Michael, this is my last on this thread; here goes:
> Nations are real, obviously. I oppose their existence. I favor a world
> where people no longer define themselves with nationalism.
==================
How does that Beach Boys song go: "And wouldn't it be nice........"
>
> Meanwhile, Sprint PCS, to take one example, runs TV ads claiming its
cell
> phone service has the best quality. Its cell phone survey actually has
the
> worst quality, according to _Consumer Reports_. Some hundreds of
thousands
> of people buy Sprint phones due to the ads. The ads are manipulation.
No
> God involved or needed to make this observation of a fact.
======================
It doesn't follow that because Sprint uses supposed falsehoods to sell it's product that it is manipulating people. You're raising an issue that goes far beyond, in the language of causality, the statistical claims that smoking causes cancer. Is Consumer Reports manipulating people's capacity for skepticism?
A potential conversation between me and the UW bookstore clerk sometime in the next week:
me: I'd like to return this book by a one Doug Henwood "After the New Economy"
UWbc: Why?
me: I was manipulated into buying a product on the basis of an advertizement that turned out to assert false statements.
UWbc, starting to snicker: And just what would those statements be?
me: It says in various ads [I show them to the bc] and on the back of his book that Mr. Henwood is an "evil genius." I've met this Henwood fellow, twice, and I can tell for sure he's not an "evil genius." The ads also insinuate that I might feel smarter after reading the book, like Barbara Ehrenreich did, but honestly I think I'm as dumb as before I read the thing, even as I understood it, at least I think I understood it.
UWbc, after recovering from howling for 3 minutes: Well sir, you'll have to take up those concerns with you attorney and have him/her contact the publisher and ad agency; the verity or absence thereof of the claims made in order to entice consumers to pruchase a product are not our responsibility.....................
> As to corporate manipulation of self-identity, what percentage of
car-buyers
> do you think believe some part of the proposals the car makers peddle to
> them about how their car is an important extension/reflection of
themselves?
> I'd guess 50 percent. That's also manipulation and exploitation.
>
> Cheerio.
====================
Michael, is your book being advertised in magazines or on the internet? Are *you* manipulating people?
Do you really think people buy cars as a result of seeing the SUV on that long, empty stretch of road through a sublime ecosystem with nary a shred of traffic in sight? Is you model of social causation that simple?
You scream I scream We all scream For pork loin
Are all the people who don't eat pork yet nevertheless get a kick out of this ad being manipulated?
My guess is you're stretching the use of manipulated a bit too far.
"From a rhetorical standpoint, a description is a verbal representation of some object to some audience, such that the speaker is able to change the audience's attitude toward the object without changing the object itself. Thus, the trick for any would-be describer is to contain the effects of her discourse so that the object remains intact once her discourse is done. In descriptions of human behavior, this is often very difficult to manage, as the people being described, once informed of the description, may become upset and proceed to subvert the describer's authority." [Steve Fuller]
People *hate* being described as manipulated. When they are being so described is when they really think they are being manipulated...........
Ian