01-08-2018, 10:44 PM
(01-04-2018, 06:14 PM)nebraska Wrote: Hollywood, the media, and advertisers brainwash Americans to be immoral, go on anti-depressants, get fat, take out student loans, go in debt, take out mortgages, get married, get divorced, go on welfare, support tyranny, and embrace wars, but maybe part of the reason the US is collapsing now is because these actions conflict with traditional American values of being moral, staying healthy, being responsible, being independent, loving freedom, and supporting peace.
Nonsense. Hollywood, the media, and advertisers follow the masses to avoid offending them. They largely push conventional behavior.
As for student loans -- good colleges do not advertise. Bad ones do. The University of Texas does not advertise in Dallas, but unaccredited colleges do so. For example, I remember one questionable college proclaimimg "XXX University teaches tradiional values". Would you expect such a school to teach the knack for questioning tradition? The University of Texas certainly does. If the college isn't advertising itself it isn't advertising student loans, either.
I would expect most merchandisers to encourage the splurge... but not life-insurance companies which encourage people to pay into life-insurance plans instead of buying the latest electronic goodies or buying other overpriced luxuries.
Obesity? The media do not glamorize obesity. Of course there is a near inverse between the nutritional quality of food and the intensity of advertising, with such stuff as beer, chips, sodas, and fast food being heavily advertised and vegetables ignored.
Taking out a mortgage loan? One typically gets more living space for the money. Renting is rarely a bargain except during a buying frenzy as in 1928 or 2005.
Go on welfare? That's not good for consumerism.
War and tyranny? Blame the politicians.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.