noteworthy wrote:
Perhaps it's hard for the public to be outraged when you consider that the success (effectiveness) of these campaigns depends entirely on the public's unbounded susceptibility to these sorts of shenanigans. To grok his memo is to accept the fundamental, pervasive insincerity of the contemporary media landscape.

I'm more inclined to be outraged about the apparent fact that these campaigns work.

You've gone an hit the nail on the head here. I think most people's reaction to this memo is "ho hum - not surprising." They KNOW this goes on and yet they STILL BELIEVE. Of course I'm outraged about that. I'm constantly outraged by my friends and coworkers who buy into the crap these people are slinging.

They're not incapable of seeing through it, which is why its so damn frustrating. For people my age I think politics is what fashion was to us in junior high school. These people are trying to be adults, by staking out a point of view, but as you point you they lack the true interest required to dig deeply into these things.

Its about fitting in. Its about peer pressure. Its about staking out who you are - its not really what you think.

They don't think that what they think matters.

Perhaps its a kind of cultural disenfranchisement.

We're not really a democracy but we're trying to look like it because we think that its cool.

RE: The Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford Memo