Lies, damn lies and advertising  (from unit 6)

None of these three indictments — selling dreams, pandering and manipulating — is in fact as clear-cut as it first appears.

It is not necessarily wrong to be sold dreams, because what is human life if we never get the chance to dream? 'Hope in a jar' is real hope, and not merely the illusion of hope. Some things may indeed be bad for us, but we are not helplessly in thrall to adverts to the point of not being able to exercise our own judgement. The question of what a person 'really needs' — as opposed to what they 'merely want' — and who has the right to make that judgement is especially problematic

You can sell dreams, pander or manipulate without stooping to lie, at least in the literal sense of the word. A photograph of a cool sexy young couple zooming around the Sahara Desert in their hot hatchback is not a lie, just because most of the people buying the car are far less attractive, or never get the chance to drive their car around the Sahara Desert. But isn't it still somehow lying?

The real question is whether we really want advertising in its present form. One should not take it for granted that a defence of the business arena will also be a defence of the status quo. Do we really need advertising in its present form? Wouldn't we be better if adverts were subject to far more vigorous control?

What is truth? What is the 'truth' about a motor car, for example? To a converted non-car owner, the motor car appears as a 'glorified invalid carriage running on smelly petrol'. From the perspective of a growing awareness of the danger of eco-catastrophe, surely this is closer to what the motor car is, in its essence, and indeed most true of that epitome of wasteful excess, the sports car

One could run through a gamut of products, from deodorants to digicams, ticking off the attributes which are excessive or appeal to our illusory pretensions to life styles of excitement and glamour. But then, you would have to sell the contrary ideas of virtuous utility and parsimony.

My own feeling — despite my considerable sympathy for the perspective of the principled non-car owner — is that this attitude is excessively paternalistic, in the sense decried by J.S. Mill, the great defender of the principles of liberalism. By all means tell anyone who cares to listen how great it would be if we were less materialistic and obsessed with surface appearances. That is what philosophers have been doing for the last 2500 years. Perhaps, things will have to get worse before the idea finally cottons on. Until then, the ethical company must still compete in a marketplace where materialist values for the most part prevail.