Are we robots?

There is a small box in our text that talks about the French sociologist, Jacques Ellul, and his idea that advertising is assaulting to human dignity.  He coined the phrase "mass man," which described how he believed advertising made society act.  He had one thing right, the fact that Americans just accept advertising and it is a way of life for us.  However, I'm not entirely sold on his idea that it takes away our freedom and self-esteem.  After all, it is not like someone has a controller to all Americans and can make us all buy something with a push of a button like we are robots.  I understand that advertising has far-reaching effects, but please don't tell me that we can't think for ourselves.

For one thing, advertising allows us to see our different options and choose our favorites.  For example, car ads are extremely helpful to people like me who pay absolutely no attention to cars and know the brands of approximately five car models.  Without advertising, I would have to go around to each dealer to review what cars are available so that I would know which one I wanted to buy.  Goodness knows that I wouldn't care enough to do that, so I would take the first dealer's word and buy whatever semi good looking car he put in front of me.  It would be much better for me to look at these ads and pick out the options I wanted and would help me make an informed decision.

 Some things, like cereal, aren't really that critical and no one would really research a type of cereal before buying it, unless they were seriously concerned about their health.  For small purchases like that, advertising could have a great deal of impact on what we buy, but only the first time.  Most people won't buy a cereal again if they hated it the first time.  Advertising can't make us taste something that's not in the box.  That's where the human part comes in.

Having said all of that, there is one part of advertising that does seem wrong, and that is the use of sexual things or beautiful people to make a product more desirable.  It also seems silly that we should be drawn to products that are shown in pretty scenery even if the product has absolutely nothing to do with that place.  I understand that advertisers are just trying to make money, but that part of advertising does seem to degrade us as humans.  Some element of us must be robotic, or at least hard wired, if we look at an advertisement with pretty people in love or in a nice setting and are drawn to the product, even though those things tell us little about the product itself.

I guess the more I think about it, advertising really is two faced.  It can be helpful, but Ellul had a point.  I think it is more the way that advertisers tweak things and get things into our heads by using subtle suggestions that makes advertising so degrading to humans.  However, it is such a staple in the business world, that I don't think that it could ever be replaced.  Plus, no one really thinks about it much anymore because it is such a huge part of our lives, so why try to change it?  If we were seriously in danger because of advertising, someone would have figured that out and stopped it long ago.