How Advertising Molds Your Beliefs

The tourist business is overrun with people bored with themselves.
- Joan Clark, An Audience of Chairs

A majority of people on vacation have one of two possible objectives: to relax and have fun doing much the same things they could have done at home (with some adjustments) or to have experiences they can share later with others at home (to have stories to tell and pictures to share).

Many cities position themselves as vacation destinations by advertising the wealth and diversity of their shopping facilities. Vacationers going to these cities spend time shopping for items they could likely have found in their own cities if they had taken the time to look. They spend money wining, dining and entertaining themselves in settings only slightly different from what they could have found at home.

Bus tours usually move at such a pace that passengers don't have time to learn anything more than they could have learned in an evening on the internet or by watching a few programs on selected specialty television channels. With no lost luggage, broken elevators or arrogant bellhops.

Those who "get away" to warm destinations during their own winter or who go to relaxing places beside water want to unwind from the hectic pace they maintain in their city lives. They could have done much the same activities at home if they had been able to separate themselves mentally and emotionally from their work lives long enough to enjoy the facilities in their own home communities.

If it seems as if I believe that most people live in cities they want to escape from, you're right. In most countries in the western world, around 85 percent of their population live in urban areas, most in large cities. As of the beginning of 2008, for the first time in human history, more people on our planet will live in cities or similar urban areas than live in rural settings.

We have become a world of city dwellers. Yet most of us know deep down that cities may not be the best places for us to live. We migrate to cities because they have jobs to offer.

We no longer want to do jobs that require hard work, the kind that farmers and those who live in relative wilderness areas must do to survive. Moreover, we don't have the skills those people need. We have to move to cities where employers will give us jobs and teach us what we need to do them. We get higher education to learn how to learn, not how to do. Yet we only learn the minimum we need.

We don't want to live lives requiring us to do manual labour, requiring the back more than the brain. Yet most cities dwellers, when studied closely, know so little about what they should know to live successfully, efficiently and comfortably on their income that they waste a good deal of their time and money on purchases and activities that achieve nothing for them. But they make business owners happy.

By doing little that is physically demanding, they gain weight. So they go to exercise clubs, do workouts at home and go running so that they get the kind of physical activity they would have gotten if they worked on a job that required physical effort as well as some thought. They need the exercise to release some of the tension they build up through living stressful lifestyles. Stress being a consequence of "success" in big cities.

Some city folks with enough money buy cottages or cabins, by a lake or somewhere in woods or a rural area. Because they know virtually nothing about living outside a city, they spend money to transform their rural properties into something resembling suburban communities, but with more trees and maybe some water nearby.

Are they bored with themselves, as Joan Clark said? They don't know. They believe they are doing what they should, meaning that they believe they are living well because they are living the way everyone else in their community lives, doing what they do, spending what they spend, vacationing the way their neighbours vacation.

Bored? They don't believe they are bored because they're doing what their social norms tell them they should be doing. They believe they are happy because they do what advertisers tell them they should do to be happy, which happens to be to spend money on the advertised products. They don't even know if they are truly happy because they don't have a clear idea of what happiness is. To them, happiness is what they are told it is by advertisers.

People who don't think for themselves must depend on others to do their thinking for them. Industries do that and tell people what to do, how to act, what to believe, through their advertising. They do this so subtly and with such incredible persistence that few have any idea that their belief systems are being slowly molded different from what any of their ancestors believed.

They aren't bored, just ask them.

Boring, for sure. It's a challenge to find anyone in a city with whom to have a truly interesting conversation because most people are conditioned to spew small talk all day long. At parties, they must inhale alcohol and drugs to lose their inhibitions enough that they feel liberated, thus happy, they believe. At these most opportune times to exchange thoughts on worthy subjects, they fill their time with small talk and contrived nonsense.

But they're not bored and they are happy. Advertisers have told them they aren't bored and they must be happy if they have bought advertised products. They believe it.

They aren't bored with themselves because they believe they aren't bored with themselves. And they believe they aren't boring. Which demonstrates textbook examples of how people can be made to believe anything if it's presented to them in an effective manner and shoved at them often enough.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children in ways that will grow them into interesting, vibrant self-sufficient adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Power Politics Attracts The Corruptible

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
- David Brin, American author (1950- )

This quote struck me with such effect that it was like a bolt of lightning out of a blue sky. It explained for me something that has caused me considerable doubt and pondering for years.
Why do supposedly good politicians go bad? Brin says that it's the corruptibility of those who crave power in the first place that sets up the potential.

That's not to say that all politicians are corrupt or corruptible. But then, not all politicians seek the kind of power that puts them in the position of being able to indulge in corruption.

Politics has a long history of corrupt representatives, ever since the early days of democracy in ancient Greece after the "every man has a vote on every issue" period changed to the first kind of representative democracy and some senators could be bribed to vote as they payers wished.

For much of the last century politics in the great democracies was dominated by lawyers. Knowing the reputation of lawyers today, little more needs to be said to explain the outrageous corruption that prevailed in many places.

Democratic countries today are turning more to top level business people and academics. The advantage of academics is that they know how to think matters through and their original choice of profession would not have been influenced by a basic desire for wealth.

Business people, however, do not necessarily share the same fundamental moral code as academics. Even the lawyers have had to clean up their act a great deal to prevent the reputation of their profession from being further sullied.

While business people in government demonstrate the need for greed and power to some extent, as they have been accustomed to in business, lawyers in the same government are more apt to be in politics because of the recognition they receive, such as in the media. Fame take precedence over power as the driving force of many lawyers in government.

In Canada, national representatives who have served a minimum of six years in office receive a sizable pension for life once they are no longer in office. They don't enjoy great wealth when they are still in parliament, but they enjoy many options once they leave because they can depend on a secure income.

The problem of nominating the best people still exists. In pre-election nomination meetings, influence, prior service to the community and simple popularity tend to carry the day. The major criterion on the minds of most voting members is "Which one can win?"

Only when the main criterion is "Which candidate can best represent the interests of our community and our party?" will we have fewer corruptible representatives in government.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the complex issues of life a little easier to manage.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Nietzsche Said Groups Are Insane

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Insanity in individuals doesn't seem so rare now when television programs showing videos of stupid stunts and events gone awry are common. But it's still not as common as insanity for groups of people.

How often have you wondered "What were they thinking?" when one of the governments to which you pay taxes passed a law that didn't make any sense, was unenforceable, would punish those it was trying to save more than those who were trying to hurt them, would cost fortunes to implement with little value foreseen for the money?

Or when corruption charges were laid against politicians who were, in effect, collaborating with criminals who would have destroyed the kind of lives the politicians were elected to defend and advance.

Or when a nation believes it can prevent war by starting one.

Or when a national leader creates fear within his own people by falsely accusing "others" of trying to make them afraid by threatening them. Hitler and the Nazis were an excellent example of that.

Or when a club, social group or service organization elects someone they know is the wrong person to lead the group, simply because no one else has volunteered to run for the office.

In the security business, be it national security, municipal security or security of digital records on computer, leaders sometimes hire criminals to advise them about how to guard against other criminals. As nutty as this seems, it works. Only a crook thinks like a crook. It also gives many criminals an opportunity to use the skills and knowledge they have learned to make life better for others, rather than worse. That's not crazy, but it seems that way to an unknowing layperson.

Groups of various kinds do apparently insane things and make crazy decisions not because they are all loonies, but because they think like individuals. Individuals seldom think in group terms.

Group decision making and action requires people who know not just the procedures for helping the group to survive and thrive, but the consequences of decisions that are to be considered.

Individual group members may be inclined to see only the consequences of how a group decision might affect them personally.

No doubt many stirling initiatives died in committee. But at least many totally foolish ones did as well. Committees have a way of sorting through the trash, even if they throw out some good stuff in the process.

Every group is conprised of individuals. Fortunately, some groups have individuals who think of the welfare and the future of the group while they are fulfilling their roles as group members.

The alternative for many groups is dictatorship. Benevolent dictatorship is the best possible form of government or of leadership. But benevolent dictators are rarer than sane governments. I would like to offer a good example of a benevolent dictator here, but most of the good ones went sour eventually--absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to see through the smog of reality.
Learn more at http://billallin.com