Distortion of Logic and Debasement of Values

The 1960s African­American political declaration "Black is Beautiful" became a promotional anthem for hair products. ⁷⁶ Marketers later capitalized on the "X" in Malcolm X to sell baseball caps that since have become fashion statements. ⁷⁷ John Lennon's Revolution became a commercial cause celebre for peddling sneakers, ⁷⁸ even as the songwriter warned listeners to "free your mind instead." ⁷⁹ Women's equality became synonymous with the liberty to smoke: "You've come a long way, baby!" ⁸⁰ Meanwhile, gasoline and chemical companies polluted the communications environment with unspoiled views of snow­capped mountains and green fields. Advertisers identified silverware with the timeless beauty of spruce trees. ⁸¹ A shirt commercial showed only a daisy field as the voice­over assured us that "[t]his shirt makes you feel like a daisy." ⁸² And Betsy Ross's "Old Glory" is waved constantly in the hawking of everything from clothes to cakes.

Nothing is sacred in the mass advertising world, either logically or normatively. Logically, there is often no rational connection between the commercial image and what is being sold. ⁸³ For example, is Brand X silverware truly like a spruce tree? How? Why is it more like a spruce tree than nonbiodegradable plastics? Or does wearing Brand Y shirt truly make you feel like a daisy? Why? And what does it really mean to feel like a daisy? Such a misuse of language occurs when words are divorced from any logical referent, what the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre has called "the decline of the referentials." ⁸⁴ The logic of mass advertising capitalizes on meaninglessness. If intelligible at all, it is a special brand of logic. Jules Henry, in Culture Against Man, labeled it "pecuniary logic": "a proof that is not a proof but is intended to be so for commercial purposes." ⁸⁵ Henry explained:

This kind of thinking­which accepts proof that is not proof­is an essential intellectual factor in our economy, for if people were careful thinkers it would be difficult to sell anything. From this it follows that in order for our economy to continue in its present form people must learn to be fuzzy­minded and impulsive, for if they were clear­headed and deliberate they would rarely put their hands in their pockets; or if they did, they would leave them there. If we were all logicians the economy could not survive .... ⁸⁶

One need not be an Aristotle or a Bertrand Russell to understand a troubling truth latent here: "[I]n order to exist economically as we are we must try by might and main to remain stupid." ⁸⁷ If these assessments seem exaggerated, then consider the views of an advertising insider. In his book Strategy in Advertising, Leo Bogart, the former advertising executive and executive vice president and general manager of the Newspaper Advertising Bureau, put it this way: "[Advertising] has helped devalue the coin of communication by developing a massive, unthinking tolerance for nonsense .... We are forced to take for granted too much that is ridiculous." ⁸⁸ Indifferent to such criticism, the advertiser exclaims: Vive la bagatelle! ⁸⁹