Introduction - Part 1

Articles In This Section:

· Introduction - Part 1

· Introduction - Part 2

· Introduction - Part 3

· Introduction - Part 4

· Introduction - Part 5

IN the twentieth century," writer Erich Fromm has stated, "man's character orientation is essentially a receptive and marketing one ... we have become the sticklers, the eternally expectant."

Our suckling still begins, as always, in the crib. Now, though, so does our marketing orientation. At the first cry of unruliness we can be plugged into the standardized social current of our time that, like electricity, is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Mother simply measures out a metered dose of solace on inventor Robert Horton's patented electric pacifier. Then she places the pacifier on the bassinet mattress. Presto! The electric buzzer's gentle hum and vibration tranquilize baby, untouched by human hands, with what Horton's patent promises will be a "remarkably soothing effect."

For the older babies among us, the hum and vibration of our radio wave bands and television channels are lulling us with an exactly parallel rockabye, just as the surfaces of our newspapers and magazines act as "mattresses" for our own form of pacifiers: the shorthand projections of ourselves we call our symbols, which reveal us as a civilization of more shell than core, more shadow than substance, more Janus-faced and Judas-kissed than any previous generation of Americans.

No society has ever advertised its symbols so liberally. An average 1500 advertisements ranging from matchbook covers to sky-writing agitates, titillates, and at times even penetrates the consciousness of every American throughout every twenty-four hours of our lives. Because of this Gargantuan volume of self-display, truer today than when he originally wrote it is George Norman Douglas's assertion that "You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements." As a nation, we in America today are quite literally "As Advertised in Life."

Because we are a market-place civilization, with our "market place" extending far and wide from the traditional commercial bazaar to include the schools, the churches, the arts and sciences, and even the family living room, our symbols are essentially tollhouse venders, barkers, mongers, and wet-nurses. Our sense of personal value has become almost wholly reflected in these merchant symbols. Our sense of personal security lies in conforming to them, in acquiring them, in displaying them, in imitating them, and eventually in becoming them. We never stray very far from their breast.

That we feel a need for symbols of security, for example, is hardly remarkable. All men have a need for reasonable assurance that they will be able to acquire the goals of their self-expression. And keep them. But our current Symbols of Security betray our need for a neurotic certainty of love, attention, respect, and recognition without paying the price ... or, at least, without paying the price of anything more expensive than a package of cake mix. Security symbols such as these warn us, if we read them correctly, how much of our self-reliance and enterprise has been replaced by the idea that we should not be venturesome but instead must constantly be protected, supported, and socially maintained. Our acquisitive need to know and be sure has become greater than our inquisitive need to find out. Our need to be one of the group has become greater than our drive to be ourselves.