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Global Warning - Jun 11, 2006 - Printable Version
- Sate of the Union
by Robin Buckallew
Recently, I took an informal survey of my friends and my students. I asked them to identify which two people they felt had been the most influential figures in shaping the direction of American society in the 20th century. The answers ranged from the thoughtful and profound to the shallow and superficial. The most common answer, and one that showed great insight into the mind of 21st century America, was Henry Ford. Other truly insightful answers included Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Edison. At the level of ridiculous I would count Princess Diana and Brad Pitt. This was, of course, a difficult question – to consider the entire force and drama of such a seismic century, and then pick out only 2 people who had been the most influential in shaping it. Predictably, not one person I asked selected the two names that I feel stand out from all the others in the overall influence on 20th century America: Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee. If you’ve never heard of them, don’t despair – a great many other people whose lives have been heavily influenced by these two men haven’t heard of them, either. Sometimes the people who affect our lives the most are people who never actually cross our path. America at the beginning of the 20th century was a very different place than at the beginning of the 21st. Vast stretches of the country still remained unsettled, and in many cases, unexplored. The vast highway system we take for granted did not exist; in fact, almost no one owned an automobile. Travel close to home was accomplished by foot, by bicycle or by horse. Longer distances were traversed by train. Nobody had ever sent or received an e-mail, and no one had heard of computers or the Internet. Most people shopped in small, locally-owned markets, and national name brands were not common; in fact, in many grocery stores, you would buy flour out of a big barrel and the grocer would weigh out just what you needed; he would count out the amount of eggs that you wanted, or just as many pickles as you asked for. Things were not frozen, freeze dried, shrink wrapped, pre-cooked, and shipped hundreds of miles before they landed on your plate, fresh and hot from the microwave. Teenagers hung out at the local soda shoppe instead of the mall. Cell phones? CD players? Air conditioners? Designer clothes? For all of human history, great empires rose and fell, humans progressed and regressed through all sorts of societies, culture, science, religion and industry prospered and declined, all without the benefit of any of those products. Now, as Americans enter the 21st century, large percentages of the America public earnestly, sincerely, and without a hint of irony report that they simply cannot live without them.
The era of the department store began in 1888. Prior to that time, Americans were regarded as a sensible, frugal people, and the owners of the new stores scratched their heads and wondered how they were going to get these sensible, pragmatic people to spend money they didn’t have on frivolous products they didn’t need at extravagant prices in overrated department stores. The answer was supplied by applying cunning American ingenuity, adapting something that already existed to a new purpose. Advertising, in use for a very long time to let people know where to find what they needed, had from time to time been pressed into the service of conmen and hucksters; now, it would become the nearly exclusive property of high powered conmen and hucksters. Thus was modern advertising born – and here we begin to see the importance of Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee, the fathers of public relations. Soon after the turn of the century, they burst onto the scene in full throttle, taking America by the throat and radically reforming it to their specifications. Soon, everything was a product, even honesty and integrity. Teapot Dome Scandal? Call on Ivy Lee. Need your image polished? Get me Edward Bernays, fast! Need a product sold? Public relations! The citizens find out you’ve poisoned their water with toxic waste? No need to clean it up – just announce you’re going to, make a big show of public relations, and keep on doing what you want to. Suppose you find out half the population (women) aren’t smoking, and you want to sell more cigarettes. Stage a suffrage march, have women demanding their rights, and make sure they’re all shown smoking. Soon, smoking becomes a symbol of freedom, sales go up, and Phillip Morris heads to the bank. The real key to who controls American Society? It isn’t the Beltway – it’s Madison Avenue. Thanks to Bernays and Lee, Americans have traded in their citizenship for consumership. Now, the majority of women list their favorite form of recreation as “shopping”. Now, our children know brand names before they know the names of their relatives. Now, Americans have become the world’s champion Olympic-class shoppers. We have the finest trained, the best equipped shopping force in the world.
Do you doubt me? Do you think I exaggerate? Then, just consider these facts, from recent polling data. Large majorities of Americans are reporting that what they consider most important is acquiring more things. They are also more prone to report a lack of concern for whether their acquisitiveness is detrimental to their neighbor or their neighborhood. In another poll, a poll which wins first prize in the ‘duh’ category of stating the obvious, it has recently been reported that Americans prefer instant gratification. Americans, although only 5% of the world’s population, manage to consume over 25% of the world’s goods. Vast stretches of rainforest fall hourly to make way for the production of goods for the American market. Thousands of young Chinese women and children work long hours at very little pay to produce products for Americans to buy (cheaply). We flock to the malls and to Wal-Mart. We drive for miles to go to sales in nearby towns, so we can save a few cents buying something we didn’t know we needed until we saw it was on sale. Then, while we’re there in our air conditioned malls, with our SUVs parked in the parking lot waited to be loaded down with bags of newly purchased booty, we tell the nice young pollster at the mall that, yes, we care about the environment, and we believe it should be protected NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. Where is our sense of irony? Perhaps we should all take irony supplements.
I want you to do a mental exercise for me. In your mind, take everything you own and pile it on your front lawn (if you have no imagination, you may feel free to do this in actuality, but I would advise against it). How high is the pile? How wide? Can you get your arms around it, or does it take you and several of your friends holding hands to span it? If you climbed up to the top, how far would you be able to see? Then think about this – is this the legacy you want to leave behind for your children and grandchildren? Not to mention the other things they will inherit as a result of this pile – pollution, global warming, toxic waste, decline of natural resources, species extinctions, and the bills to undo all the damage. For generations, humans acquired possessions in blissful ignorance of the damage they were doing. We don’t have that excuse anymore – we’ve got the knowledge. The consequences are staring us in the face, and if we blink, we lose. And still, we continue to buy. We continue to crave gratification and stimulation, and we continue to remain restless and dissatisfied with the belongings we have. Advertisements insist “stuff” will make us happy (their stuff, of course), so we go out and buy “stuff”. We’re still not happy. Another advertiser tells us, oh, that was the wrong stuff. So we buy more “stuff”. We’re still not happy. More stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff, until we’re so “stuffed”, we’ve been crowded out of our own home by all our stuff. Then, we rent storage sheds to store our old “stuff” so we can get some new “stuff”, and finally be happy. Every bit of “stuff” we acquire simply proves an appetizer, leaving us hungry for more “stuff”, and we can never be filled. How much will it take before we can finally achieve the sate of the union?
So what’s the culprit? We blame it on advertising, and that is definitely a large part of the equation. Advertising assaults us, hurls itself at our heads day in and day out. Our waking hours are so filled with advertising, we rarely even notice it consciously anymore. Billboards, neon signs, television, movies, computers, park benches, buses – advertisers have even begun placing advertising in public restrooms, so we’re not free of being advertised to when we are performing the most private functions of our lives. Now, there is talk of sending advertisements directly into our brains through new technology, and following our purchases so they can personalize the advertising. Often, I feel the only time I’m free of advertising is when I’m asleep – is that soon to be sacrificed, too? Am I to find my dreams invaded by the Tid-E-Bol Man and the AFLAC duck? Will I drift off to blissful sleep, only to find myself fair game for Tony the Tiger or the GEICO gecko? The courts have upheld some of the most ludicrous of advertising, including the preposition that companies have the right to outright lie to us as part of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Meanwhile, these same companies enter our schools and advertise to our children under the guise of lessons and news programs advertise to us by feeding us corporate press releases disguised as news. It is easy to feel helpless in the face of such onslaught – especially when it is wrapped in an appealing package, and tied with a bow. We have marched willingly to the slaughter, though we do occasionally let out a timid bleat of protest. Yes, the companies and the advertisers bear a heavy weight of responsibility, but there is another side to the equation – we are not required to believe them. We are not required to buy ourselves into the poorhouse, nor to “stuff” ourselves until we are bloated and immobile. It’s easy to be helpless in the face of overwhelming odds, but we can be stronger than that. It takes a lot of will power, and even more won’t power, as my grandmother used to say.
I have always considered myself somewhat immune to advertising (polls show that we all believe ourselves so, and sales records indicate that we are not). I felt that I could make my own decisions as an educated consumer, and not blindly follow where advertising pointed. To some extent, I was probably right, because I am by nature skeptical of overwrought claims and hyperbolic superlatives, and on top of that, I watched only a little TV. That is not enough. At least some of it will still get through, no matter how hard you try. One day, I realized I was buying something the TV had urged me to. For a period of time after that, I paid attention to my purchases. Many of my purchases, in spite of my best intentions, appeared to be inexplicable unless I accepted that advertising had influenced my choices. I decided to take action. My time might belong to my employer; my money might belong to Uncle Sam; my affection might belong to my husband and son; but my brain belongs to no one but me. I am entitled to have exclusive rights to my own thoughts and the inner workings of my own mind (no matter how warped or convoluted). So, I took action. I turned off the TV. The difference was incredible. My mind became clearer, and my resolve stronger. I spent less at the grocery store, and actually ate better. I had more time for reading, writing, playing, reflecting, and loving. Even the few hours a week I watched TV made a big difference. Of course, I didn’t totally take advertising out of my life, since it is impossible to totally avoid, unless you lock yourself in a padded cell. Magazines, newspapers, the Internet – advertising is everywhere. But the most ubiquitous advertising is on television, with product placements making most television shows simply advertising disguised as entertainment, and newscasters now often serving as highly paid pimps for consumer products. Television is colorful, noisy, intrusive, and nearly impossible to escape the influence of – IF IT’S TURNED ON.
For a century, America has had the consumption. It’s time for us to effect a cure, no matter how painful, before the disease becomes fatal. We must quit turning control over to those men we’ve never met, quit making pacts with the devil in exchange for more stuff, and quit making excuses. It’s time to reconsider the legacy we are leaving behind for our children. Is it to be that pile of junk and a whole lot of bills? Or a clean, beautiful world full of wonders and marvels for them to enjoy? If you can’t live without all that stuff, how long will they be able to live without clean air and clean water? Think about it –how long until we can finally reach the sate of the union?
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