Capitalism and the Abortion of Thoughts

I’m currently reading this book entitled “Blink.” It is a fascinating collection and commentary on various psychology/cultural studies concerning the effects of the unconscious upon our everyday lives. It is quite good and has had me thinking a lot. Right now, at this very moment, I just got done reading about advertisement, business and how things like “field testing” actually have the habit of LIMITING our choices as consumers rather than increasing them as this bit of capitalism likes to boast. For example, let’s take the very familiar and very popular show, Mary Tyler Moore. This show completely failed in field studies and only aired the first time because it had already been scheduled. The same goes for All in the Family. People hated both of these classic shows at first, but only because they offered something different from the "I love Lucy" and "Leave it to Beaver" diet they were used to. A similar thing happened with the Aeron chair and musicians like Kenna. These were all great additions to our society, but they were predicted to fail due to these faulty pilot studies that only take a small slice of the population, expose them to about three minutes of the product and expect them to give an honest opinion about it. From there, producers decide whether or not to spend the time and money needed to expose and air a T.V. show, music, or product. Well, we are creatures of habit and it seems to only be natural that we have a kind of aversion to anything too different. If it doesn’t fit into one of the many categories already established in our brain, we turn away from it. It is only through continual exposure can we truly decide if the product is worth our attention. It is not like we necessarily get used to BAD things. The introduction of “New Coke” is a good example, or the numerous deaths of various “popular” songs on the radio waves. They are just bad, and like junk food, at first it might taste real good and familiar, but it quickly loses it’s flavor. Something GOOD will stick around, like a good home cooked meal. I am going on about this because I was just thinking about how it’s the new and different that are the most venerable to the nay saying of market research. I think this has resulted in an apathetic culture that is no longer challenged, on a mass level, with new perspectives and ideals, hence the lack of new and thought provoking tv programs, movies and music in pop culture. These different, revolutionary ways of thinking do not do well in market pilot testing, and therefore, no matter the benefit and enjoyment the product may promise, it is killed before it even gets a chance to breathe the air of exposure. In a sense all of this thought out, numerically run market research is doing nothing more than performing a kind of capitalistic abortion upon an infinite number of ideas and that never get the chance to grow out of the embryonic stage of development. Therefore all the contributions that might have been, are quickly lost and obliterated by the empty and familiar world of bubble gum pop and predictable, thoughtless, Hollywood drama.

Solution: Kill your television. Kill Top 40. Support your local scene. Go beyond your local scene. Go beyond your radio dial and THINK!