It's more about treating others as means to some other end that is the problem - that's what objectification ultimately is. Treating people as tools to achieve something. And both men and women do this - now and in the past - in different manners. Women manipulate men using their physical beauty, intellect and/or political capacity - or seek to do so - and men use their physical (or economic or political) power to control women. They're both dehumanising each other. — Agustino

That too, and for sure it is not an entirely modern phenomenon. But I'm coming to the view, as a result of this discussion that the modern feature, the turn of the screw made by experimental psychology is that it is no longer just them that I dehumanise, but also us which means me as well. I'll try and characterise this a bit more clearly as we go on.

But I'm coming to the view, as a result of this discussion that the modern feature, the turn of the screw made by experimental psychology is that it is no longer just them that I dehumanise, but also us which means me as well. — unenlightened

Hmmm - I don't quite understand this distinction yet.

Women actually like your BO if you're attractive. Women like masculinity, and are generally turned off by men as worried about their appearance and hygiene as they are, believe it or not. — Wosret

In my own honest and fucking humble opinion, there are two kinds of women. Those who are worth attracting, and those who aren't worth attracting. The situation is such that the set composed of the former is tiny compared to the set composed of the latter. Those who are not worth attracting are attracted by one thing only - power. Whether this is economical power (money, position, etc.), physical power (big muscles, good looks, etc.), political power, social power (for ex. fame) or whatever other kind of power. And I've experienced this - when you have any one of those powers to a high degree - whether you're the coolest kid at school, or you have a prestigious job, or you're the guy who fucks all the girls, etc. - then these women will swarm around you like flies swarm around shit. If a famous football player goes to a club, all the girls will surround him - which only goes to show that women who attend nightclubs have no character. What's the point of even being affiliated in a romantic way with such a person? That's more like cutting the very branch on which you are sitting... >:O

Now the women who are worth attracting - you won't find guidebooks and guidelines about how to attract them online or in print :P - all the tips and tricks you find in print only work on those who aren't worth attracting to begin with. And they can't be attracted by any generalities, it will be very specific particulars which attract them, which are intractable - can't form a system around it because they would differ widely from one woman to the next. So if you want to attract those, I can't help you.

If you want to attract those not worth attracting though - just make yourself powerful (or just appear powerful) and advertise >:O - or wait for fortune to make you powerful, either can actually happen. And if fortune makes you powerful, don't forget about advertising! :-$ The flies won't come to the shit if there's no smell calling them...

I don't know where Rush is. In a ditch somewhere?

Occasionally, i get the vague feeling of living in some dystopian amalgamation of the scenarios of Orwell's 1984, The Lord of the Rings, The Terminator, and Pink Floyd's The Wall.

But then i take my anti-depressant pill, and then the tv stops trying to control me and all is calm once again. For awhile.

[(please imagine this being spoken very rapidly, so as to avoid comprehension) Some side effects may include... Serotonin Syndrome: A potentially life-threatening problem that can happen when medicines such as (X) are taken with certain other medicines. Symptoms may include agitation, hallucinations, coma or other changes in mental status; problems controlling movements or muscle twitching, stiffness or tightness; fast heartbeat, high or low blood pressure; sweating or fever; nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.
Abnormal bleeding or bruising: (X) and other serotonergic antidepressant medicines may increase your risk of bleeding or bruising, especially if you take the blood thinner warfarin (Coumadin®, Jantoven®), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), or aspirin. Manic episode: Symptoms may include greatly increased energy; severe trouble sleeping; racing thoughts; reckless behavior; unusually grand ideas; excessive happiness or irritability; talking more or faster than usual. Visual problems: May include eye pain, changes in vision, swelling or redness in or around the eye. Only some people are at risk for these problems. You may want to undergo an eye examination to see if you are at risk and receive preventative treatment if you are. Low salt (sodium) levels in the blood: Symptoms may include headache; difficulty concentrating, memory changes or confusion; weakness and unsteadiness on your feet; and in severe or sudden cases hallucinations, fainting, seizures or coma. If not treated, severe low sodium levels can cause death... and so on and so forth... ]

In a ditch somewhere? — Mongrel

Did he get there because a woman manipulated him since he's a brute who can only think with his lower head, and thus was helpless to her actions? :D

He was a drug addict.

He was a drug addict. — Mongrel

Yes yes, but how did he end up in such dire straits?

Don't they have junkies in Mongolia?

I think I definitely agree with you that the advertising industry does attempt to exploit people psychologically.
I never thought about it as an important issue for some reason.
I mean I can't imagine what could be done to regulate that sort of thing? — m-theory

The bigger issue is the way that the advertising industry (along with its psychological abuse) is integrated into the entertainment industry as a whole, such that the entire entertainment industry can now be said to exploit people psychologically. It is very rare to find pure entertainment, entertainment for the sake of entertaining, as entertainment is overwhelmingly produced for the sake of making money. Now if we add the dimension of psychological exploitation, which comes along with this commercial activity, we can understand how entertainment is becoming more and more a source of psychological distress, which is opposed to its true purpose, or true use, which is as a source of relief from such stresses. There is something very unhealthy to be found in the way that the news media has become unified with the entertainment media.

What do you expect to happen when Walt Disney Company owns ABC?

Don't they have junkies in Mongolia? — Mongrel

No :D

If you don't take a pre/post Fall view, then it's advertising and manipulation all the way down - just replace advertising with social organization based around shame. — csalisbury

Would you mind expanding on that? I don't think I understand what a pre/post Fall view is, or how that relates to the consequent in the above.

But the thing I want to emphasise from your post as a particular modern twist on the dehumanising process is exactly that it becomes self-referrential. Whereas we have commonly objectifiedthem (Jews, Blacks, Women, peasants, etc) psychology leads us inexorably to objectifyourselves. Human nature dissolves into nature with the death of god, and we ourselves are mere phenomena to be studied and manipulated and exploited along with all the other collections of atoms. — unenlightened

That rings true for me. In particular, though I am prejudiced to think in this manner, at the workplace -- there are roles one wishes to fit into in order to obtain the material and social goods they desire (whatever those happen to be -- from daily subsistence to social glory and influence). In order to do so one has to operate on themselves to gain these goods. And the language of self-improvement is quite pervasive in the workplace not merely as a way of justifying position, but as a kind of ethic of the self which people in all positions at the workplace -- though not all people do this, just noting that there is no unique position in the hierarchy -- express belief in and practice.


Actually, oddly enough considering his real life associations, but Heidegger also comes to mind in relation to the OP since one reading of his philosophy -- though as with all things H. it can be contested, I don't mean this as a hermeneutics but just one reading I've seen presented -- is to see it as an attempt to dig out of the domination of a naturalistic picture. Not that naturalism is wrong as far as it goes, but rather that technology has come to dominate man's authentic being -- hence the phenomenology into Greek terminology to attempt to recover the very question from naturalistic interp.

One consequence of this, so I would say, is that those inspired by H -- such as Derrida and Levinas -- would also prove fruitful to read, I think.


Actually, Foucault's history of sexuality part 2 is also a fruitful book because it deals with techniques and practices of the self -- in particular our self-relation. I'm still in the middle of reading that right now, but it seems apropos.

Sorry for the name-dump. They all seem really relevant though.

Would you mind expanding on that? I don't think I understand what a pre/post Fall view is, or how that relates to the consequent in the above.

So, I wrote that post in a fit of spleen. But what I mean by pre/post fall is the narrative that there was an idyllic period, then something bad happened (freud, madison ave, Bernays) and that led to our particularly dystopic present. My sense is that being a 21st century consumer in a first world country is a far better lot than 99% of all past lots. I mean, it's not that great. But it's a little less nasty, brutish and short.

I would say it's not about whether you can resist it or not. That's a red herring. There is no resistance in the sense of being able to "see through". You can only try to avoid it. Seeing through advertising is relatively easy. If you did a poll to ask people whether they thought ads were honest, you would probably get a majority negative (but hook anyone up to an MRI machine and watch the effect of a given ad and I doubt you'd be able to tell the cynics from the pollyannas). In fact, thinking you can "see through" advertising is probably as good or a better result for the advertisers than knowing you can't if the former means you don't feel the need to reduce exposure.

Yeah, I have some sympathy for this view. Though I think you may have gone too far in the other direction in correcting the idea of seeing-through. It's not as though advertisements have a quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs, affecting each purely passive body/soul equally, so that all we have can do is run from the beams etc.. You are right that it's sometimes easier to con the guy who thinks he can't be conned. But often it's easier to con people who don't have a sense of how cons work.

And what is it all the way up? Not all forms of socially organized shame-inducing are equal. If I must ingest a poison, I'll take sugar over cyanide. Emphasizing their chemical similarities isn't going to change my mind. It's not just advertising though, it's the whole media entertainment constellation which revolves around it. If it doesn't concern people that the only way this system can survive is through the creation of dissatisfaction and unhappiness, then it's done its job fantastically well, hasn't it?

I'd prefer sugar too. You have some? What is it?

I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that advertising and the media has created dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I think it's more likely that it only moulds it in certain ways. I think, by and large, people are most dissatisfied when they aren't given some direction on how to become satisfied. So another way to say this: I don't think that the natural state of people is relative satisfaction, then mad men who've read Freud come in and make people dissatisfied. Maybe that's because they've drilled down to my core, but I don't think so.

No one chose to respond to my post on the economy. The amount of money spent on global advertising--660 billion dollars in 2014--is a clue to how advertising figures into life as we know it.

WE did not call forth advertising because we are sex obsessed, sex deprived, or obsessed with trivial concerns. We might be all of that, but advertising wasn't our idea.

As a primate species, we tend to be insecure about our place in society. We neither emit nor detect pheromones so specific that we can tell where our standing in the hierarchy is. We are very often at least somewhat uncertain about it. We use other devices to display our status. Are we attractive enough? Is there something about me turning off that guy/girl? Why don't people ask me to go to lunch with them. And so on...

We had been psychologizing long before William James became the first Professor of Psychology", and Bernays didn't "invent" methods for manipulating people--all that had been going on for a very long time. What he invented was an industry. Industries like "Public Relations" or "Advertising" came into existence because the economic means made them possible. The first four media of mass advertising -- fast, high quality printing in color, radio, television and movies came about for the same reason: the means of production (electronics, factories, broadcasting technology, motion/sound/color film production) were in place by the early (and for TV, mid) 20th century.

advertising preys upon our insecurities and frustrated aspirations. Not everyone is equally insecure; not everyone worries about their embodied social presence; not every man's grasp greatly exceeds his reach. But MOST people do feel insecure, most people aren't quite sure whether they are have it all together (right clothes, right shoes, right hair-do, right powder, right perfume...) and most people have not yet come close to grasping their highest aspirations. They are nervous. They weren't made nervous by advertisers. Advertising only capitalizes and aggravates insecurity.

It is fruitless and pointless to complain that people are chumps; fall prey to advertisers blandishments; are too stupid to see what is going on; are too venal to resist; are too shallow to care, and so on. We live in a social world which is competitive. Because we are sentient, we can not ignore the fact that there is a hierarchy, a competition for scarce resources, a competition for social status, for comfort-enhancing acquisitions.

Can one drop out of this scene? Sure. You may have noticed a grating covered with a thick layer of bird shit and tragically splattered aspirations at the bottom of the hierarchy -- one can slip through the gaps in the grates. Once out, it's somewhat-difficultt to damned-near-impossible to get back in, however. The other approach is to float out through the top -- easy to do if you have a cart of gold bricks to finance the project.

Life below the grating is not hell on earth -- some people like it. But it is a life which requires a great deal of self-direction, a strong moral compass (whether it points toward good or not), fairly low material aspirations, tolerance for low status, and all that. You can't have high-status cake and eat it down below the grate.

So: That's what advertising leverages its messages against.

It's not as though advertisements have a quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs, affecting each purely passive body/soul equally, so that all we have can do is run from the beams etc.. You are right that it's sometimes easier to con the guy who thinks he can't be conned. But often it's easier to con people who don't have a sense of how cons work. — csalisbury

None of this is much more mysterious than having your mood and thus your behaviour changed by a piece of music. You may be perfectly aware of the process but it hardly matters, it doesn't work on the on that level (unlike a "con"). Does that mean music has a "quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs"? Well, if you want to put it colourfully, it does. At a higher level a hypnotist can put you in an extremely suggestible state against which incredulity at his powers is not necessarily a defense. And advertising falls somewhere in between. No claims of magic here; it's a science, if an inexact one.

I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that advertising and the media has created dissatisfaction and unhappiness. — csalisbury

OK, but in the case of advertising that has been more or less the stated goal since production methods became so efficient in the early twentieth century (starting in the U.S.) that potential supply began to far outstrip demand and economic growth required the creation of new demands. New demands require new desires require new dissatisfactions and so on. Trillions of dollars have been spent on advertising on the basis that this is what it does and that it works.

I don't think that the natural state of people is relative satisfaction, then mad men who've read Freud come in and make people dissatisfied. — csalisbury

Think Pavlov/Skinner not Freud. The traditional basis of advertising psychology isn't all that exotic. For example:

The present paper examines the implications of recent developments in classical conditioning for consumer research. It discusses the finding that the conditioned response need not resemble the unconditioned response, and that the conditioned stimulus must predict but not necessarily precede the unconditioned stimulus for conditioning to occur. The paper also considers the implications of several situations in which classical conditioning may unexpectedly fail to occur, several of the characteristics of classically conditioned behavior, and the role of awareness in conditioning. — Journal of Consumer Research

Link

Maybe that's because they've drilled down to my core, but I don't think so. — csalisbury

Nobody has to drill into your core to make you not aware of something though.

Now if we add the dimension of psychological exploitation, which comes along with this commercial activity, we can understand how entertainment is becoming more and more a source of psychological distress, which is opposed to its true purpose, or true use, which is as a source of relief from such stresses. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes.

I hope that folks will entertain the ideas here, rather than be entertained by them. In being entertained by talent competitions, police melodramas, or war games, one becomes uncritical, passive to the message.

In order to do so one has to operate on themselves to gain these goods. And the language of self-improvement is quite pervasive in the workplace not merely as a way of justifying position, but as a kind of ethic of the self which people in all positions at the workplace -- though not all people do this, just noting that there is no unique position in the hierarchy -- express belief in and practice. — Moliere

This is the heart and soul of the inhumanity, directed inwards. It's worthy of its own thread, but I'll just concur that to operate on a person, (oneself or another) as if they are a thing to be shaped and polished and used, is exactly the mistake I am trying to indicate. Not that one should not learn and practice to better oneself in a straightforward way, exercise to become stronger or whatever. One can lift oneself up by using the stairs, but not by using one's bootstraps.

what I mean by pre/post fall is the narrative that there was an idyllic period, then something bad happened (freud, madison ave, Bernays) and that led to our particularly dystopic present. My sense is that being a 21st century consumer in a first world country is a far better lot than 99% of all past lots. I mean, it's not that great. But it's a little less nasty, brutish and short. — csalisbury

Well the fall as I read it happened a while before that, and was the fall from animal innocence. But please, there is no question but that science directed outwards to the world has been hugely effective and beneficial. My criticism is that it is ineffective and counter-productive when turned inwards to humanity itself. Experiment and manipulation works on stone and wood; it does not work on persons, but distorts rather than refines.

I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that advertising and the media has created dissatisfaction and unhappiness. — csalisbury

No one is claiming they invented it; but they promote it, and elicit it.

And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping.

But please, there is no question but that science directed outwards to the world has been hugely effective and beneficial. My criticism is that it is ineffective and counter-productive when turned inwards to humanity itself. — unenlightened

Ineffective and counter-productive? Would it be better to be effective and productive? What are you selling?

You know that the rise of psychological science allowed the mentally ill to be looked at non-judgmentally and therefore more compassionately. But the anchor of compassion (in my experience) is that big s-word: self. Have you become a self-realist?

that they have some effect is supported in the widely reported increase in mental illness. — unenlightened

Wait a minute--what are we taking to be evidence of a "widely reported increase in mental illness" (as well as unhappiness as someone else said), and in particular, since it's the thesis here, an increase since the advent of widespread advertising (at least outside of newspapers, since they're much older than TV, radio, etc.)? Just what data are we relying on about mental illness rates pre the late 1940s, pre the 1920s, etc.?

No one is claiming they invented it; but they promote it, and elicit it.

And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping. — unenlightened

First off, no matter who you are, no matter what your disposition, you need food, clothing (in most climates), shelter (again in most climates), some items for your shelter, for food preparation, etc., and you'll need some health care items if you don't want to just be ill and injured while waiting for your body to repair itself, if it can.

But aside from that, the idea that in order to desire anything that you could buy, you need to be unhappy or mentally ill is ridiculous.

What would be better to explore in my opinion is why there's a niche of people who have such averse, such conspiracy/evil-plot-oriented attitudes towards marketing. What's going on with those folks psychologically that they effectively see advertising/marketing as an affront?

Experiment and manipulation works on stone and wood; it does not work on persons, but distorts rather than refines. — unenlightened

This is morality though, in a nutshell. It is experimentation and manipulation turned inwards on humanity itself. So this same inward experimentation and manipulation can go two ways, bad or good. Plato recognized this, that is why he advocated strict controls over the arts, He didn't say to shut the arts right down because this is all bad, he said to control it, so that it is good.

But when we're talking about "experimentation", there is a degree of unknown, inherent within. The unknown needs to be balanced and overcome by the known, to bring out the good of the experiment. Consider Jesus and his disciples, wasn't this just a big experiment on the manipulation of humanity? The thing about experimentation is that even if it goes bad, we can learn from it, and derive good from a bad experience. That's how we should look at the experimentation and manipulation of advertising which you refer to. It's already happened, it's ongoing and can not be stopped. But even if it's bad, we can learn from it, and therefore derive good from it.

What would be better to explore in my opinion is why there's a niche of people who have such averse, such conspiracy/evil-plot-oriented attitudes towards marketing. What's going on with those folks psychologically that they effectively see advertising/marketing as an affront? — Terrapin Station

Only someone completely ignorant of the history/psychology of advertising could come up with such a silly comment. So you don't like people who criticize business? Good for you. Give yourself a a pat on the head. But unless you can identify the conspiracy theory being put forward here, that's all you get.

But aside from that, the idea that in order to desire anything that you could buy, you need to be unhappy or mentally ill is ridiculous. — Terrapin Station

That might explain why no one has made that claim.

Seems like you took offense at my comment. Presumably you're someone who sees advertising/marketing as an affront? We could explore why you feel that way about it.

Re "identify the conspiracy theory," I'm simply referring to ideas such as those presented in this thread--that advertisers are plotting how to make people feel unhappy, distressed, etc.

Were you just saying that you a desire to buy something is required, and no particular emotional state other than that?