Must be something in the zeitgeist about this whole corporate manipulation as enemy thing. Someone identifying as "the enemy" posted yesterday (at DailyKos) a truly fascinating take on the subject of who really controls opinion in America. I can't say I really disagree with much of anything in the post.
I mean, it really is rather an obvious thing, in some ways–of course organizations with massive amounts of money gain more money by manipulating views as much as possible, and of course they do it all the time. It's the nature of the beast, and to be expected.
It's just the insidious manner of that manipulation that galls, and the notion that, when the PR industry is called out, always arrives as counter-argument: that "consumers" should educate themselves. As if there were enough hours in a decade to counter the large-scale work of full-time professionals in even one of the thousands of campaigns they undertake, which mostly range from inane to dangerous, with the ocassional near-accident of something useful. And what works dramatically in their favor is that so few people believe they have been or even can be persuaded by such manipulation, even though America has become the most PR- and advertising-drenched nation on the planet.
Anyway–let's cede the soapbox to "thereisnospoon":
The problem is people like me, and the people I work for. I'm what they call a Qualitative Research Consultant, or QRC for short. Here's my website. There's even a whole association of us who meet regularly to discuss ideas and tactics. Together with the AAPC, the MRA, the AMA, ESOMAR, and a whole host of other organizations you've never heard of, we have more power and control than you know. We're extremely good at what we do, and we do it all behind the scenes, appealing to and manipulating your subconscious brain in ways that your conscious brain has little to no control over.
Give us a little money to test some things out, and we can work magic. Our business is persuasion, and we're very good at it. Just watch PBS Frontline's series, The Persuaders to get just a small inkling of what you're up against. We can make a company that earns a 38% gross profit margin manufacturing purely propriety products seem hip, cool and progressive. We can take sugar water and sell it back to you as a health drink, and even Whole Foods shoppers will believe it. We can take 30 different brands of vodka with almost exactly the same ingredients, and make you understand instantly just what kind of person drinks which brand, and how much you should expect to pay for each, without a moment's thought. For any given category of products, I can show you a bunch of different brands, and you'll be able to tell me a wealth of information about each one, despite the near absolute similarity of their actual products to one another. One exercise we QRC's like to conduct involves actually turning a brand into a person in a group discussion; it's called personification. And you wouldn't believe how effectively and universally we can tailor a brand's image, right down to what kind of car that "person" would drive, and what music he/she would listen to. So much attention has been paid to Naomi Klein's outstanding Shock Doctrine, that few pay much attention anymore to her far more provocative and important work No Logo. If all Americans truly internalized the message of No Logo, people like me would be out of work, and we could really reform this country.
(emphasis in original)
ADDITIONAL: It's interesting to see what's already happened below the line on this one. Try to talk about something larger scale than left and right, even post something saying tea partiers have legit grievances, and people show up to try to frame it in terms of, wait for it– left and right. Maybe it's a chronic case of missing the forest for the trees. Can we lumberjacks address the shared problem of corporate persuasion steering our national conversation (for ends that have nothing to do with left or right), or only try to reframe it as conservative good, liberal bad or vice-versa?
AND AGAIN: We go to our regularly scheduled Gordian Knot. There is undeniably a massive, unavoidable industry devoted to perception management (not mere product advertisement) in America. It has invaded politics and poisoned the debate. And it is given tremendous power, as I mentioned above, by the very argument illustrated below: it's all about choice. (Though, paradoxically, choice in moral matters has never been too popular among most conservatives.)
On a level playing field, I would agree. It's a minor nuisance at the level of, say, the campaign to make people prefer Black Angus beef, which is about as artificial and silly a thing as can be imagined. But that's the merest tip of the iceberg. The PR industry is devoted to keeping knowledge out of our heads, not putting it there. Just witness this, from an ad produced in the 1950s to counter studies that said smoking causes lung cancer:
A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers
RECENT REPORTS on experiments with mice have given wide publicity to a theory that cigarette smoking is in some way linked with lung cancer in human beings. Although conducted by doctors of professional standing, these experiments are not regarded as conclusive in the field of cancer research. However, we do not believe that any serious medical research, even though its results are inconclusive should be disregarded or lightly dismissed. At the same time, we feel it is in the public interest to call attention to the fact that eminent doctors and research scientists have publicly questioned the claimed significance of these experiments. Distinguished authorities point out:
- That medical research of recent years indicates many possible causes of lung cancer.
- That there is no agreement among the authorities regarding what the cause is.
- That there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes.
- That statistics purporting to link cigarette smoking with the disease could apply with equal force to any one of many other aspects of modern life. Indeed the validity of the statistics themselves is questioned by numerous scientists.
And that, of course, is an early effort, far less sophisticated and far more visible than most of what goes on now. But then comes the crux of the issue. It says:
We accept an interest in people's heath as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business.
If that wasn't the actual steaming pile of horse%$@, I'd agree with conservative orthodoxy on this issue. It's clearly untrue of most large businesses. You have to have been born yesterday to believe otherwise, no matter your political philosophy. Yet wanting to do something about it is considered some sort of liberal meddling. It should trump politics, and the whole mess thrives in at atmosphere that accepts it as a political issue.
As a self-professed liberal, I believe people deserve every right in the Constitution, even rights conservatives stopped supporting under Bush, things like habeas corpus and the full protection of the Fourth Amendment. Corporations are not people, and do not deserve the same rights. The decision to consider them persons in the eyes of the law has led us here.
It trumps party and politics. But look what happens when you say that–
