer being science--it would have to become something quite different, because it would have to divest itself of a lot of its core operating assumptions.
I see the problem as occurring with people taking science (and especially mathematics) to both mirror and exhaust the entirety of the world, rather than taking it as something that's simply turned out to have a lot of instrumental utility.
Shall we start again with a different example? Psychology and education?
Indeed not. I am not asking it to; I am asking science to very kindly fuck off from where it cannot help but only harm. I am saying that the science of mind is psychopathic.
I'm game.
The major hard-core mental illnesses are not increasing. Psychosis, schizophrenia, bi-polar, and such affect the low percentages of the population they always have. It's the "soft-core" diagnoses that are popping up all over the place: ADD, vaguely defined depression, vague autism, oppositional defiance disorder, and so on. I don't doubt that people diagnosed with ADD, vague autism, "vaguely defined depression, and so on are having problems. Their problems just might be caused by very incompetent parenting and living in socially-deteriorating situations.
How many people had heard of "restless leg syndrome" before drug makers could advertise "Requip" and other such drugs (mostly older parkinson disease meds)? The incidence of ADHD is either of epidemic proportions OR pharmaceutical companies have found another nail to hit with a hammer. ("If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.")
Hee hee. No, nothing to apologize about in the OP, imho. Advertising is as good a place to start digging as any other, maybe even better. Lots of interesting and half-hidden things to find here. And much invested here, as someone pointed out, both financially and otherwise. Now back to the digging!
:)
Well, aside from the problem that we don't have good comparable data from 75-100+ years ago for mental illnesses and general happiness/unhappiness, I'd bet anything that apparent increases in minor mental maladies per capita are just as related to some combination of the following:
(1) People with psych degrees needing clients in order to sustain their careers; that encourages diagnoses of conditions that require regular visits, If there aren't enough people who need counseling, then a lot of those folks will be out of work and/or will have a difficult time justifying their jobs in institutional settings, etc.
(2) Pharmaceutical companies having similar motivations,
(3) People hoping to acquire some type of government assistance and/or excuses for special treatment at work/special employment situations,
(4) Munchausen syndrome/factitious disorder, where people have a desire for attention/special treatment/etc.
Yep. You ain't kidding! And that's just the stuff we know of. Who knows what else is being planned.
Do we want to know? Can we handle the truth? (to quote another Cruise movie). My knee-jerk reaction is to say, yea! bring on the truth, the more the better; i can take it. But it might be paralyzing and nauseating, beyond anything Sartre, Orwell, or others have described.
I am very suspicious of the cellphone and tablet. The phone is like a spy in my pocket, ready to rat me out in a second. The smartphone may be too clever by half. Tape covers the cameras when not in use, though I suppose the microphone theoretically could be used remotely by other parties. I hope to (insert favorite Divinity here) that I'm just being paranoid and over-imaginative. What is the term for it? Big data?
Why don't we just swallow the whole kielbasa and analyze what is wrong with "every facet of society"?
I there is something wrong with society that has not always been wrong, then it has a beginning. You seem to be suggesting that the problem began in the late 19th / early 20th century when Wundt, Ebbinghaus, James, Pavlov, Dewey, Skinner, et al started building 'scientific psychology' with measurement, observation, theorizing, and so on.
Or, do you have some other starting point in mind? Maybe the industrial revolution and modern capitalism? Surely all that didn't have anything to do with infecting every facet of society with a depersonalizing instrumental approach, did they?
Thanks for sharing that excellent point. Didn't know that. I wish i had been raised with another language besides English. It might give some different perspectives, as you imply. And sometimes having another perspective can make quite a difference. Very admiring of people who speak two and three languages! (tho i has enuf trubbles wif Inglish! :D)
Sorry... couldn't resist
Going back to 1916, no. But post WWII, which is 70 years ago, I think there is comparable information. the General Social Survey is around 40+ years old, Gallops surveys go back 70 years. (Gallop, Inc. generously declares "For more than 70 years, Gallup has built its reputation on delivering relevant, timely, and visionary research on what humans around the world think and feel. Using impeccable data...") While the diagnostic standards for manic depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, catatonia, and so on might have been and might still be a bit dicey when it comes to telling one illness from another, these severe illnesses have always been obvious, whatever the cause was thought to be.
I agree that the definitions of the minor mental illnesses aren't comparable. The Freudian diagnostic regimens were tossed out the window, and pre-1960s and post-1960s diagnoses isn't readily comparable. I have no idea what, exactly, a practitioner meant by "hysteria" for instance.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, all of the above applies. Diagnoses are needed for return visits, but even more important, diagnoses are needed to get paid by insurance companies. And I would add that it isn't all scam and racket. Some therapists really are very competent and helpful. (So ask yourself, what kind of scam do philosophers have going to justify their existences on college campuses--and who else bothers to employ them?)
As for disability, some people have achieved disability status who seemed to be just fine, but in the US, at least, "disability" was always grudgingly awarded.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am more interested in Reverse Munchausen Syndrome where people feign sanity but are actually stark raving mad.
Good point about bills being paid, by the way. Specific diagnoses are very important for that.
I didn't mean to imply that it's (all) an overt scam. A lot of it is a "seeing everything as a nail because you have a hammer" phenomenon, and that's often well-intentioned.
Also, the more complex the inner world, the more distant the protagonist, the more difficult they are to discern at all.
As per my earlier aside, it's all Descartes' fault, with his 'thinking things'.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#2 (Thanks to Terrapin for the link).
Thus the philosophical problem and its roots. So once the problem has been articulated, it is quite natural to do with humanity what has been so successfully done with nature - to depersonalise it. So yes, late 19th century, and the science of psychology begins, and the philosophy of mind is bypassed in the same way that the ancient gods of fire and sea and thunder were bypassed.
(in all fairness, I have a difficulty understanding Un a lot of the time, which makes him particularly interesting to me.)
If you read my earlier post, I find the entire entertainment industry an affront. The reason I feel this way is that it has transformed entertainment from an effective form of stress release, into a cause of stress. Therefore it is a self-perpetuating habit. We seek entertainment to relieve ourselves from our stresses, but the so-called entertainment just causes more stress so that we seek more entertainment. It's consumerism at its best (or worst), addiction, where the consumption of the product continually increases the need for the product. I may as well be paying my money to the local coke dealer.
Do you mean, then, to disown the first if/then that you wrote? I'm only asking because it seems what you say here would mean that since you don't take a pre/post fall view -- there is no idyllic past we have lost -- the world as we know it now is better than the world before. But that doesn't seem to square away with the notion that everything is advertising all the way down in the event that we don't believe in this idyllic past (since I would take it as a negative if everything is advertising all the way down, at least)
Why do you see it as causing stress? (I work in the entertainment industry, by the way.)
I'd almost go so far as to say that this might be unavoidable to some extent. Educational institutions, for instance, like parenting, don't treat students or children as equals, at least, and the establishment of any hierarchy is prone to objectifying those who are lower in the hierarchy, even with good intentions.
But perhaps it's better to say, rather than unavoidable (thereby reifying what is into what is necessary), to say that it occurs, and I'm uncertain, in some circumstances, what else to do -- even though I'd be interested in trying something else. (being, in principle at least, against hierarchy)
I think this is only one contemporary attitude towards the mentally ill. But I would express uncertainty, at least, that this attitude -- though contemporary expression is often in the linguistic terms of psychology --was due to experimental psychology (itself something different, in my mind at least, from psychology simpliciter). The reason I say this is because psychology, as a whole, is equally responsible for even worse treatment of the mentally ill in many cases, at least if we use the presence of psychological language as our measure, and just to gauge by the 20th century. Because the mentally ill were deprived of agency they were also subject to rather horrible "cures" administered by experts.
So I would posit that psychological science isn't exactly the cause, but rather just how we express ourselves these days -- and some people take a compassionate approach and realize that the mentally ill are literally unable to perform some of the functions of modern living, and some take the "reformist" approach and subject the mentally ill to cures they couldn't understand anyway. (which is also to say it depends on in whose company you are in, when you admit your mental illness, whether you will be treated well or not)
Sort of similar to animal treatment, actually -- some take pity on animals, and others think of animals as objects, but neither treats animals as an equal. (a bit off the cuff, there -- just an association I made at the end)
Granted, this is only based on my personal experiences. Nothing terribly scientific in it.
What you do or don't have trouble believing has no bearing on what's the case with my background, statuses, etc., though.
I think the very idea of mental illness is a scientific one.
What do you think--would I be saying that?
I'll answer this question when you answer mine in a way that I would consider an answer.
Then I suppose you won't answer. Not that you would have anyway. That's been a theme with you all along.
I was just busting your balls a bit.
Relax.
I thought it would be funny to give you a taste of your own medicine.
Yeah, but seriously, I don't know if you've ever straightforwardly answered a question I've asked you.
I think turn about is fair play.
I've directly answered almost every question you asked me.
What do you think--would I be saying that?
Probably not, if only to be an ass. I could quote probably tens of examples for you, though, just from that one thread where we were talking about truth.
Abnormal psychology, the study of mental illness, is a nice area of muddy water in my polemic, because it slides into medicine and medical research. Medical research also rests the objectification of people, and that gives rise to a complex ethical situation that demands at least, and amongst other things, informed consent. Which is problematic in the case of the mentally ill.
So not wanting to forbid medical research, obviously, we face a dilemma here which can only be resolved with a fudge of guardians or advocates or some such. But this is not the place to explore the complexities medical ethics really.
(Education thread to follow in a bit.)
Take sports for example. Once you start watching, you get a team. The question of whether or not your team wins, makes the playoffs, etc., becomes stressful. A win might make you feel good, but a loss will make you feel bad. The anticipation is pure stress. If I get into betting, that just brings the stress to a whole new level.
Different, but similar stress instigators inhere within the major forms of entertainment, music, movies, etc.. The stress produces and elevates the excitement of the show. The show may cause excitement, but excitement is just an elevated level of stress within the members of the audience. So the entertainment is designed to incite the emotions, and this itself is stress, which manifests in the excitement of anticipation. The entertainment is designed to create stress. Anticipation is a high level form of stress, being closely related to anxiety, and that's why sports are such successful forms of entertainment, the difference between winning and losing has what it takes to create anxiety.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Brilliantly put. Expect to be called a communist in 3...2...1...
Hence, my sentiment towards the advertisement of sex. Food porn being another example.
Quoting unenlightened
You'll notice I'm taking that as free reign to be off-topic on this one.
Do you mean the use of sex to advertise other products? Or are you talking specifically about the sex industry?
I guess you can say both. Either way, there's exploitation of people going on in both cases.
That sounds like a Hollywood movie. Hollywood is in the USA, so your statement calls for a Virgil quote.
"When Heav'n had overturn'd the Trojan state
And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate;
When ruin'd Troy became the Grecians' prey,
And Ilium's lofty tow'rs in ashes lay;
Warn'd by celestial omens, we retreat,
To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.
Near old Antandros, and at Ida's foot,
The timber of the sacred groves we cut,
And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find
What place the gods for our repose assign'd.
Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,
When old Anchises summon'd all to sea:
The crew my father and the Fates obey.
With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,
And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.
My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,
All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.
"Against our coast appears a spacious land,
Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,
(Thracia the name- the people bold in war;
Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)
A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,
With Troy in friendship and religion join'd.
I land; with luckless omens then adore
Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;
I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
And Aenos, nam'd from me, the city call.
To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,
And all the pow'rs that rising labors aid;
A bull on Jove's imperial altar laid.
Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;
Sharp myrtles on the sides, and cornels grew.
There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
And shade our altar with their leafy greens,
I pull'd a plant- with horror I relate
A prodigy so strange and full of fate.
The rooted fibers rose, and from the wound
Black bloody drops distill'd upon the ground.
Mute and amaz'd, my hair with terror stood;
Fear shrunk my sinews, and congeal'd my blood.
Mann'd once again, another plant I try:
That other gush'd with the same sanguine dye.
Then, fearing guilt for some offense unknown,
With pray'rs and vows the Dryads I atone,
With all the sisters of the woods, and most
The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,
That they, or he, these omens would avert,
Release our fears, and better signs impart.
Clear'd, as I thought, and fully fix'd at length
To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:
I bent my knees against the ground; once more
The violated myrtle ran with gore.
----------- from the Aeneid book 3
Psychologically, the forms of manipulation are very different though as they are between, say, porn movies and Hollywood flicks (including those with explicit sex). The narrative of the former such as it exists (and, usually, from a structural perspective there is no narrative at all as there is no "problem" to be solved) must be transparent and non-engaging to allow the full foregrounding of the imagery (the plumber comes round to "fix the pipes", students get a "special lesson" in the classroom etc. - we all know what's coming next and that that's what's important). As the narrative is the emotional container, so to speak, porn is by design empty and because of that I would claim less damaging (or at least less invasive) than an emotionally manipulative movie. (This also explains why movies including a lot of fully explicit sex don't really work. The narrative and the sex tend to detract from each other or push buttons in the self that pull it in conflicting directions).
Thanks for the quote. Going out now, so I will read it later to discover whether I really should be thanking you or not. :P
Ok, but nothing in the post you quoted has anything to do with whether applying the scientific method to the human psyche is effective, productive, or beneficial.All I said is that I think the lot of ppl in first world 21st century societies is better than the lot of most people in the past. And I do think that. I'm not sure how what you've said here responds to any of what you quoted.
We know, for instance, that children do not readily acquire language from television. A talking box is no substitute for a voice box, especially that of one's caregiver. Children don't pick up accents from television, either. If they did, some children would have British accents (too much PBS and Masterpiece Theater) or they would talk with standard California or northern Midlands accents. They don't. They sound like their peers and parents. If media were so influential, wouldn't we see more influence in language usage from television?
There is no overwhelming evidence that media strongly influences behavior. Various people have been looking for solid proof that it does influence behavior, and there isn't as much strong evidence out there. I am speaking here of imitative behavior. People watching programs with violence, sex, crime, and so on, don't become sexually violent criminals committing all sorts of violent crimes.
There is evidence that watching a violent program has subtle, short-lived effects on choice-making. So, after watching a brutal scene from a film, people tend to answer various unrelated questions differently than people who had seen a boring film about highway maintenance.
Similarly, people who watch a lot of porn generally do not lead sex lives even remotely like the sex lives of the people in the videos. Again, watching a sex scene very well might change the way people respond to questionnaires for a short period of time.
So, we can say porn, sex, violence, etc. do affect people, but it is short term, and it doesn't change people's patterns of life.
Can we say the same thing for television advertising? People watch it, they are affected for a short period of time, but they do not change their basic behavioral patterns. It might. For one thing, advertising is constructed with more care than the average television program is. The imagery is punchier, and the repetition of specific scenes is, over time, quite high.
There are ads for a product, and then there is the product itself. The experience of watching an ad for the #1 selling Ford F-Series pickup is one thing; seeing F-Series vehicles on the road is another thing, and contemplating the F-Series on the sales lot is something else again. My guess is that without on the road sightings, talking with owners, looking at the pickup in parking lots, and so on, the advertisements wouldn't drive the sales as high as they are.
One thing about people: Getting messages through our thick skulls and getting us to carry out our instructions correctly turns out to be quite difficult. People don't just do what they are told. They just won't rush out and buy whatever junk food they are instructed to buy. And they buy junk food they probably never see advertised. There is also sensual experience. There is junk food I like because it has high sensory appeal--a particular local store brand of potato chip. Why do I like Kix better than Shredded Wheat (which I actually eat a lot of)? I haven't seen an ad for breakfast food for many years. I like the crunch of the large-pea-sized pellets, taste, color, and mouthfeel of Kix. I like the big bright yellow box it is packed in. The manipulation may be inside box rather than on the television, but it does work. Kix is a Friday night party compared to Shredded Wheat's Monday morning back to work scene.
[quote=un]No one is claiming they invented [dissatisfaction and unhappiness]; but they promote it, and elicit it.
And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping.[/quote]
But if there's no Fall in human history, as you agree, then : (Contented man - Advertisting & Discontent - Shopping) isn't a very useful way to think about things.
It'd be more like: Discontented man used to do y. Then advertising.
So let's take Pavlov. You take a stimulus that elicits some reaction and place it in conjunction with something else. Food and a bell. The dog is always going to salivate at food. Now what do people most deeply want, what do advertisers usually play to: Belonging, respect, love, inclusion (to be a loser is to not belong, not be respected, not be loved, not be included etc.) Thus the stimulus has to somehow elicit the idea/feeling of belonging/respect/love/inclusion (or the fear of lacking any of those). And then the bell's your product. The problem here is how you elicit the idea/feeling of those things, or their lack, at a level as immediate as the dog's desire for the food. If your super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision doesn't move someone, they're not going to associate pepsi with belonging or not drinking pepsi with not-belonging. You can also go a step further and notice that people these days seem feel 'included' when they're making fun of commercials and how dumb the super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision in those commercials is. Then you can start making ironic commercials, making fun of the very idea of commercials. And, in doing so, associate pepsi with the feeling of being included among the people who wouldn't fall for yesterday's pepsi's commercials. But if this post-vision vision doesn't move someone, you get nowhere. All of which is to say: if you want to use Pavlovian techniques (without using bodily pain and pleasure)to immiserate or goad humans you have to have recourse to the freudian stuff: desire, the superego, love etc.
The very fact that advertisers seem drawn to ironic anti-commercial commercials is proof enough that you can beam whatever at a passive subject. If the old stuff worked, no matter what people thought of it, then just keep doing that right? No, if people see through, then you have to work in that seeing-through, which advertisers do, everywhere (think of how popular tongue-in-cheek campaigns like Geico, Old Spice, Dos Equis etc are.) (I'll note that Un made a similar point above.)
So the Party Everyone's In On. The In-Group Too Cool To be Taken in By The Party. Here's one more Vision: The Evil And Nearly All-Powerful Media/Advertising Bloc that Makes Us Dissatisfied but Maybe We Can Stop Them And Become Satisfied) But what does the last vision sell? Well Banksy, for one. But it also subsidizes a whole lot of liberal arts programs. (here's a freudian/pavlovian analysis. Stimulus: The Bad Dad Trying To Control You And Make You Do Stuff When You Want to Remain Contented Hanging with Mom. Place in conjunction with People in Suits, The word 'media' or 'advertisting.' )
It doesn't have to be that complicated or even about what people "deeply" want. Advertising has never been an emotional hypodermic needle. The conditioned stimulus, the product, only has to evoke a feeling, any feeling, that makes a purchase more likely (and obviously the more likely the better). Ergo, associate Pepsi with the feeling of "cool" by placing a can of it in the hand of someone "cool". Now the Pepsi sitting in the supermarket next to a virtually identically tasting non-promoted cola seems cooler, and those who value cool (i.e. most of the target market) are more likely to buy it / place a higher value on it; therefore, you can sell it for a higher price and make more profit. It's not rocket science or difficult to do at that level. (And you can replace "cool" with any other vague positive feeling you like elicited by someone or something associated with the product in the ad).
Quoting csalisbury
I take your point here; methods do move on, although you may be overestimating how sophisticated the majority of consumers are (as far as I know, Coke ads are still the same old crap they always were and Coke is as popular as ever, no?) Anyway, the other reason I don't want to invoke Freud here is that he's not even taught on psychology courses today. So, he's not really directly relevant to marketers.
Quoting csalisbury
Sure, we can play Freud Tit-forTat all day. The bad Dad's trying to control the lefty and righty didn't play with his shit enough when he was a kid. Totally pointless. The only way to get out of this, as I think you'll agree, is to look at what advertisers are actually doing and have been doing and why, and try to draw reasonable conclusions from that.
I agree with this. And I'm actually quite open to being shown to be exaggerating here. But a significant amount of what's been thrown in my direction in this discussion is empty contrariness based on the idea that I'm a Marxist conspiracy theorist who hates business and, well, whatever else the conservafairy has been whispering in the ears of certain of my interlocutors. Anyway, it may come as a surprise to some but I'm not anti business per se. I recognize the positive innovation driven by business and that some of the smartest and most hard-working people around are business people. But it always has to be a case of letting the leash out and then reining it in a bit.
The sports example makes sense to me, especially as someone who is a fan of teams who can be awful for years on end. But the entertainment part sounds like you're simply saying that you see any strong emotional reactions you have as stressful.
This approaches the other problem I brought up, and that is the unification on the entertainment and news media. There is something very sick about this. Consider that when Trump ran in the GOP primaries he was both a source of entertainment, and news at the same time. The problem is, that when the news is your source of entertainment, it is most often the case that you are getting your entertainment at someone else's expense.
We had the tragedy of 9/11, well covered by the news media, but for many people around the world, it was pure entertainment. We had "shock and awe" in Baghdad. Wasn't that just a strategy for entertainment, disguised as a strategy of war?
You joke about bombing Hollywood, but making others bear the brunt of your joke is the foundation of this problem, which is getting entertainment at someone else's expense. We call it making fun of someone. The true comedian recognizes that this is unacceptable behaviour, and switches things up to make fun of oneself. But what happens when my own entertainment is a case of me making fun of myself, but all I notice is that I am entertained, and I don't notice that I am making fun of myself. I'll continue to beat myself into the ground (...and loving it!).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, don't you find that any strong emotional reactions are stressful? There is such a thing as emotional balance. A strong emotion throws off that balance, causing the stress involved with recreating the balance.
No, not at all, unless they're negative emotions. Yeah, it throws off kind of an apathetic balance, but when they're positive emotions, that's a good, not a bad thing in my view, and it's the opposite of stressful I'd say.
Quoting Baden
Talking of Marx, let's see what he said. For him, the multiplication of needs is a saving grace of capitalism:
[quote=Marx, Grundrisse]Each capitalist does demand that his workers should save, but only his own, because they stand towards him as workers; but by no means the remaining world of workers, for these stand towards him as consumers. In spite of all ‘pious’ speeches he therefore searches for means to spur them on to consumption, to give his wares new charms, to inspire them with new needs by constant chatter etc.It is precisely this side of the relation of capital and labour which is an essential civilizing moment, and on which the historic justification, but also the contemporary power of capital rests.[/quote]
Also for Marx, the concept of artificial need is a bourgeois fiction:
[quote=Marx]Artificial need is what the economist calls, firstly, the needs which arise out of the social existence of the individual; secondly those which do not flow from his naked existence as a natural object. This shows the inner, desperate poverty which forms the basis of bourgeois wealth and of its science.[/quote]
But since the seventies the critique of capitalism has taken on a different flavour, so that affluence and economic growth have become the target as much as poverty and scarcity used to be. You know how the story goes: advertising, Hollywood, and the Superbowl turn us from citizens or political agents into mere consumers, diverted from worthy activities and political struggle by pointless products and entertainments, which leave us always dissatisfied, when we could be satisfied with what we've got (materially).
So is there a justification for this change in the Leftist position? The traumatized Marxism of the Frankfurt School and the New Left is probably key here, but I don't want to go into that myself. Generally speaking, maybe we can just accept that while Marx wrote in a time of the immiseration of the industrial working class, today's Left operates in a time of abundance, notwithstanding the widening inequality of the last few decades. And whereas Marx optimistically imagined new needs as culturally enriching, today's consumerism is criticized as a cultural impoverishment.
[quote=Bristol anti-consumerist carol singers]
To the tune of Micheal Jackson's Smooth Criminal:
[i]Woke up this morning, need my paper, gonna jump in my car,
Down the shops on the corner, gonna drive there, I know it's not far,
My house is always heated, got no jumpers, I left all my lights on,
Dishwashers running, and so's the dryer, all my stuffs on standby,
Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 4
Annie are you walking, won't you tell us that your walking?
Can't you see me through the window that I'm driving, that I'm driving my car
Won't you think about walking to the shops, or down your local?
Are you all crazy, I've got an off-road, I can drive anywhere!
Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 3
You've been hit by, you've been struck by a climate criminal!
I never buy local, all my stuff comes from places real far,
I never recycle, I go on cheap flights, been on 20 so far,[/i]
Go to Chorus
[/quote]
https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/736
Although this is environmentally focused, I think we can agree that this attitude is a big part of current Leftist thinking too (Naomi Klein, anti-globalization, etc).
Let's take the example of cheap flights, mentioned in the song. "Cheap flights", at least in the UK, is middle-class code for loutish working-class lads and lassies heading to the Costa del Sol to get drunk and have a lot of sex. But this is a stereotype. In Marx's time my forebears were poor uneducated rural labourers, and maybe some of them were recent arrivals in the cities, where they went to find work (it's mostly the upper class that can trace their ancestry with any certainty, so I can't be sure). It's unlikely they ever set foot outside Britain and Ireland. But here I am now in sunny Spain, having been to several countries in several continents, writing about politics and philosophy even though I haven't studied them in a university. I would never have been able to travel without cheap flights, and I would never have been able to read Kant without leisure. I'm pretty sure this is a cultural as well as a material enrichment, and it was made possible by capitalism.
What is the limit beyond which we should not have gone? When is abundance too much? At what point is the creation of new needs corrupting? Is an anti-consumerist going to say that while, okay, washing machines, despite being an artificial or false need, may have been genuinely liberating, iPhones, imported foreign food, cheap travel, and off-road cars are not? How do you separate the good from the bad here? Is it more than a matter of taste? Or is a washing machine a basic need, while an off-road car is a false one? How does that work? Who decides which is which?
I admit this is impressionistic and emotional, but--something about it just stinks. The critique of consumer culture and the influence of corporations appears to be often motivated by a contempt for the masses, or at least a superior paternalism, not to mention a snobbish distaste. (And it's pretty mainstream. Baden mentioned Hollywood and how much he hates it. But Hollywood is full of anti-corporate sentiment, and is now firmly seated on the green anti-consumerist bandwagon.)
There is a simplistic sanctimoniousness in the suggestion that we are mere puppets of the advertisers, and for me it's reminiscent of my heritage of Presbyterian sobriety. But come to think of it, this kind of Protestant puritanism is actually a real thread in the development of radical thought, from the English Revolution onwards, so maybe it's not quite true to describe anti-consumerism as a regrettable reversal--it's been in the Left the whole time. It's just that this is not the Leftist tradition that I have sympathy with. It hates capitalism for the good it has done, not only the bad.
But wait. Did I just hypocritically denounce Leftist snobbery after having held myself up as an exemplar of the culturally enriched in contrast to the loutish working-class lads and lassies on the Costa del Sol? Not quite, I don't think. I've been on holidays like that myself. That's the point about stereotypes and caricatures: they are unfair generalizations. Thanks to cheap flights, people--non-rich people--travel now for all sorts of reasons.
Catharsis and such. The US entertainment industry is awesome. Meanwhile, lost in time, a crowd sits around the storyteller wondering if Gilgamesh and Enkidu will survive their encounter with Humbaba, cringing and gasping in the fire light.
I wasn't speaking for everyone. Certainly people with certain sorts of mental disorders may feel differently.
Just curious, if you find that stressful, if you watch any horror films.
Right, so no Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Saw marathons for you probably. I'm a big horror fan, and in general, a big fan of stuff that's aesthetically "dark," macabre, grotesque, creepy, etc., as well as melancholy and so on. I'm not only a fan of that sort of stuff, but those are some of my favorite aesthetic modes.
I'd say that one good demarcation criterion would be if one finds positive (or "positive" as the case may be) emotions to be stressful. ;-)
Certainly I can see what I'd analyze as aesthetic tension as being stressful for some people, especially in the case of something like extreme horror, including gore at times (although I'd say that "dramatic structure" can do tension better than gore can). It's not really stressful for me, but I always have a strong formalist and technical-oriented disposition, at least as an undercurrent, when I experience artworks. So for things like gore, I'm usually as focused on how it was done technically, how crafty it is in those techniques, etc. as I am focused on it in any other way.
I'm someone who doesn't find any films "scary" for that matter, but that's unusual--and it's unusual not to care about that--for horror fans.
I also wouldn't say that tensions in artworks are the same thing as stressful reaction-catalysts--for example, relative dissonances in music, which are tensions, I wouldn't say are necessarily stressful reaction-catalysts, even though again in a case like horror films or thrillers, precarious situations in action films, etc., tensions can definitely be stressful . . . although in a case where someone is a fan of those works, I don't think that even when they're stressful it's the same sort of thing going on physiologically as stress when, say, you're worried about a doctor's visit, or you're being pulled over by the police, or whatever. Or, say something like music in the (harsh) noise genre isn't going to be stressful to a fan of that music in the same way that the music would be stressful to someone who doesn't enjoy it yet who is subjected to it.
In my view, in general, aesthetic emotions are uniquely aesthetic. The noise/horror/etc. fan is experiencing aesthetic emotions in reaction to noise music, horror films, etc. Someone who isn't a fan, though, would simply experience non-aesthetic emotions in reaction to the works.
I don't get your point, but there's no need to explain, just point me in the direction of the corresponding Hollywood movie.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't get your point, and there is a need to explain. My joke was explicit. It did what it said on the tin, so to speak. That's a difference I consider key.
Glad you brought that up. Where that's done well, a movie can work and be a healthy engagement. It rarely is. Maybe Cronenberg.
Much as I like his movies, "healthy" is not a word that springs immediately to mind.
Indian medicine. They make you feel bad first and good later. Unlike Hollywood medicine, which does the opposite.
Yep. I know your type. Ideally we can honor our diversity. The poster boy for the way I experience theater and film is Chekov. I enter into a reality bubble. I wasn't totally aware of it until I met a person like you who pays attention to the production itself. I tried doing that and found it a little exhausting.
To each his own, right?
Isn't it easy enough to avoid movies? Are you surrounded by people who have movies blasting continuously? Is it like Clockwork Orange where you live?
Are you mostly watching porn? O:)
Just kidding, I agree with your point. I hate watching movies for the most part, with a few exceptions.
These efforts in the USA brought about The Committee for Public Information (CPI) was formed by US Gov in 1917 Wikipedia:
The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign. The CPI at first used material that was based on fact, but spun it to present an upbeat picture of the American war effort. In his memoirs, Creel [head of CPI]claimed that the CPI routinely denied false or undocumented atrocity reports, fighting the crude propaganda efforts of "patriotic organizations" like the National Security League and the American Defense Society that preferred "general thundering" and wanted the CPI to "preach a gospel of hate."
After the First World War consumer groups, consumer unions formed which "objected to the industry's reliance on image and emotions to sell products, and labeled many industry practices as business propaganda and even undemocratic [From review of professor Inger Stole, book "Advertising at War." 2012] Consumer advocates demanded advertising that provided only legitimate product information and gave consumers "their money's worth". There was even legislation proposed but it never became law.
Until WWII, and again the Government needed full support of the population and it got involved in propaganda and advertising for people to be patriotic and do everything they could to support the war effort. Stole stated that "advertisers turned a situation that by all rational accounts should have worked to their disadvantage into a priceless opportunity to cement their place in a postwar society." Governments found that advertising could sell both war and peace.
My pointing out the negative effects of the push towards consumerism doesn't mean I don't recognize the positives. What I'm looking for is education regarding the side-effects of capitalism (to continue the medical metaphor) rather than an excision. I would hope that would lead to more controls in the area of advertising among other things, so that, for example, ads would have to be mostly informative rather than emotive. There would be some cost to that, but I think it would be worth the sacrifice of some economic and even some technological growth in order that human growth be focused on more. I could go on about what I mean by this. But I won't. Maybe in un's upcomng education thread.
Quoting jamalrob
More psychological analysis. How can we know for sure what others or even ourselves or motivated by? I'd rather concentrate on identifying problems in order to solve them. I think the way advertising works is problematic. I think the solution is more controls.
Quoting jamalrob
I don't remember anyone saying we are mere puppets of the advertisers. I did say advertising affects us in undesirable ways, and that it's designed to. The chain of reasoning for a business is hardly more complicated than "Doing X will result in a greater profit than doing Y>>>Doing X is not good for consumers>>>Consumers are unaware we are doing X>>>Doing X is legal>>>Do X." So what's your stance here? That we are not emotionally manipulated in ways that are not good for us? Because if it's just that we are not "mere puppets", I'm sure we all agree.
Quoting jamalrob
Take me out of that jar on the shelf marked "Capitalist hater". Anti-consumerism has levels and criticism is not hatred.
Quoting jamalrob
I don't do anything but cheap flights if I can help it. Does anyone with a brain?
Yes. No. Yes.
I was being somewhat hyperbolic. I'm quite looking forward to the summer blockbuster, Virgil vs. Baden, for example.
And on that bombshell...
I guess that's the climax. So, if this was a Hollywood movie, everyone would do hugs now. Right?
You are mistaken. Progressivism is the new form of organisation of capitalism. In order to get people to work for the big and large corporations (which is becoming normalised, and a matter of prestige), they introduce all sorts of PR moves such as being green, such as levelling down hierarchies, and so forth. This is a way to get people to accept their chains. On top of this, Hollywood is reshaping morality in order to maximise the efficiency of capitalism. See my post here.
I was there, feeding the fires of the discontent. It was a lot of fun.
To what use? I would have preferred all of us not to read Kant, if this was what it took for us to be more virtuous.
Quoting jamalrob
Yeah ... what's so great about that? Honestly, what's the big deal? I've travelled my fair share, and it's nothing special. I don't see the point of it. When I hear people wanting to travel for holidays it kind of drives me mad. Is that what life is about, traveling? Honestly?! :s I think if my ancestors heard this they'd be horrified! Do you really buy this idea that traveling will necessarily enrich your life and make you happy and content?
I have great distaste for this frolicking over material conditions. As if that's what makes for a good life! This is exactly the forgetfulness of virtue that I'm always talking about.
I know, and I'm not interested.
You're not interested in what? If you're not interested don't worry - you'll lose in the political arena, that will be sufficient to get you interested perhaps.
I was immune, as my passwords for places that don't matter are simple, and easy to crack, but I use long ass pass phrases for things that do matter.
I'm not sure I have a stance on that, though I feel like I want to question your statement. I was talking about ideology, or about the changes in political ideas that I believe importantly frame these debates, rather than directly addressing the OP or your own points. Thus many of the positions that I imputed to my opponents might be exaggerations or simplifications that don't accurately represent the positions to be found in this discussion. Still, I thought my post was kind of relevant. It's what I'm interested in, at least.
Good for us in whose assessment? The assessment of the people being emotionally manipulated?
It's been quite a while since I read Homer (36 years...), but as I recollect...
Isn't Virgil's line about overturning the Trojan state a concern appropriate to Rome, but not to the very distant time of Homer? And if so, isn't the existence of the Roman State the result of radically different economic circumstances than what Priam (or anybody else in the Iliad or Odyssey knew)?
Virgil attempts to capture the spirit of Rome in the Aeneid. The Greeks are condemned for their unjust destruction of Troy, which was supposedly done out of passion. Proper Romans have gravitas, not passion. Virgil was a Celt, by the way.
Identifying Troy as the origin of the Romans was in line with an ancient tendency to have respect for older cultures.
Educate The People about the side effects of capitalism till the cows come home--it won't make any significant difference. Capitalism is a remorseless system, and it isn't going to play nice. What is it about providing an ever increasing flow of profit to shareholders don't you understand?
Quoting Baden
Human growth will be the focused on more by capitalism as soon as it is commodified and becomes a profit center.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here" the sign over hell and capitalist meliorism reads.
What should you do? “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” Karl Marx, Eleven Theses on Feuerbach. We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain. So, workers of the world...
[i]"But Hollywood is full of anti-corporate sentiment, and is now firmly seated on the green anti-consumerist bandwagon."
— jamalrob[/i]
Quoting Agustino
Exactly!
Yes. In fact I often rely on my romantic partner to know when to shower, if I haven't had one for several days. She has a more sensitive olfactory sense than me, so she can tell me if I need one.
Did you know that the main thing one is washing off when one showers, and which smells if left a long time, is dead skin cells? The build-up of those over a day or two is not enough to create a discernible odour.
Now, now. Don't pretend that you don't understand the difference between the reasons for washing the hands after defecating, which are based on hygiene and are scientifically uncontroversial, and the reasons for daily showering, which are purely based on advertising and unexamined compliance with social norms.
This is a point in which I'm particularly interested. I wonder a great deal about whether people are generally happier now than they were say 150 years ago. Travel can be fun, but is happiness dependent on it? More importantly, to me, the perceived intensity (novelty value?) of the travel one does is a function of how different the culture one visits is from that in which one habitually lives. Might it be the case that someone hiking to the next county in 1867 rural England would experience more intense novelty - more genuine travel - than someone flying from London to Benidorm in 2017? Put another way, do we in 2017 really think we would be any happier if we could to Mars or Proxima Centauri?
Quoting jamalrob Indeed, that's the billion dollar question, and one that greatly interests the more thoughtful economists. Few would contest that developments that greatly improved public health like the discovery of immunisation have also improved net happiness. And few would contest that the 'invention' of the iPhone 8 makes no difference at all to net happiness. But there's an enormous no-mans-land between the two, somewhere within which lies a boundary. Unanimous agreement, or even a strong consensus, on where that boundary lies is impossible. But only the Trumps of the world would deny that there should be some boundary. Even the USA (for now, at least) places some limits on what limited liability corporations are allowed to do.
I have a hunch - based on nothing but anecdotal evidence and vague impressions - that most of the innovations that improved quality of life were not products of capitalism. Many of them arose in universities or other government-funded research institutions, or were discovered by individuals operating solo - rather than by people working for corporations.
In addition, capitalism wasn't really possible in the way we understand it today until the creation of an ability to form limited liability companies, which did not happen in the UK until 1855. Even companies with non-limited liability wasn't possible until around 1600, and they could only be created by royal charter until the passing of the 1844 Joint Stock Companies Act.
Most of the technological innovations that make a genuine improvement to net happiness arose before that. Many innovations since then improved happiness, but I think they were mostly political and social - things like emancipation, universal adult suffrage, labour laws and tolerance for minorities. Such innovations arise usually under opposition from capitalism rather than with its support.
That's fair enough. The points you raised do apply to many. It may be that I'm too keen not to be seen as a commie.
Quoting Bitter Crank
By side-effects, I meant more specifics like information about how advertising works or the kind of stuff MU was posting. Don't underestimate the potential of education. Give me the boy, I'll give you the man and so on. But that's more for un's new discussion when I can get round to it.
I'm familiar with the story. I thought it a bit unfair that suicide victims were trapped in trees and scourged by winged demons with not even a stick of gum to relieve their stresses, whereas Satan himself, though immobilized in ice, at least got to chew on Judas.
Freud may not be taught to marketers but he also isnt taught to psychiatrists (except for a few desultory historical notes; or occasionally one whole desultory unit; in rare cases maybe even one quixotic course) But that doesn't mean the DSM isn't deeply indebted to him (it is).
And that brings me to 'cool' - 'cool' is a very complex feeling. For one, the very idea of cool is often tied to not "selling out" so that , in placing a product in conjunction with someone cool, the cool person can be drained of his coolness, and so become incapable of associating the product with coolness.
But in any case 'cool' runs up against all sort of psychological defenses so you cant simply beam cool+pepsi to any one who sees the ad. Tho of course you'll hit some targets, I never claimed everyone is invulnerable to every campaign.
More germane for me would be to ditch the idea that we are unified individuals and take the analysis from there. There is a part of us, at least, that is passive and receptive and that's what ads aim for.
Quoting csalisbury
The term "righty" was meant generally. I've never thought of you as a conservative actually.
Quoting csalisbury
To a point, as your example shows. I would still contend though that in most product/target market combos, at least, the cool celebrity association is not too hard to pull off.
Quoting csalisbury
Sure, and I'm not claiming the opposite, that we're vulnerable to every campaign's aims. The campaign may even make us hate the product. But that's an intellectually driven orientation, which kicks in to override what, if we are lucky, is just a fleeting inner conflict. My issue is not so much that we actually do what the marketers want us to do but that they plug into a part of us that works in ways we are not fully aware of with consequences we don't fully understand.
https://www.graduate-jobs.com/degree/psychology
There's a little graphic that wouldn't upload below this quote showing 'retail' as the top destination for psych graduates.
Yeah, psychology majors are excellent in the art of manipulation of people. Perhaps, we need more people educated about their own inner workings as to prevent the exploitation of conditioned responses and insecurities. However, at some point, people do realize that their lives and happiness have been subterfuge'd to the whims and desires of... the invisible hand?
I don't disagree with that, I just don't necessarily buy that Advertising's subconscious plugging-in has deeply amplified dissatisfaction. ( Because I think that to be human is be plugged into in ways we're not fully aware of with consequences we don't fully understand. Life is made of a million fleeting inner conflicts. In other words: I don't think that that distinguishes advertising from most things. So, for instance, we may take a class about advertising and not internalize the things the professor hopes we do, yet we'll still be plugged into etc etc )
Take the 15 years or so of Nazi propagandizing in Germany. Despite the full-court press of the Nazi propaganda machine (political advertising, essentially) the Nazi state backed up the propaganda with dense internal spy networks, Gestapo oversight of the citizenry, and so on. Advertising and education alone were not close to sufficient to turn Germans into complaint Nazi citizens. It took very violent force and the threat of force to keep loyal Germans in line. For instance, just expressing pessimism about the war's outcome could result in one's disappearance into a Gestapo prison.
Communist propaganda in China (prior to Deng Xiaoping's "wealth is glorious" era) was supplemented by punishment for non-cooperation on the one hand, and the "iron rice bowl" social contract on the other hand: Play your industrial part well, and you can be sure of food to eat. Soviet rule didn't work on the basis of propaganda alone either: There were social benefits for cooperators on the one hand, and Siberia for the unenthusiastic or somewhat defiant on the other.
Similar, if less severe, procedures are used in the US and elsewhere.