> Sometimes you shock me. Socialists do that sometimes, inadvertently.
> 1. Advertising suggests that we are missing something, that we are > incomplete, and that we can only be completed through consumption. But we may indeed be missing something and need to find it, in which case we require good information, appropriately and accurately presented in a non-intrusive, non-interruptive and pleasantly human way, and not as a form of brainwashing or abuse. Insofar as advertising draws attention to new products, it is a useful service, it is just that the display of advertising should be given its appropriate place, in such as way that the consumer must provide consent prior to observing the advertising, without infringement of his autonomy. Fake left critics of advertising wax in moral horror about advertising, but they understand it only in a one-sided way, and not a dialectical way, missing completely how the working class actually uses advertising and can subvert the very meaning of advertising, putting it to use in socialist politics. They start talking about "banning advertising" without understanding it valid function, concentrating only on its deceptive, distorted and perverse content. This is an adaptation to a rightwing, neoconservative knee-jerk reaction by leftist pseudo-defenders of freedom who seeks to stamp out behaviour which does not conform to christian fundamentalist morality. But just as with other political controversies, if advertising is banned as a source of human creativity, why stop there ? Why not ban erotic publications ? Why not ban publications which oppose the government ? Why not ban free newspapers which survive on the basis of advertising ? The fake left has a deformed idea about freedom, they want to expand their own freedom at the expense of others, instead of engaging constructively in cultural debate. They don't want to transform creativity or provide it with a new purpose, only stifle creativity. Thus the fake left, lacking positive alternatives, is the enemy of freedom. If Michael Perelman produces a book for sale about "perverse economics", does this not contain advertising ? Why not ? Jurriaan
