A good book to read on this topic of advertising and consumerism is: Coercion By Douglas Rushkoff. It is about advertising and takes you through a quick glance through the inner workings of advertising and also how sales people are taught to sell. I must say that it opened my eyes to this subject quite a bit. > ---------- > From: Andrea Sosio[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Reply To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 9:43 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: MD HELP - Consumerism, homogonisation and the > degregation of quality > > > Hi all MD survivors... > > Although I like to debate on politics, I would refrain from doing so in a > mailing > list as long as it is offtopic. Of course everyone has his/her own > opinions, > usually strongly felt, and you will have debate if you cause it by making > any > political statement. But there are other places in cyberspace for purely > political discussion. With that, I welcome political issues when they are > relevant to the subject of interest of the group where they are raised. > > So, speaking of Quality... > > Apart from the message that david posted by mistake, his points are > related to > Quality, and I liked the post. I think there are two main points that are > related > to the consumerism-quality interplay. > > First, consumerism is about making people buy as many things as possible, > and to > make people pay as much as possible for them. Since the western way has > been good > enough at satisfying people's basic needs, consumerism needs to create new > needs > to sell more. On one hand, it has been providing new useful things via > technology, thus increasing the overall quality of life. On the other > hand, it > has undoubtedly made large use of any means to let people think they > needed > things they didn't need, and to let people think that some products had > more > value than they really had. Foremost among all these means is advertising, > especially via TV. To make people buy things, advertisers have certainly > used > some of the people's pre-existing attitudes and inclinations, but they > also > empowered them. Although everyone wants to be sexy, wealthy, cool, media > are > ultimately sending the message that you are a valuable person only as long > as you > are sexy, wealthy, young, thin, and so on. Of course people need not > believe what > the media say, but this is what advertising necessarily says: if you think > of it, > that's just in its nature. The most powerful weapon to make people need > something > is convincing them that their lives will have no value if they don't have > that > thing - instill in them the *fear* of not having that thing. Consumerism > is > interested in people seeing quality in things, not in themselves, their > culture, > their beliefs, their morality: just the things; or in some personal > characteristic that can be improved via buyable things (eg, looks). All > the rest > is, at least, irrelevant to ad makers. If you add to this that TV and > related > media are the basic source from which people nowadays get the idea of what > life > is, having long and far overtool books, school, and other less > profit-driven > sources, I think here you have a serious issue about quality today. > > As a second point, big companies flourishing in the market too often > exhibit a > clearly identifiable immoral behavior. I *don't* think this is inherent to > capitalism, or at least, I'm not sure; honestly. Anyway, you have the > facts. You > have the damages to the environment, done either directly (polluting > factories, > uncontrolled use of the planet's non-replaceable resources) and > indirectly: if > buying and using some product causes some damage (e.g., current car > engines, both > polluting and oil-consuming), big companies that want to keep selling > these > products are sometimes powerful enough to convince people to go on buying > and > using the dangerous product. The same holds for products that cause damage > to > health, like cigarettes. It's not that companies own the world and will > not let > the truth through. But still, you will have someone speak on TV about the > danger > of this or that *and* some dozens of explicit and implicit advertisings > that > depict use of this product as something usual, necessary, cool, sexy, ... > non > problematic. I think this causes an attitude that you can easily detect in > the > average smoker: knowing something is bad and at the same time shrug > his/her > shoulders and say, "but, that's the way it is". > > Some of the posts that defended capitalism and free market just made just > a side > note on environmental damage. That's ok, you don't need to believe that > the evil > is in capitalism. But there *is* evil somewhere, and definitely something > as > dramatic as to bring low quality in all the levels of the MOQ at once. I > think > you can easily find how the word "pollution" applies to each of the > levels. > > In perspective, about the two quality issues above, the worst is probably > the > second. Having people waste their money (hence part of their lifetimes) is > immoral, and even if people are inclined to waste their money because > humans are > humans, empowering this attitude and making money on it is still immoral. > Perhaps > even more immoral is to have people destroy the environment, or close > their eyes > and ears before the destruction of the environment. Even if they are > inclined to > do so, making it easier for them is *highly* immoral. In both cases: > purposedly > manipulating the notion of quality of people, as consumerism is doing, is > immoral; whether this is inherent to consumerism or just an evil course > consumerism has taken and that can be changed it is still immoral, and, I > think, > right on topic for this forum. > > Just let's not make this a fight between left and right... After all I too > agree > with Nunzio, I am perfectly sure everyone has his/her own reasons to be on > one > side and hate the other, and from a higher perspective you would see we > are all > partly right and partly wrong in our own ways. I'm sure there's no Hitlers > nor > Stalins nor Belzebubs posting on this forum too. > > Be well all > > AS > > > > > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org > Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ > MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: > http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
