Monday, February 01, 2010

A great line from Jeff Jacoby

If corporate advertising was irresistible, after all, we'd all be drinking New Coke.

Think about it. It's not Skinnerian psychology, nor is it "he who has the gold makes the rules." Every once in a while, poor people wearing black pajamas overcome the patience of the world's greatest superpower. Every once in a while, the people reject the anointed follower of the Kennedy clan.

And even more inspiring, every once in a while, the people realize that a 100 year old recipe is around for a reason, and the opinion of a few focus groups doesn't change that. Life is good; God created us as sentient beings.

3 comments:

pentamom said...

Another reaction I've had to this whole thing is that if "buying advertising" equals "controlling the election," then democracy is a failure because humans in general aren't capable of thinking independently enough to handle the responsibility anyway.

If that's true, we get what we deserve and making laws that supposedly rein in our stupidity isn't going to get us good government anyway. If it's false, then have at it.

Does the left really want their core message to be "you're too stupid to think for yourself?" I mean, that already IS their core message, but they're in danger of making it obvious. ;-)

K-Rod said...

Excellent points pentamom.

...

Obama basically said the American people were too stupid to understand his takeover of health care.

http://stark-raving-sane-dont-go-in.blogspot.com/2010/01/totus-called-us-stupid-americans.html

Night Writer said...

When I was in the biz, we used to say "Great advertising will sell a bad product -- once."