Stop Advertising And Consumerist Propaganda That Fuel Greed, Lust And Consumption
"Come on, smoke Kool cigarettes and make your brain cool." How can someone become cool by smoking cigarettes? By smoking fire one can become cool? Still, the advertisements are being presented, and the foolish people who are captivated by them smoke cigarettes to become cool. This is maya. ~Srila Prabhupada (Dharma - The Way of Transcendence)
Oil vs Greed Paradox Advertising and propaganda has made car driving a symbol of social status. The bigger is your car, the higher is your social standing. Today simplicity is ludicrous and bizarre.
Edward Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct'. He is regarded as father of modern advertising and public relation.
In the 1920s, working for the American Tobacco Company, he sent a group of young models to march in the New York City parade. He then told the press that a group of women's rights marchers would light "Torches of Freedom". On his signal, the models lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1928) printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'". This helped to break the taboo against women smoking in public.
Bernays used his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.
Bernays helped the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and other special interest groups to convince the American public that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial to human health. This was achieved by using the American Dental Association in a highly successful media campaign. In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary.
In this way, by propaganda, the masses are urged to consume and devour natural resources and a scarcity is the natural outcome.
We want a clean, healthy environment, yet at the same time too many of us demand a style and standard of life that inevitably result in environmental degradation.
Srila Prabhupada, the founder of Hare Krishna movement once said, “Life is never made comfortable by artificial needs, but by plain living and high thinking.”