You know you are getting old when:

[BlueTrain]

Part of what you're describing is called sales resistance. The rest is nothing more than deciding on what you think will satisfy you the most. I'll be the last to deny that I want things that are not necessarily the best, the most practical, the best value, the cheapest, and so on. Were it otherwise, I could never justify eating chocolate. I wouldn't have bought half the cars I bought (but would have bought something else instead). I would never go to McDonald's. I might never have married, either.

 

[tonyb]

There comes a point when hard realities can no longer be denied, no matter how artfully an "alternative" tale might be spun, no matter how much is spent to convince people otherwise.

 

[BlueTrain]

The only question is, how do we know when we're at that point?

 

[Fading Fast]

Part of what you're describing is called sales resistance. The rest is nothing more than deciding on what you think will satisfy you the most. I'll be the last to deny that I want things that are not necessarily the best, the most practical, the best value, the cheapest, and so on. Were it otherwise, I could never justify eating chocolate. I wouldn't have bought half the cars I bought (but would have bought something else instead). I would never go to McDonald's. I might never have married, either.

I buy and want many things that aren't practical / the best value / the least expensive way to do something. But - and this is the part about being an adult - I make those decisions consciously and cognizant of the tradeoffs, of the less-expensive alternative, etc. I am an adult and am responsible for my own decisions and do not blame Google or Coke or Kellogg or Ford (no matter how emotionally manipulative their advertising is as long as it isn't fraudulent) if I don't buy something that, based on some objective analysis, "makes more sense" than what I did buy. What I don't countenance is near-the-edge or outright deceit / misleading tactics - what, IMHO, is some variant on fraud.

I can decide if a fancier coat of paint is worth more to me even if it's pure aesthetics or if the cereal that looks like little pieces of French Toast is worth more than the generic brand - that's in my power and skill set - but I can't assess if the ingredient list is accurate, the weights are right, the claims of health benefits are real or the risk factors have been fully disclosed. That's fraud and I don't have the resources nor does almost anyone to independently check each claim. Try to emotionally manipulate me all you want you "Boys From Marketing -" but your facts, measures, health claims and risks should all be legally required to be accurate.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing with propaganda, whether it's to sell a product, an activity, or an idea, is that it's literally all around us from the moment we draw our first breath. We are told how we should think, how we should act, how we should interact with our fellow beings, not just by our parents or our social circle, but by every form of media that exists. And as a result, there isn't a single one of us, anywhere in the industrialized world, who hasn't been shaped by it. And the ones who say NOT ME BUB I'M A FREE THINKER I WEAR NO MAN'S COLLAR, I MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS are the ones who are in the deepest denial about the effect that propaganda has had upon them. The ultimate goal of propaganda is to convince you that you've adopted the belief, idea, or agenda the propagandist wants you to adopt out of your own free will, that it's come out of your own thoughtful analysis of the situation. But when essentially all the information available to you is being strained thru the giant cheesecloth of the propaganda machine, how can anyone possibly be free of its influence?

The way to deal with the influence of propaganda in our lives is to first admit the hold it has on all of us. When every single source of information available to you is trying to sell you *something* to suit an agenda which may or may not be obvious, how can you trust any of them? Never mind questioning authority. Question *everything.*

 

[BlueTrain]

There's another side of the story that asks "How much difference does it make?"

Some would say, referring to almost anything, that it makes all the difference in the world. Health food enthusiasts believe what you eat can be measured down to the Nth degree and that if you deviate from the prescribed norm, you will die before they do. Or something like that. Most human bodies aren't that efficient and are not machines.

Concerning propaganda, it is likely that only some people swallow everything, hook, line and sinker. Yet there are plenty of such people. They are the people who wonder how other people manage to live their lives any differently than their own perfectly organized and prepared lives. Some would never leave their house without a multi-tool, a cell phone, a fancy notebook and the like and considered anyone who doesn't do that as extreme risk takers who are foolishly gambling with their lives and will not survive when the balloon goes up.

But I sure wouldn't call what your mother taught you as propaganda.

 

[Fading Fast]

... Never mind questioning authority. Question *everything.*

Agreed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But I sure wouldn't call what your mother taught you as propaganda.

There's a lot of things your mother might teach you that are the result of propaganda. My mother tried to teach me that, for example, "mixed marriages" were wrong because of the propaganda she'd been exposed to growing up. A mother might teach you not to eat certain foods, or to eat others, because of propaganda. A mother might teach you to oppose certain ideas or concepts and support others because of propaganda. I love my mother, but I've heard her spout some things, with a perfectly straight face, that came from nowhere else but a propagandist, without the slightest idea that she'd been manipulated into adopting those beliefs.

 

[tonyb]

The only question is, how do we know when we're at that point?

When it's too late to completely undo the damage, usually.

People rationalize until they no longer can. They smoke until they get cancer and/or heart disease and/or emphysema. They live on borrowed money until no one will lend them more and they lose their homes. I fear we'll continue burning fossil fuels at current rates until Miami is underwater.

I'm only human. I smoked heavily for a long, long time. Then I had a heart attack. During a brief period when motorcycle helmets were not required by law in my former home state, I would occasionally ride sans helmet.

Perhaps a certain amount of unreasonable optimism (call it denial, if you'd rather) is necessary to a happy life. Something will get you sooner or later anyway, right? Still, I'd rather have a world in which even the elderly behave in ways that indicate a concern for what the world will be in 50 years.

 

[tonyb]

There's a lot of things your mother might teach you that are the result of propaganda. My mother tried to teach me that, for example, "mixed marriages" were wrong because of the propaganda she'd been exposed to growing up. A mother might teach you not to eat certain foods, or to eat others, because of propaganda. A mother might teach you to oppose certain ideas or concepts and support others because of propaganda. I love my mother, but I've heard her spout some things, with a perfectly straight face, that came from nowhere else but a propagandist, without the slightest idea that she'd been manipulated into adopting those beliefs.

It's called being grown up, eh?

 

[Fading Fast]

There's a lot of things your mother might teach you that are the result of propaganda. My mother tried to teach me that, for example, "mixed marriages" were wrong because of the propaganda she'd been exposed to growing up. A mother might teach you not to eat certain foods, or to eat others, because of propaganda. A mother might teach you to oppose certain ideas or concepts and support others because of propaganda. I love my mother, but I've heard her spout some things, with a perfectly straight face, that came from nowhere else but a propagandist, without the slightest idea that she'd been manipulated into adopting those beliefs.

At some point, the question becomes what is propaganda. Is it adopting someone else's belief that doesn't rise to an objective standard? While 2+2=4, doesn't change, many things do. We tend to believe that what we believe today is "the truth" and what came before was "wrong" or "propaganda" but so did those living years ago - their truths are just propaganda to us and some of our "truths" today will just be propaganda to people fifty years from now. All the different ideas on how to feed or sleep train babies seem to cycle in and out - is it objective truth when an idea on breast feeding is in and then propaganda when that same idea is on the outs?

Most people for many years of many races and in many classes and religions believed mixed marriages were bad. My dad hated religion and wasn't "bias" on one versus the others (he equally disliked them all), but thought mixed religious or race marriages added another issue to be dealt with that was better off not dealing with it.

He said, I am remember this (other than the exact wording): "I couldn't care less, black or white, Jewish or Catholic, marry outside your own and you have added issue from family and society and the kids will have added challenges as well."

Was that propaganda or was it an objective truth of the time that is less true (but not zero true) today? Tony B just posted his beliefs on global warming, I respect his view but don't agree - which is propaganda and which is the truth? (Let me emphasize - not arguing my view or his, just showing that there are two prevailing views and I have heard each side call the other's propaganda and each side argue that facts support their view).

 

[BlueTrain]

I have also heard some things from my father (not my mother, though, who was an invalid and could barely speak) and other relatives that, shall we say, made me feel very uncomfortable. Some of the things my father said, however, only sounded bad because he was using common language of the day. I honestly think he never thought anything bad about anyone and he came in contact with a wide variety of people and a lot of them, as have I. But other relatives were decidedly the opposite and had bad things to say, to put it mildly, about certain other groups of people. They would have defended their opinions by saying it was based entirely on the people they had met, which was possible, but they didn't know a lot of people and certainly not a great variety. So it's sometimes difficult to explain people attitudes because of something or in spite of something. Either way, however, I think it was rare (in their cases) that any bad attitudes were translated into bad behavior. But I can easily see in all those instances where the hatred was transmitted from father to son. People learn those things at home. I'm not so certain, however, how much of that was due to propaganda.

I think part of the appeal of propaganda--not simple advertising--lies in the fact that it usually appeals to base feelings and attitudes that are already there. In other words, it is usually aimed an a ready audience. The propaganda serves to activate those feelings, I think, and to help override any contrary feeling already present in an individual. Advertising want to get you to buy a car--instead of somebody else's car. Propaganda tries to make you willing to do something or feel something or think something. I suppose it can be for a good cause or not. It can be misleading, to say the least, or it can be an outright lie. Propaganda is rarely trying to sell you a car, not the way most of it is. In other words, car advertisements rarely make an appeal to patriotism, although one does see "Made in America" sprinkled here and there in advertising. But if it isn't made where you live, it's imported, no matter where it came from.

These are hard times for the truth. They're hard enough for certain opinions. At least so far nobody has disappeared or found floating in the river.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, to use the example of my mother, what did she know about mixed marriages? She didn't know a single person who wasn't a white Protestant until she was over forty years old. But she knew what she'd been told, and taught by a culture built of, by, and for white Protestants, that certain things were so. She believed, in other words, the propaganda -- and not any observation of any actual experience of anyone she ever actually knew.

 

[BlueTrain]

It is rare that a person can rise about their culture and the age in which they live.

 

[Fading Fast]

Well, to use the example of my mother, what did she know about mixed marriages? She didn't know a single person who wasn't a white Protestant until she was over forty years old. But she knew what she'd been told, and taught by a culture built of, by, and for white Protestants, that certain things were so. She believed, in other words, the propaganda -- and not any observation of any actual experience of anyone she ever actually knew.

And my dad, growing up in a poor mixed (religions and ethnic backgrounds and even, slightly, to race) neighborhood had different views and prejudices.

What I think will be interesting (and I'll be dead by then) is to see what of our great truths today (ones that most, certainly myself included, believe) are dismissed as propaganda and backward thinking fifty years from now. I'm sure it would make all of us uncomfortable in some way as I doubt anyone of us hold all the "right" answers and beliefs today for what will be "right" fifty years from now. I'm sure I don't.

 

[MisterCairo]

...I am attending my best friend's 50th birthday party tomorrow.

He's six weeks older than I am...

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Well, to use the example of my mother, what did she know about mixed marriages? She didn't know a single person who wasn't a white Protestant until she was over forty years old. But she knew what she'd been told, and taught by a culture built of, by, and for white Protestants, that certain things were so. She believed, in other words, the propaganda -- and not any observation of any actual experience of anyone she ever actually knew.

Not in my home but in the schools I went to in the '50s mixed marriages were an abomination. A mixed marriage meant marrying a protestant, white or otherwise. After all, why would you want to marry someone you knew was doomed to burn in hell for eternity?

 

[BlueTrain]

I'm not so sure we're really always believed "our" great truths. But, we manage, just the same. That's the same and I've mentioned this before in so many words. We've always had a highly refined sense of hypocrisy, of pretending things weren't what they really were. We can't fix everything that's wrong. All we can do is to do the best we can and make no fuss about it. If you can live your life without coming to blows with everyone, both individually and corporately, then sometimes that's all you can do. Some people can't even do that; they walk around looking for a fight. Their idea of freedom only applies to themselves. Everyone else has to "know their place" or suffer the consequences. That's why churches get burned down. Muslims should understand that the precedent was established a long time ago.

I've believed for a long time that people in the 1950s, whether or not that was a golden age, had a well-developed sense of pretending things didn't exist. That may or may not have been true; I was only a small child in the 1950s and that's how I saw things. Sometimes the things you are taught don't square with things you see.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I often recommend Stephanie Coontz's well-researched, thoroughly documented study of American family life in the 1950s, "The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap" for a definitive look behind the pasted-on smiles of that decade. Americans in general have always desperately rationalized certain realities of our history, but this was especially true in the mid-20th Century. And no period of our history, not even the World Wars, was so dominated by incessant and highly sophisticated propaganda as that decade. The "Advertising Council" wasn't just a nice coalition of ad agencies looking to do good, not when you look into who was funding it and why. And they helped see to it that just about every aspect of American life, from the movies Americans watched to the lessons they learned in school, to the god they worshipped followed the specified line.

 

[belfastboy]

It is rare that a person can rise about their culture and the age in which they live.

Rather than use the term "propaganda" I prefer to use the term ideology. That is our world view, the lens through which we see the world. The interesting thing to me is that most of us will deny that we are driven by our ideology. We think that somehow we have been able to rise above it and it is OTHER people who are blinded by their ideology and we are not because we are the possessors of the truth. Ideology is for the others. Even those of us who work hard at rising above our lens upon the world can, in my humble view, never really and fully come out from behind our veil.