Nice work @cryptonik. I did a lot of reading on Bernays for a unit I was writing on advertising and media ethics, and really enjoyed the documentary.
The other great market example that parallels 'torches of freedom' was the way Revlon was marketed. Charles Revson once said: “In the factory, we make cosmetics, in the store, we sell hope." The thing (philosophers might call it a token) that moves around is a tube of lipstick, but what is being sold is a feeling and/or attitude - or implicit permission to entertain that feeling or attitude.
Modern marketing is the ultimate distillation of this. The physical tokens that actually move these days are themselves sub-atomic, such is the drive to minimise the physical token that is required to move in order for us to have an experience or adopt a feeling or attitude.
Thus information shuffles back and forth - from my bank accounts to websites and back again, all in the hope (usually mistaken) that we are buying a thing, rather paying someone with more money than us for permission to feel a certain way.
Crazy huh?
Why thank you, Sam!
I love that you are familiar with Bernays and the Documentary. I would like to read his work too...just to get a little more into his mindset and perspective. Any recommends?
Wow! I love your explanation it .....penetrates the essence of the matter. If we can blend out that bullshit we can stop caring and be happy and content without all the plastic.
I will append a Socrates: "He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature."
Thanks!
I see your Socrates and raise you Diogenes of Sinope (as Plutarch tells it): 'When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine."'
Haha, I love that story, Sam. It is among my favorites!
I see your Diogenes and I raise you Epicurus: "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."