Advertisers primarilly use conditioning and association to induce mass hallucitation
Techniques of inducing mass hallucination are well known to advertisers. Almost all cigarette smokers, for instance, have a favorite brand and insist that they cannot be satisfied by any other brand. While blindfolded, however, they cannot distinguish between their favorite brand from any other brand. They are not buying the cigarettes but buying the package. The same is true for beer drinkers.
This species of mass hallucination has been created primarily by conditioning and association. Each advertiser tries to associate their product with something which most domesticated primates desire, such as sex or status. The advertisements carry the association sometimes fairly blatantly, sometimes subliminally. The repetition of the association gradually produces the conditioned response. The victim is not exactly buying the package but buying the hope for sex or status.
Of course, the satisfaction of the smoker is as “real” within that conditioned reality tunnel as the meanings of a Rembrandt piece is within the traditional western art reality tunnel, or the meanings of a Vincent van Gogh piece is within the impressionist reality tunnel, etc. All of these are equally “unreal” or “meaningless” to those who havent learned or conditioned themselves to enter these reality tunnels.
References
- Wilson, A., Robert. (1986). The New Inquisition Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science Chapter 7 the Open Universe (Page 213 · Location 4458). Grand Junction, Colorado: Hilaritas Press.
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