Firstly, none of those examples are subtle. I'm not sure when the actual words fear, temptation, sin and guilt were redefined to be 'subtle' manipulation, and these words are literally used in the advertisements.
Secondly, the indulgence food industry doesn't care about cultural inclinations in the way you argue. They didn't set up a culture of considering fatty or carb rich food bad for one's health, or sinful. They'd be happy if everyone considered eating cake to be a wonderful thing, that rich, famous, inspirational people do in great quantities.
> Decadent no longer has its original meaning of severe depravity any more because advertisers co-opted it in the mid-70's to apply whenever you eat a candy bar.
Sin based language has been fading in intensity for generations. We have a show on the Disney channel celebrating "evil" during Christmas.
However the association of candy bars and decadence didn't come from advertisers originally. Gluttony is a deadly sin, and for puritan American settlers indulging in such pleasures of the flesh outside of special holy days would have been seen as downright decadent.
I downvoted you for a number of reasons, none of which are what PG are talking about.
Basically, I think your comment lacked perspective.
All cultures have taboos and rites. It is extremely difficult to predict how they will change in the future.
For example, the ancient Greeks had no taboo against homosexuality (indeed, it was considered normal), but they also had nothing against keeping slaves.
The US as a nation has no taboo against advertising to children, and yet attitudes to homosexuality vary dramatically by region. Extreme violence in films is considered taboo in most cultures, and yet entertaining in the US.
Racism is publicly decried in the US, and yet remains ingrained in some other countries.
Eating dogs is taboo in the US, not in other countries. Bacon is considered a delicacy in the US, and taboo in many countries.
Sometimes religion is the carrier of some of these taboos and rites, and sometimes it is not. Sometimes religion innoculates a culture against a particular practice (eg, Halal means alcoholism isn't a big problem in Muslim countries), and other times it is used to both justify it and to fight it (eg the changing Christian attitude to Slavery).
I suspect you'd be better off justifying your post rather than complaining about persecution of downvotes.
It sure seems that way but we also see the same tendencies in many other disconnected cultures. It’s widely associated with consumerism. Do you think that’s a misconception? I don’t. I am really far from being an expert but I grew up around a lot of I think was protestantism aftermath. I get the impression Puritanism was a culture founded on demonizing symbolism by way of different symbolism, which making it ripe for commercialism thanks to simplistic abstractions of pride and honor and whatnot. Protestantism/Puritanism in the US seems like it was an optimized for agrarian life, which from my POV sounds pretty dismal. It was latent with judgement but not irreverent to social commitment; in many ways the opposite. I think it’s nature made it particularly vulnerable to consumerism in so many awkward ways. I think the stubborn social roles have persisted to an extent because they are still serving the existential purposes they originally served. Something many don’t realize is these tendencies are only amplified under the pressures of poverty. It looks like a paradox from the outside but on the inside, it’s a psychological survival tactic, which I relate to the isolation and precarity of agrarianism. But I can’t imagine it being so incredulous if it were not exploited and reinforced in consumer culture, ridiculous pop politics and advertising.
I might be wrong about some of this. It’s been a difficult subject to learn about.
This doesn't follow because the assumption that it has to take the form of consumption is unwarrented. People have competed to be the most ascetic or otherwise most virtuous or holy on massive scales before. Certain kinds of religious people, activists, hippies and the like still do. It could be the culture again.
This type of reasoning is in my mind a typical expression of how mere cultural values create an unhealthy bias. It is similar in this respect to how the Inuit might consider whale flubber a great delicacy, or a Swede might enjoy fermented herring, whereas everyone else looks on in distaste, and will tend to express their dislike in universal terms.
That is not the same you might argue, and you'd be right of course. But there are so many overlaps that is certainly motivated to call it similar: We are weaned into a secular disdain for religion - at least in many parts of the world - just as the Inuit are weaned into their food culture. It is not primarily a function of our superior intellect that we look down on religion, it is a function of our age and time. We will eventually abandon our present hubris for something else, just as people under the monotheistic era departed from the previous animistic and polytheistic beliefs.
So what is unhealthy about it? wasn't the monotheistic religions a big step forward that allowed for greater societal cohesion and (in most places) a rule of law? Isn't a secular society a much better place than before, where beliefs are not passed down from above in a unintelligible language and jealously guarded by the elites that profited from the system?
Well the key term is probably "step forward" as opposed to right and wrong. It is not like the Inuits are wrong in their eating habits - but uninformed and biased people might be prone to think so. It is not like the polytheists were wrong, in spite of the persecution they endured. And it is not like we are right in our present thinking either - a step forward in many respects, yes. But we will one day also be ridiculed for our primitive assumptions about reality - by the biased people of the future.
Provided we all survive the present at all, our present and ubiquitous self-righteousness sure looks poised to snuff out whatever future we may dream of.
Interesting, the indulgence/purity pendulum again. This seems to have happened a lot. The overindulgence of, say, Elizabethan outfits, all ruffs and slashes, versus much more staid black later on. Men inventing the high heeled boot then it switching to be a women's article of clothing. The ridiculous over-influence of France in all of these things, especially cooking. And of course the big indulgence/puritan fight that dominated Europe from the 1500s to the 1800s, the Reformation.
It's likely that religions adopted sex aversion from common culture rather than the other way around. The Bible for example is much less puritan than what we associate with Christian culture (see song of songs). In contrast, things the Bible condemns that aren't so culturally logical have barely entered the cultural consciousness. For example its frequent condemnation of consumption of blood
There’s a difference between being concerned about a little cultural erasure and the idea that Christians en masse would choose Starbucks as the hill to die on over that issue.
Of course, this is a lot more believable nowadays since we deal exclusively in caricatures but as I said earlier, it was novel at the time.
You focus on sexual morality, but I don't think Christian sexual morality is particularly unusual. (Confucian sexual mores look a lot like Christian sexual mores). To me what makes the cultural background of Christianity unusual is that it focuses on individuals striving to follow abstract virtues. 'Sinners' recognizing that they have done harm and then seeking to do less harm. The lazy believer is slothful, and so confesses their faults to the priest (acknowledging personal faults), repents (promises to act differently) and expects their god to hold them accountable (feels obligation to follow through). Repeat once per week for ten years and they will either become industrious or neurotic. Same thing with all the seven deadly sins. So the cultural focus is on individuals adopting pro-social abstract virtues. It seems to me that in other cultures there is less focus on abstract virtues, and more emphasis on social heirarchies (son obeying Father) or specific actions that must be taken (one must pray 5 times per day and follow a specific diet). One might also argue that the history of belief in personal sin makes European cultures more self-depreciating, but I feel the Japanese are more self-depreciating than the Europeans.
Hiding the facts of something with sugar-coated words isn’t going to help your case. Yes most bizarre and grotesque customs continue as long as agree upon them without questioning their value. It was also perfectly fine to own people as property and throw virgins into volcanoes, once. What’s your point?
The other replies barely hint at this, perhaps because you don't really notice something when it's so pervasive, but the answer is obviously American puritanism.
Add infantilization to your list, please. America's sins aren't unique, but Americans are fairly unique in demanding that they shouldn't have to confront those sins. That's for people of color to do, every day, disproportionately shouldering the burden of American's demand for innocence. It's like white Americans insist on being children, needing and deserving to be emotionally coddled instead of being told to grow up.
> The US long ago lost its puritan influences as a primary...Puritanism is a small fraction of influence in the US at this point culturally.
Are you including the US' views on sex and nudity and the puritan work ethic in that? Sex and nudity in films will make them get an instant R-rating, but murder will only get a PG-13.
The puritan work ethic is the reason Americans work themselves to death and judge the poor: "They obviously deserve it because they must not work hard." It's obviously circular reasoning, but "not working hard" is a moral failing in the US.
Secondly, the indulgence food industry doesn't care about cultural inclinations in the way you argue. They didn't set up a culture of considering fatty or carb rich food bad for one's health, or sinful. They'd be happy if everyone considered eating cake to be a wonderful thing, that rich, famous, inspirational people do in great quantities.
> Decadent no longer has its original meaning of severe depravity any more because advertisers co-opted it in the mid-70's to apply whenever you eat a candy bar.
Sin based language has been fading in intensity for generations. We have a show on the Disney channel celebrating "evil" during Christmas.
However the association of candy bars and decadence didn't come from advertisers originally. Gluttony is a deadly sin, and for puritan American settlers indulging in such pleasures of the flesh outside of special holy days would have been seen as downright decadent.
reply