Nowadays, it's pretty much impossible to get away from subliminal advertising. It's everywhere in our day-to-day lives, and it's especially common in politics. In our reading, Franklin S. Haiman says that it's through such techniques--which he calls 'hidden persuaders'--that politicians establish a democracy in a country. These 'hidden persuaders' are individuals who work beyond the conscience and strive for a more automatic response from said person. More often than not, these persuaders are politicians, and Haiman says that they are completely aware of how effective these little manipulative strategies are.
And he has quite a few problems with that. And I don't blame him. I, for one, can't say I'm a fan of having one of Khan's Ceti eels in my brain for any reason. Even if it's not a diabolical plan to exact revenge on James T. Kirk.
Anyway! It seems like his main problem with hidden persuaders is their massive use of subliminal cues, hypnosis and loaded language. These types of manipulative techniques are actually pretty common in modern political advertisements. No matter what ends they achieve, however, these techniques are immoral.
I think that's a little bit of a stretch, because I can't with a good conscience call Sarah McLachlan's ASPCA commercial immoral, even though it uses it's fair share of psychological manipulation to convince me to save the animals. It's for a good cause, but according to Haiman, it's still immoral, because I'm not really provided with a choice in the matter.
...Well, I am. It's just that choice is 'save a cute animal' or 'be a heartless monster'. Even if I manage to convince myself I'm not said heartless monster, you can be assured that commercial will show up again as soon as I've made that decision and then it's rinse, lather and repeat.
It's things like that which make it hard to say that all hidden persuaders are unethical. That's a fallacy if I ever saw one, and I think whether something is a hidden persuader or not isn't something that can be contained to one definition. It really depends on the opinions and values of whatever culture the persuasion is taking place in.
However, I think we can all agree that the Ceti eel was a lame move on Khan's part.
R.I.P Captain Terrell.
hilarious. I love it!
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