Right on target there.
I think that our brains are pre-wired to focus on the superficial --
racism, sexism, ageism are examples -- and that's the way it begins when
we're kids. Many of us outgrow it, many of us don't.
And because many of us don't, there's a whole industry out there making money.
Advertising usually consists of "<You're inadequate> unless you <buy our
product>". I read a piece not long ago about women's magazines: most have
a quota with advertisers regarding what _articles_ must be written with the
message "you _must_ do something with...." [hair / fingernails / skin /
flab....] in support of the ads placed in the magazine.
Read that message or hear it from your peers often enough, and you start
believing it. Yes, horrible. I for one don't read them things they call
'women's mags'; I'd rather watch Jerry Springer on TV coz I'd get more out
of it. But again, I can't take Jerry to the Throne Room with me, which is
the appropriate place to store them mags....
But it all works. In some of us the <You're inadequate> message echoes,
and we buy. And buy. And buy.
Two cents (which won't get me 1/100 of a bottle of nail polish)
lena
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Lena Rotenberg "Kein Panik auf dem Titanik!"
lrr@netkonnect.net (unknown, deceased author)
Please note: my <hermesnet.net> and <crosslink.net>
addresses will sink shortly!