Thalassa
Permabanned
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 25,183
- MBTI Type
- ISFP
- Enneagram
- 6w7
- Instinctual Variant
- sx
You and Hard are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum. Hard is correct in saying critical thinking can overcome much of commercial influence, but I think he greatly overestimates the average person's ability (or perhaps inclination) to think critically.
Still commercialism is inevitable, and it's not even that bad a thing. For the most part, these companies are selling you things you want, although advertising by intent tries to make you want them more (by doing things like associating status with a brand etc.). However, as long as you can think critically enough to recognize a corporation is trying to exploit you to maximize its' profit, you should be able to defend yourself easy enough. And some people dearly want status, so they pay for it (so for example, instead of wearing a $30 pair of perfectly functional sneakers, they pay > $100 for the most trendy brand of the season).
But the person making the choice needs to accept some responsibility. They can't just claim they have been "brainwashed" by advertising. They probably have been influenced, but if they aren't conscious of that influence, I think there has been some willful blindness on their part.
If something happened when you were a child, you were brainwashed. That's why I think anarcho capitalism is absurd in its assertion that people choose...no, adults choose. All things being fair isn't a possibility when you and millions of others already made profits for the.people who will destroy your environment and ship your jobs to China before anyone told you what was going on.
And selling people what they want is the biggest lie. My grandfather knew that because he was born before television. Selling people what they want is the creepiest fucking thing people believe. No, you were TRAINED to think you wanted it by being bombarded with advertisers.
Of course I take personal responsibility for my adult self. I don't watch tv or listen to radio so I am no longer assaulted by advertising. And once you do that, you take control of your choices now. But even so, you were already used to put fiscal despots in power, despots you have been so convinced already there is no use fighting against.
I think a lot of people can't handle the truth, it's like an acid trip, because it actually examines parts of the American psyche you have been brainwashed to accept as "reality."
People don't want to hear it. It's easier for them to be a trained bear.