Topics Mind

Question Billions of dollars are spent each year to get people to think in ways that benefit people with billions to spend. This much seems uncontroversial. Most of the money is spent on advertisements designed to circumvent a person's reason and appeal directly to people's unreflected faculties. For those who have read anything about this history of public relations this is also perfectly understood. So how does a reasonable person deal with this knowledge? Is it reasonable to resist, to cloister oneself in defense of the ability to think somewhat more freely? It seems like you could go crazy trying to do so. On the other hand it seems like sanity has more to do these days with resembling sitcom families and having Burger King jingles running through our heads. Okay, so obviously you can tell I'm a paranoid nutjob with a tenuous grip on reality. Am I right to be overwhelmed by what seems like a ubiquitous attack against rationality in the culture at large? Is it paranoid to suggest that it's systematic?

Accepted:
August 4, 2011

Comments

I think you have every right to be perturbed by the pr bombardment. If you watch just an hour of tv a day you are hit with flocks of lies in the forms of advertisements and then you add all the ads on the net and it is more lies-- eat this and you'll have 33.7 percent less chance of a stroke, lose 50 lbs in mth with this diet aid. All the deception is enough to cause nausea of the noggin. I think we should take in as little of the Abilify and Burger King ads as possible.