If you read my earlier post, I find the entire entertainment industry an affront. The reason I feel this way is that it has transformed entertainment from an effective form of stress release, into a cause of stress. Therefore it is a self-perpetuating habit. We seek entertainment to relieve ourselves from our stresses, but the so-called entertainment just causes more stress so that we seek more entertainment. It's consumerism at its best (or worst), addiction, where the consumption of the product continually increases the need for the product. I may as well be paying my money to the local coke dealer. — Metaphysician Undercover

The show may cause excitement, but excitement is just an elevated level of stress within the members of the audience. So the entertainment is designed to incite the emotions, and this itself is stress, which manifests in the excitement of anticipation. The entertainment is designed to create stress. — Metaphysician Undercover

Brilliantly put. Expect to be called a communist in 3...2...1...

I'm holding my breath in anticipation.

I can't improve on anything MU has said, but just to emphasize that there's no escaping the basic formula: Modern forms of entertainment result in the emotional equivalent of a sugar high and they are no more necessary or desirable for us psychologically than sugar is physiologically.

I can't improve on anything MU has said, but just to emphasize that there's no escaping the basic formula: Modern forms of entertainment result in the emotional equivalent of a sugar high and they are no more necessary for us psychologically than sugar is physiologically. — Baden

Hence, my sentiment towards the advertisement of sex. Food porn being another example.

I would like to point out that advertisements are insidious. Meaning, they prey on our sense of self-esteem and ego in telling us that you should not deny yourself pleasure. And that sort of closes the loop, one can not dissociate from the source of discontent due to chasing after pleasure, and if someone were to convince someone that all this talk about what is good, beneficial, fun, and that you deserve it because we associate the commercials with our own selves, then they will be ostracised or despised for pointing out the truth.

It's funny, one upshot of all this is that I essentially agree with @Agustino that Hollywood, as a major hub of the entertainment industry, is "evil" - if you want to out it like that. Not so much because of the values (or lack thereof) it espouses though but its inherent structure and how it operates. The question arises though as to what extent all this is necessary to maintain a free and open society. I'd happily see Hollywood obliterated if possible. Let Agustino arm the bomb and I'll light the fuse. Then we can get back to throwing grenades at each other.

(Education thread to follow in a bit.) — unenlightened

You'll notice I'm taking that as free reign to be off-topic on this one.

Hence, my sentiment towards the advertisement of sex. — Question

Do you mean the use of sex to advertise other products? Or are you talking specifically about the sex industry?

Do you mean the use of sex to advertise other products? Or are you talking specifically about the sex industry? — Baden

I guess you can say both. Either way, there's exploitation of people going on in both cases.

I'd happily see Hollywood obliterated if possible. Let Agustino arm the bomb and I'll light the fuse. Then we can get back to throwing grenades at each other. — Baden

That sounds like a Hollywood movie. Hollywood is in the USA, so your statement calls for a Virgil quote.

"When Heav'n had overturn'd the Trojan state
And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate;
When ruin'd Troy became the Grecians' prey,
And Ilium's lofty tow'rs in ashes lay;
Warn'd by celestial omens, we retreat,
To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.
Near old Antandros, and at Ida's foot,
The timber of the sacred groves we cut,
And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find
What place the gods for our repose assign'd.
Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,
When old Anchises summon'd all to sea:
The crew my father and the Fates obey.
With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,
And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.
My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,
All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.
"Against our coast appears a spacious land,
Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,
(Thracia the name- the people bold in war;
Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)
A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,
With Troy in friendship and religion join'd.
I land; with luckless omens then adore
Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;
I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
And Aenos, nam'd from me, the city call.
To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,
And all the pow'rs that rising labors aid;
A bull on Jove's imperial altar laid.
Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;
Sharp myrtles on the sides, and cornels grew.
There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
And shade our altar with their leafy greens,
I pull'd a plant- with horror I relate
A prodigy so strange and full of fate.
The rooted fibers rose, and from the wound
Black bloody drops distill'd upon the ground.
Mute and amaz'd, my hair with terror stood;
Fear shrunk my sinews, and congeal'd my blood.
Mann'd once again, another plant I try:
That other gush'd with the same sanguine dye.
Then, fearing guilt for some offense unknown,
With pray'rs and vows the Dryads I atone,
With all the sisters of the woods, and most
The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,
That they, or he, these omens would avert,
Release our fears, and better signs impart.
Clear'd, as I thought, and fully fix'd at length
To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:
I bent my knees against the ground; once more
The violated myrtle ran with gore.

----------- from the Aeneid book 3

Psychologically, the forms of manipulation are very different though as they are between, say, porn movies and Hollywood flicks (including those with explicit sex). The narrative of the former such as it exists (and, usually, from a structural perspective there is no narrative at all as there is no "problem" to be solved) must be transparent and non-engaging to allow the full foregrounding of the imagery (the plumber comes round to "fix the pipes", students get a "special lesson" in the classroom etc. - we all know what's coming next and that that's what's important). As the narrative is the emotional container, so to speak, porn is by design empty and because of that I would claim less damaging (or at least less invasive) than an emotionally manipulative movie. (This also explains why movies including a lot of fully explicit sex don't really work. The narrative and the sex tend to detract from each other or push buttons in the self that pull it in conflicting directions).

Thanks for the quote. Going out now, so I will read it later to discover whether I really should be thanking you or not. :P

Well the fall as I read it happened a while before that, and was the fall from animal innocence. But please, there is no question but that science directed outwards to the world has been hugely effective and beneficial. My criticism is that it is ineffective and counter-productive when turned inwards to humanity itself. Experiment and manipulation works on stone and wood; it does not work on persons, but distorts rather than refines. — un

Ok, but nothing in the post you quoted has anything to do with whether applying the scientific method to the human psyche is effective, productive, or beneficial.All I said is that I think the lot of ppl in first world 21st century societies is better than the lot of most people in the past. And I do think that. I'm not sure how what you've said here responds to any of what you quoted.

It is possible that we exaggerate the influence of various media, which we like or don't like.

We know, for instance, that children do not readily acquire language from television. A talking box is no substitute for a voice box, especially that of one's caregiver. Children don't pick up accents from television, either. If they did, some children would have British accents (too much PBS and Masterpiece Theater) or they would talk with standard California or northern Midlands accents. They don't. They sound like their peers and parents. If media were so influential, wouldn't we see more influence in language usage from television?

There is no overwhelming evidence that media strongly influences behavior. Various people have been looking for solid proof that it does influence behavior, and there isn't as much strong evidence out there. I am speaking here of imitative behavior. People watching programs with violence, sex, crime, and so on, don't become sexually violent criminals committing all sorts of violent crimes.

There is evidence that watching a violent program has subtle, short-lived effects on choice-making. So, after watching a brutal scene from a film, people tend to answer various unrelated questions differently than people who had seen a boring film about highway maintenance.

Similarly, people who watch a lot of porn generally do not lead sex lives even remotely like the sex lives of the people in the videos. Again, watching a sex scene very well might change the way people respond to questionnaires for a short period of time.

So, we can say porn, sex, violence, etc. do affect people, but it is short term, and it doesn't change people's patterns of life.

Can we say the same thing for television advertising? People watch it, they are affected for a short period of time, but they do not change their basic behavioral patterns. It might. For one thing, advertising is constructed with more care than the average television program is. The imagery is punchier, and the repetition of specific scenes is, over time, quite high.

There are ads for a product, and then there is the product itself. The experience of watching an ad for the #1 selling Ford F-Series pickup is one thing; seeing F-Series vehicles on the road is another thing, and contemplating the F-Series on the sales lot is something else again. My guess is that without on the road sightings, talking with owners, looking at the pickup in parking lots, and so on, the advertisements wouldn't drive the sales as high as they are.

One thing about people: Getting messages through our thick skulls and getting us to carry out our instructions correctly turns out to be quite difficult. People don't just do what they are told. They just won't rush out and buy whatever junk food they are instructed to buy. And they buy junk food they probably never see advertised. There is also sensual experience. There is junk food I like because it has high sensory appeal--a particular local store brand of potato chip. Why do I like Kix better than Shredded Wheat (which I actually eat a lot of)? I haven't seen an ad for breakfast food for many years. I like the crunch of the large-pea-sized pellets, taste, color, and mouthfeel of Kix. I like the big bright yellow box it is packed in. The manipulation may be inside box rather than on the television, but it does work. Kix is a Friday night party compared to Shredded Wheat's Monday morning back to work scene.

No one is claiming they invented [dissatisfaction and unhappiness]; but they promote it, and elicit it.

And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping. — un

But if there's no Fall in human history, as you agree, then : (Contented man - Advertisting & Discontent - Shopping) isn't a very useful way to think about things.

It'd be more like: Discontented man used to do y. Then advertising.

None of this is much more mysterious than having your mood and thus your behaviour changed by a piece of music. You may be perfectly aware of the process but it hardly matters, it doesn't work on the on that level (unlike a "con"). Does that mean music has a "quantity of conditioning power that is beamed through the sense organs"? Well, if you want to put it colourfully, it does. At a higher level a hypnotist can put you in an extremely suggestible state against which incredulity at his powers is not necessarily a defense. And advertising falls somewhere in between. No claims of magic here; it's a science, if an inexact one...

...Think Pavlov/Skinner not Freud. The traditional basis of advertising psychology isn't all that exotic. For example:

So let's take Pavlov. You take a stimulus that elicits some reaction and place it in conjunction with something else. Food and a bell. The dog is always going to salivate at food. Now what do people most deeply want, what do advertisers usually play to: Belonging, respect, love, inclusion (to be a loser is to not belong, not be respected, not be loved, not be included etc.) Thus the stimulus has to somehow elicit the idea/feeling of belonging/respect/love/inclusion (or the fear of lacking any of those). And then the bell's your product. The problem here is how you elicit the idea/feeling of those things, or their lack, at a level as immediate as the dog's desire for the food. If your super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision doesn't move someone, they're not going to associate pepsi with belonging or not drinking pepsi with not-belonging. You can also go a step further and notice that people these days seem feel 'included' when they're making fun of commercials and how dumb the super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision in those commercials is. Then you can start making ironic commercials, making fun of the very idea of commercials. And, in doing so, associate pepsi with the feeling of being included among the people who wouldn't fall for yesterday's pepsi's commercials. But if this post-vision vision doesn't move someone, you get nowhere. All of which is to say: if you want to use Pavlovian techniques (without using bodily pain and pleasure)to immiserate or goad humans you have to have recourse to the freudian stuff: desire, the superego, love etc.

The very fact that advertisers seem drawn to ironic anti-commercial commercials is proof enough that you can beam whatever at a passive subject. If the old stuff worked, no matter what people thought of it, then just keep doing that right? No, if people see through, then you have to work in that seeing-through, which advertisers do, everywhere (think of how popular tongue-in-cheek campaigns like Geico, Old Spice, Dos Equis etc are.) (I'll note that Un made a similar point above.)

So the Party Everyone's In On. The In-Group Too Cool To be Taken in By The Party. Here's one more Vision: The Evil And Nearly All-Powerful Media/Advertising Bloc that Makes Us Dissatisfied but Maybe We Can Stop Them And Become Satisfied) But what does the last vision sell? Well Banksy, for one. But it also subsidizes a whole lot of liberal arts programs. (here's a freudian/pavlovian analysis. Stimulus: The Bad Dad Trying To Control You And Make You Do Stuff When You Want to Remain Contented Hanging with Mom. Place in conjunction with People in Suits, The word 'media' or 'advertisting.' )

So let's take Pavlov. You take a stimulus that elicits some reaction and place it in conjunction with something else. Food and a bell. The dog is always going to salivate at food. Now what do people most deeply want, what do advertisers usually play to: Belonging, respect, love, inclusion (to be a loser is to not belong, not be respected, not be loved, not be included etc.) Thus the stimulus has to somehow elicit the idea/feeling of belonging/respect/love/inclusion (or the fear of lacking any of those). And then the bell's your product. The problem here is how you elicit the idea/feeling of those things, or their lack, at a level as immediate as the dog's desire for the food. If your super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision doesn't move someone, they're not going to associate pepsi with belonging or not drinking pepsi with not-belonging. — csalisbury

It doesn't have to be that complicated or even about what people "deeply" want. Advertising has never been an emotional hypodermic needle. The conditioned stimulus, the product, only has to evoke a feeling, any feeling, that makes a purchase more likely (and obviously the more likely the better). Ergo, associate Pepsi with the feeling of "cool" by placing a can of it in the hand of someone "cool". Now the Pepsi sitting in the supermarket next to a virtually identically tasting non-promoted cola seems cooler, and those who value cool (i.e. most of the target market) are more likely to buy it / place a higher value on it; therefore, you can sell it for a higher price and make more profit. It's not rocket science or difficult to do at that level. (And you can replace "cool" with any other vague positive feeling you like elicited by someone or something associated with the product in the ad).

You can also go a step further and notice that people these days seem feel 'included' when they're making fun of commercials and how dumb the super hip everyone's happy and in on the party vision in those commercials is. Then you can start making ironic commercials, making fun of the very idea of commercials. And, in doing so, associate pepsi with the feeling of being included among the people who wouldn't fall for yesterday's pepsi's commercials. But if this post-vision vision doesn't move someone, you get nowhere. All of which is to say: if you want to use Pavlovian techniques (without using bodily pain and pleasure)to immiserate or goad humans you have to have recourse to the freudian stuff: desire, the superego, love etc. — csalisbury

I take your point here; methods do move on, although you may be overestimating how sophisticated the majority of consumers are (as far as I know, Coke ads are still the same old crap they always were and Coke is as popular as ever, no?) Anyway, the other reason I don't want to invoke Freud here is that he's not even taught on psychology courses today. So, he's not really directly relevant to marketers.

So the Party Everyone's In On. The In-Group Too Cool To be Taken in By The Party. Here's one more Vision: The Evil And Nearly All-Powerful Media/Advertising Bloc that Makes Us Dissatisfied but Maybe We Can Stop Them And Become Satisfied) But what does the last vision sell? Well Banksy, for one. But it also subsidizes a whole lot of liberal arts programs. (here's a freudian/pavlovian analysis. Stimulus: The Bad Dad Trying To Control You And Make You Do Stuff When You Want to Remain Contented Hanging with Mom. Place in conjunction with People in Suits, The word 'media' or 'advertisting.' ) — csalisbury

Sure, we can play Freud Tit-forTat all day. The bad Dad's trying to control the lefty and righty didn't play with his shit enough when he was a kid. Totally pointless. The only way to get out of this, as I think you'll agree, is to look at what advertisers are actually doing and have been doing and why, and try to draw reasonable conclusions from that.

It is possible that we exaggerate the influence of various media, which we like or don't like. — Bitter Crank

I agree with this. And I'm actually quite open to being shown to be exaggerating here. But a significant amount of what's been thrown in my direction in this discussion is empty contrariness based on the idea that I'm a Marxist conspiracy theorist who hates business and, well, whatever else the conservafairy has been whispering in the ears of certain of my interlocutors. Anyway, it may come as a surprise to some but I'm not anti business per se. I recognize the positive innovation driven by business and that some of the smartest and most hard-working people around are business people. But it always has to be a case of letting the leash out and then reining it in a bit.

The sports example makes sense to me, especially as someone who is a fan of teams who can be awful for years on end. But the entertainment part sounds like you're simply saying that you see any strong emotional reactions you have as stressful.

I'd happily see Hollywood obliterated if possible. Let Agustino arm the bomb and I'll light the fuse. Then we can get back to throwing grenades at each other. — Baden

This approaches the other problem I brought up, and that is the unification on the entertainment and news media. There is something very sick about this. Consider that when Trump ran in the GOP primaries he was both a source of entertainment, and news at the same time. The problem is, that when the news is your source of entertainment, it is most often the case that you are getting your entertainment at someone else's expense.

We had the tragedy of 9/11, well covered by the news media, but for many people around the world, it was pure entertainment. We had "shock and awe" in Baghdad. Wasn't that just a strategy for entertainment, disguised as a strategy of war?

You joke about bombing Hollywood, but making others bear the brunt of your joke is the foundation of this problem, which is getting entertainment at someone else's expense. We call it making fun of someone. The true comedian recognizes that this is unacceptable behaviour, and switches things up to make fun of oneself. But what happens when my own entertainment is a case of me making fun of myself, but all I notice is that I am entertained, and I don't notice that I am making fun of myself. I'll continue to beat myself into the ground (...and loving it!).

But the entertainment part sounds like you're simply saying that you see any strong emotional reactions you have as stressful. — Terrapin Station

Right, don't you find that any strong emotional reactions are stressful? There is such a thing as emotional balance. A strong emotion throws off that balance, causing the stress involved with recreating the balance.

Right, don't you find that any strong emotional reactions are stressful? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, not at all, unless they're negative emotions. Yeah, it throws off kind of an apathetic balance, but when they're positive emotions, that's a good, not a bad thing in my view, and it's the opposite of stressful I'd say.

Like csal, I'm a bit suspicious of all this anti-consumerist talk. I'm going to ramble on and see what happens. I'm not sure how relevant it'll be.

...Marxist conspiracy theorist who hates business... — Baden

Talking of Marx, let's see what he said. For him, the multiplication of needs is a saving grace of capitalism:

Each capitalist does demand that his workers should save, but only his own, because they stand towards him as workers; but by no means the remaining world of workers, for these stand towards him as consumers. In spite of all ‘pious’ speeches he therefore searches for means to spur them on to consumption, to give his wares new charms, to inspire them with new needs by constant chatter etc.It is precisely this side of the relation of capital and labour which is an essential civilizing moment, and on which the historic justification, but also the contemporary power of capital rests. — Marx, Grundrisse

Also for Marx, the concept of artificial need is a bourgeois fiction:

Artificial need is what the economist calls, firstly, the needs which arise out of the social existence of the individual; secondly those which do not flow from his naked existence as a natural object. This shows the inner, desperate poverty which forms the basis of bourgeois wealth and of its science. — Marx

But since the seventies the critique of capitalism has taken on a different flavour, so that affluence and economic growth have become the target as much as poverty and scarcity used to be. You know how the story goes: advertising, Hollywood, and the Superbowl turn us from citizens or political agents into mere consumers, diverted from worthy activities and political struggle by pointless products and entertainments, which leave us always dissatisfied, when we could be satisfied with what we've got (materially).

So is there a justification for this change in the Leftist position? The traumatized Marxism of the Frankfurt School and the New Left is probably key here, but I don't want to go into that myself. Generally speaking, maybe we can just accept that while Marx wrote in a time of the immiseration of the industrial working class, today's Left operates in a time of abundance, notwithstanding the widening inequality of the last few decades. And whereas Marx optimistically imagined new needs as culturally enriching, today's consumerism is criticized as a cultural impoverishment.

To the tune of Micheal Jackson's Smooth Criminal:

Woke up this morning, need my paper, gonna jump in my car,
Down the shops on the corner, gonna drive there, I know it's not far,
My house is always heated, got no jumpers, I left all my lights on,
Dishwashers running, and so's the dryer, all my stuffs on standby,

Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 4
Annie are you walking, won't you tell us that your walking?
Can't you see me through the window that I'm driving, that I'm driving my car
Won't you think about walking to the shops, or down your local?
Are you all crazy, I've got an off-road, I can drive anywhere!
Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 3
You've been hit by, you've been struck by a climate criminal!

I never buy local, all my stuff comes from places real far,
I never recycle, I go on cheap flights, been on 20 so far,

Go to Chorus — Bristol anti-consumerist carol singers

https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/736

Although this is environmentally focused, I think we can agree that this attitude is a big part of current Leftist thinking too (Naomi Klein, anti-globalization, etc).

Let's take the example of cheap flights, mentioned in the song. "Cheap flights", at least in the UK, is middle-class code for loutish working-class lads and lassies heading to the Costa del Sol to get drunk and have a lot of sex. But this is a stereotype. In Marx's time my forebears were poor uneducated rural labourers, and maybe some of them were recent arrivals in the cities, where they went to find work (it's mostly the upper class that can trace their ancestry with any certainty, so I can't be sure). It's unlikely they ever set foot outside Britain and Ireland. But here I am now in sunny Spain, having been to several countries in several continents, writing about politics and philosophy even though I haven't studied them in a university. I would never have been able to travel without cheap flights, and I would never have been able to read Kant without leisure. I'm pretty sure this is a cultural as well as a material enrichment, and it was made possible by capitalism.

What is the limit beyond which we should not have gone? When is abundance too much? At what point is the creation of new needs corrupting? Is an anti-consumerist going to say that while, okay, washing machines, despite being an artificial or false need, may have been genuinely liberating, iPhones, imported foreign food, cheap travel, and off-road cars are not? How do you separate the good from the bad here? Is it more than a matter of taste? Or is a washing machine a basic need, while an off-road car is a false one? How does that work? Who decides which is which?

I admit this is impressionistic and emotional, but--something about it just stinks. The critique of consumer culture and the influence of corporations appears to be often motivated by a contempt for the masses, or at least a superior paternalism, not to mention a snobbish distaste. (And it's pretty mainstream. Baden mentioned Hollywood and how much he hates it. But Hollywood is full of anti-corporate sentiment, and is now firmly seated on the green anti-consumerist bandwagon.)

There is a simplistic sanctimoniousness in the suggestion that we are mere puppets of the advertisers, and for me it's reminiscent of my heritage of Presbyterian sobriety. But come to think of it, this kind of Protestant puritanism is actually a real thread in the development of radical thought, from the English Revolution onwards, so maybe it's not quite true to describe anti-consumerism as a regrettable reversal--it's been in the Left the whole time. It's just that this is not the Leftist tradition that I have sympathy with. It hates capitalism for the good it has done, not only the bad.

But wait. Did I just hypocritically denounce Leftist snobbery after having held myself up as an exemplar of the culturally enriched in contrast to the loutish working-class lads and lassies on the Costa del Sol? Not quite, I don't think. I've been on holidays like that myself. That's the point about stereotypes and caricatures: they are unfair generalizations. Thanks to cheap flights, people--non-rich people--travel now for all sorts of reasons.

In general, that's not true, as mania demonstrates.

The Wizard of Oz is very stressful. One lives through all the horrifying things the characters do on the way to the revelation of grace through adversity.

Catharsis and such. The US entertainment industry is awesome. Meanwhile, lost in time, a crowd sits around the storyteller wondering if Gilgamesh and Enkidu will survive their encounter with Humbaba, cringing and gasping in the fire light.

I wasn't speaking for everyone. Certainly people with certain sorts of mental disorders may feel differently.

The Wizard of Oz is very stressful. — Mongrel

Just curious, if you find that stressful, if you watch any horror films.

I'm picky about horror. I have a tender psyche.

There's a fine line of dianosability, and who knows when one crosses it. The drug companies would say we all cross it. In the case of medical marijuana, we all claim to cross it.

Right, so no Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Saw marathons for you probably. I'm a big horror fan, and in general, a big fan of stuff that's aesthetically "dark," macabre, grotesque, creepy, etc., as well as melancholy and so on. I'm not only a fan of that sort of stuff, but those are some of my favorite aesthetic modes.

I'd say that one good demarcation criterion would be if one finds positive (or "positive" as the case may be) emotions to be stressful. ;-)

Surely you have some stress when watching gore. Isn't that the point? Sort of like getting on a big roller coaster? My favorite horror movie is The Shining. I used to be unable to watch the whole thing. Now I love it.