Give Me Your Best Argument, Liberal or Conservative

[ReignIB]

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
… Products started being marketed to appeal to peoples’ unconscious desires. Buy these fancy clothes, they’ll make you feel creative and original. Buy this car, it will make you feel powerful and manly. Today, buy an iPod and you’ll be happy and creative because of all the music you can listen to…
[/quote]

so no specific examples then? all theory?
other than your stellar iPod example of course. I’m assuming you’re working out with a walkman cassette player on your belt?

[kamui]

i will try to answer this topic a bit more seriously than i did it in my first post :

first and foremost, i’m against the so-called “modernity” and its ideology of progress.

i think that the 3 last centuries were nothing more and nothing less than an unresolved global crisis.

and i think that our modern Gods, the Market and the State, are nothing more and nothing less than absurd monstruosities

we have basically destroyed dozens of millenia old societies that had proven their viability, and we have ruined our own heritage.
but we have yet to prove that we can make something viable and valuable out of this mess.

if i had any hope that we can go back to a more traditionnal society, i would probably be a conservative.
but i’m not that optimistic.

for example, i would gladly agree with this :

[quote]That said, my first rule of politics and society looks a lot like the “seventh generation” principle attributed to the Great Law of the Iroquois: “In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.” “What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?”

Put this principle to work to protect in the context of the ancient rights, liberties and duties we’ve inherited from Western civilization for subsequent generations. Anything else - including organizing our society around a theme of instant gratification and narcisstic self-worship - is nothing short of a form of treason. [/quote]

if only we were able to predict anything to the seventh generation.
but History moves way too quicly now and we can barely predict the fate of the next generation.

all i can do is to sympathize with all those who preserve (or re-invent) the fragile sparks of culture and civilization. regardless of their specific tradition.

as a side note : a new totalitarism is currently in gestation.
a green one.
and no, i’m not speaking about islam.
i’m speaking about ecologism.

our failure to understand and resolve the social and economic aspects of the modern crisis leaded us to nazism, fascism and communism

this time, if we fail to understand and resolve the environnemental and demographic aspects of this crisis, it will happen again.
and it will be worst.

[Chomskyian]

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

so no specific examples then?
[/quote]

Ask and ye shall receive. I’m assuming you’re interested in specific examples of how consumerism was invented and why, if you want me to elaborate on any other points just let me know.

If you want to read about the stuff I post further, this is coming from Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work. I’ll include the sources below each section.

Early on, business leaders realized that in order to make people “want” things they had never previously desired, they have to create “the dissatisfied consumer.” Charles Kettering of General Motors was among the first to preach the new gospel of consumption. GM had already begun to introduce annual model changes in its automobiles and launched a vigorous advertising campaign designed to make consumers discontent with the car they already owned. “The key to economic prosperity,” said Kettering, “is the organized creation of dissatisfaction.” An economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, put it more succinctly years later, observing that the new mission of business was to “create the wants it seeks to satisfy.”

Kettering, Charles, “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied”, Nation’s Business, Jan. 1929

Historian Frederick Lewis Allen summed up the emerging consciousness: “Business had learned as never before the importance of the ultimate consumer. Unless he could be persuaded to buy and buy lavishly, the whole stream of six cylinder cars, super heterodynes, cigarettes, rouge compacts, and electric ice boxes would be dammed up at its outlets.”

It was not long before advertisers began to shift their sales pitches from utilitarian arguments and descriptive information to emotional appeals to status and social differentiantion. The common man and woman were invited to emulate the rich, to take on the trappings of wealth and prosperity previously reserved for the business aristocracy and social elite. “Fashion” became the watchword of the day as companies and industries sought to identify their products with the vogue and the chic.

Consumption economists like Hazel Kyrk were quick to point out the commercial advantages of turning a nation of working people in to status-conscious consumers. Growth, she declared, required a new level of consumer buying, “Luxuries for the well-off,” she argued, had to be “turned into necessities for the poorer classes.” Overproduction and technological unemployment could be mitigated, even eliminated, if only the working class could be re-educated toward the “dynamic consumption of luxuries.”

Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties, 1964
Kyrk, Hazel, A Theory of Consumption, 1923

Transforming the American worker into a status-conscious consumer was a radical undertaking. Most Americans were still making most of their own goods at home. Advertisers used every available means and opportunity to denigrate “homemade” products and to promote the “store-bought” and “factory-made” items. The young were particularly targeted. Advertising messages were designed to make them feel ashamed of wearing or using homemade products. Increasingly, the battle lines were drawn around the issue of being “modern” or “old-fashioned.” Fear of being left behind proved a powerful motivating for in stimulating purchashing power. Labor historian Harry Braverman captured the commercial spirit of the times, remarking that, “the source of status is no longer the ability to make things but simply the ability to purchase them.”

New concepts of marketing and advertising, which had been slowly gaining ground for several decades, took off in the 1920s, reflecting the business community’s growing determination to empty its warehouses and increase the pace of consumption to match the ever-accelterating productivity. Brand names, once ad addity, became a permanent feature of the American economy. After the Civil War the only brand-name product one was likely to see in the local general store was Baker’s chocolate. Even as late as 1900, most general stores sold staples like sugar, vinegar, flour, nails, and pins unmarked and unlabeled from barrels and bins.

Manufacturers anxious to move their products and impatient with the slow pace of jobbers and wholesalers began to sell directly to the public under brand labels. Many of the products were novel and required changing the lifestyles and eating habits of consumers. Author Susan Strasser recounts the many marketing problems encontered by companies trying to sell products that never before existed and create needs that people had never before perceived: “People who never before bought corn flakes were taught to need them: those formerly content to buy oats scooped from the grocer’s bin were informed about why they should prefer Quaker Oats in a box.”

Braverman, Harry, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, 1974
Strasser, Susan, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market, 1989

Note the parallels between this next section and the economic problems we are facing today:

By 1929 the mass psychology of consumerism had taken hold in America. The traditional American virtues of Yankee frugality and frontier self-sacrifice were fading…

Just a few short months later the stock market crashed, plunging the nation and the world into the darkest depression of the modern age.

[M]any of the politicians and business leaders of the day [were] so fixated on the idea that supply creates demand that [they were] unable to see the negative dynamic that was careening the economy into a major depression. In order to compensate for the rising technological unemployment brought about by the introduction of new labor saving technologies, American corporations poured million of dollars into advertising and marketing campaigns, hoping to convince the still-employed workforce to engage in an orgy of spending. Unfortunately, the income of wage earners was not rising fast enough to keep up with the increase in productivity and output. Most employers preferred to pocket the extra profit realized from productivity gains rather than pass the savings along to the workers in the form of higher wages. Henry Ford, to his credity, suggested that workers be paid enough to buy the products companies were producing. Otherwise, he asked, “who would buy my cars?” His colleagues chose to ignore the advice.

The business community remained convinced that it could continue to reap windfall profits, depress wages, and still prine the consumer pump sufficienty to absorb the overprodution. The pump, however, was running dry. The new advertising and marketing schemes did stimulate a new psychology of mass consumption. However, lacking sufficient income to purchase all of the new products flooding the market, American workers continued to buy on credit…

The business community had failed to understand that its very success was at the root of the growing economic crisis. By displacing workers with laborsaving technologies, American companies increaded productivity, but at the empense of creating larger numbers of unemployed and underemployed workers who lacked the purchasing power to buy their goods.

I think that should be enough to have made my point. Let me know if you’d like me to continue.

[ReignIB]

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

so no specific examples then?
[/quote]

Ask and ye shall receive. I’m assuming you’re interested in specific examples of how consumerism was invented and why, if you want me to elaborate on any other points just let me know.
[/quote]

No, actually I’m interested in specific examples of how this “corporate propaganda” you are taking about manifests itself today and via that manifestation leads to ppl living beyond their means and other horrible things.
If advertisement is to be blamed - fine - give me specific examples.

Also, things like “social status” are so deeply ingrained into human psyche that presence of advertisement has very little effect on their existence.
I can give you specific examples if you’d like.

[Chomskyian]

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

No, actually I’m interested in specific examples of how this “corporate propaganda” you are taking about manifests itself today and via that manifestation leads to ppl living beyond their means and other horrible things.
[/quote]

Corporate propaganda takes many forms, it’s not solely advertising. It’s complicated, but the general purpose of corporate propaganda is to control peoples’ opinions and attitues. Most people think that here in the United States we have democracy and freedom so that stuff doesn’t apply to us, which is part of the reason it’s so easy to control people.

[quote]Edward Bernays, Propaganda

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
[/quote]

People write books on the subject, I’m not gonna attempt to cut a topic fit for a book down to a forum post. I’ve already listed where you can read about this stuff. Here’s a link to the book quoted above:

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119695.pdf

Here’s a lecture by Noam Chomsky on propaganda and control of the public mind. He talks about the country’s origins and how it relates to how the country is run today. There’s 9 parts in total.

Noam Chomsky-Propaganda And Control Of The Public Mind-1

[Chomskyian]

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

No, actually I’m interested in specific examples of how this “corporate propaganda” you are taking about manifests itself today and via that manifestation leads to ppl living beyond their means and other horrible things.
[/quote]

Corporate propaganda takes many forms, it’s not solely advertising. It’s complicated, but the general purpose of corporate propaganda is to control peoples’ opinions and attitues. Most people think that here in the United States we have democracy and freedom so that stuff doesn’t apply to us, which is part of the reason it’s so easy to control people.

[quote]Edward Bernays, Propaganda

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
[/quote]

People write books on the subject, I’m not gonna attempt to cut a topic fit for a book down to a forum post. I’ve already listed where you can read about this stuff. Here’s a link to the book quoted above:

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119695.pdf

Here’s a lecture by Noam Chomsky on propaganda and control of the public mind. He talks about the country’s origins and how it relates to how the country is run today. There’s 9 parts in total.

Noam Chomsky-Propaganda And Control Of The Public Mind-1

[ReignIB]

dude I keep asking for specific examples of this evil “corporate propaganda”, you keep replying with “wall of text” type quotes or lectures by some liberal campus types.
yes, the subjects of propaganda, social/political mythology, etc are complicated and tie right into collective unconscious and such. this type of stuff is present in any society, be it a technocratic consumer based economy - driven society or a primitive hunter-gatherer society.

[Chomskyian]

Examples of corporate propaganda at work:

In August 2004, 35% of Americans believed the US found WMDs; also, 50% believe Iraq was linked to al-qaeda, and 15% believed Iraq was involved in 9/11.

The fact that our financial sector is getting away with murder for years now and still nothing has been done despite massive system wide fraud, not to mention the fact that people don’t know shit about what’s going on. Explaining the current fraudulent behavior of our banking sector would be a top priority in a functioning democracy where we should have informed consumers.

http://www.noonproposition19.com/
“On average, a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes. Recreational marijuana use in fatal crashes will increase if Prop. 19 passes. It will be legal for a driver to get high right before taking the wheel. It will also be legal for passengers to smoke pot as they drive on the freeway or in your neighborhood.”

All this is misinformation that a large number of people believe largely because of corporate propaganda.

[phaethon]

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
No, actually I’m interested in specific examples of how this “corporate propaganda” you are taking about manifests itself today and via that manifestation leads to ppl living beyond their means and other horrible things.
If advertisement is to be blamed - fine - give me specific examples.
[/quote]

You aren’t making yourself clear. What sort of evidence are you asking for? Provide us with an example (doesn’t need to be true, just so it is clear what you are after).

Would you like me to provide you sources that show that increased advertising is strongly correlated with increased revenues?

To show that advertising is correlated with increased debt levels?

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Also, things like “social status” are so deeply ingrained into human psyche that presence of advertisement has very little effect on their existence.
I can give you specific examples if you’d like.
[/quote]

Ok, do give specific examples. Social status is indeed a part of human nature. It is the methods of social approval change all the time. In some places driving around in an expensive car you could barely afford would have had half the block laughing. Now it has lots of girls dropping their panties.

An OT example: Even only 10 years ago being interested in technology, aka a geek, was a general turn off. Now it is much more mainstream and “cool”.

[orion]

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
Examples of corporate propaganda at work:

In August 2004, 35% of Americans believed the US found WMDs; also, 50% believe Iraq was linked to al-qaeda, and 15% believed Iraq was involved in 9/11.

The fact that our financial sector is getting away with murder for years now and still nothing has been done despite massive system wide fraud, not to mention the fact that people don’t know shit about what’s going on. Explaining the current fraudulent behavior of our banking sector would be a top priority in a functioning democracy where we should have informed consumers.

http://www.noonproposition19.com/
“On average, a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes. Recreational marijuana use in fatal crashes will increase if Prop. 19 passes. It will be legal for a driver to get high right before taking the wheel. It will also be legal for passengers to smoke pot as they drive on the freeway or in your neighborhood.”

All this is misinformation that a large number of people believe largely because of corporate propaganda.[/quote]

Yeah, lies that lead to the war in Iraq and the war drugs are a perfect example of corporate propaganda.

Allrighty then…

[ReignIB]

[quote]phaethon wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
No, actually I’m interested in specific examples of how this “corporate propaganda” you are taking about manifests itself today and via that manifestation leads to ppl living beyond their means and other horrible things.
If advertisement is to be blamed - fine - give me specific examples.
[/quote]

You aren’t making yourself clear. What sort of evidence are you asking for? Provide us with an example (doesn’t need to be true, just so it is clear what you are after).

Would you like me to provide you sources that show that increased advertising is strongly correlated with increased revenues?

To show that advertising is correlated with increased debt levels?

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Also, things like “social status” are so deeply ingrained into human psyche that presence of advertisement has very little effect on their existence.
I can give you specific examples if you’d like.
[/quote]

Ok, do give specific examples. Social status is indeed a part of human nature. It is the methods of social approval change all the time. In some places driving around in an expensive car you could barely afford would have had half the block laughing. Now it has lots of girls dropping their panties.

An OT example: Even only 10 years ago being interested in technology, aka a geek, was a general turn off. Now it is much more mainstream and “cool”.[/quote]

Effective advertisement does work, no question there. I m questioning the picture that Chomskyian is painting where population is being bombarded with subliminal messages that lead consumers to run out and buy stuff and “live beyond their means”.
So I asked for a specific example of such advertisement. Still waiting…

Here’s an example of “status symbols” that I find quite illustrative - in Soviet Russia things like VCRs, PCs were major status symbols. But how to you let everyone know you have one ?
You walk around with an empty box which is what ppl did there. From what I’ve heard they are still doing this in Cuba.