The Problem with Advertising
It's a source of conspiracy thinking.
I'm used to advertising. I've seen it all my life. Heck, I used to deliver newspapers that were mostly advertisements. I understand the role of advertisements in supporting the media. Once I laid out ads for a weekly publication called the "Shuswap Advertiser".
In the internet age, the character of advertising has changed. It's doing more than offering products for sale. Now lots of ads involve mini-conspiracy theories. Here's a recent example:
Audiologists Furious About New $99 Device That Makes Hearing Crystal Clear Again Try it now
Here's another:
Glaucoma And Cataract Disappear! Vision Returns 99.7% In 6 Days (accompanied by a picture of someone rubbing green leaves on their eyes. (or used teabags in other versions))
The idea is that simple 'tricks' can solve our medical issues and that the medical community doesn't want us to know. The ads purport to tell the 'truth'.
This way of thinking aligns with conspiracy stories about how the world is run by secret cabals of various kinds. "Don't trust what 'they' say - trust me instead."
This is very different from advertising that tells people the price of potatoes this week.
Years ago the global conspiracies involved 'the Rothschilds' or 'Armenians' or 'Jews' or even 'the Illuminati'. People kept their conspiracy ideas to themselves because most people thought they were nuts.
Times have changed.
We are well into the post-modern age now. One might say that modernists had faith that reality exists and that true statements can be made about it. One theme of post-modernism is that all statements are assertions of power; that "Truth" is an illusion.
Harry Frankfurt touched on that in "On Bullshit". The bullshitter is not concerned with truth; the bullshitter just wants to impress their audience.
Norman Vincent Peale wrote about the power of positive thinking: that people will believe whatever you say if you say it with conviction. Peale was a kind of mentor for the young Trump.
What do you think?
I open the floor
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.