catapult magazine

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Media

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mwooten
Jan 22 2003
06:23 am

I was actually suggesting that advertising is more than a necessary evil…it is instead the oil in the machine that allows for our society to operate. It is what allows for things to be bought and sold in mass quantity. It is what we have fully exploited in the west and it is what people in developing countires hope for to compete in the global economy.

My point is simply that it is very naive to assume that simply because an add is played during the half time of the Super Bowl it is evil. And it isn’t good enough to simply talk about wants and needs. Do you want coffee or do you need coffee? Do you want Doritos or do you need Doritos? Do you want jeans or do you simply need pants that you sewed at home from cloth found in the garbage? Our socity would crumble if we only purshased what we needed and not what we wanted. Furthermore, why is want such a bad idea? And who is to decide what is want and what is need?

As for controls, I think that there should be more. I agree that some, or actually most products are harmful, at some level or another, whether it be in their production or whether it be in their consumption. And so I welcome the conversation, and I think that it is helpful, but I won’t die on that hill.