Marketing: Instrument of Social Control

Marketing is the key to understanding modern power relations. (To view previous posts about the nature of power, click here and here, for starters.) To summarize: power is a property of relationships, not an entity that can be possessed by an individual, and it is a property of all relationships, not concentrated in or originating from any single institution, such as a state. It is characterized by an ability to act on other people’s actions, for the purpose of repressing or promoting behaviors, and may be distinguished from total domination in that both parties must be free to act. In the modern world, power often works by penetrating consciousness and creating/shaping identities. The old maxim that “knowledge is power” is not only true because knowledge affects one’s ability to act, but also because the production of knowledge about certain populations simultaneously defines who they are.

One of the most salient domains in which identities are created, shaped, and cemented is marketing. We are now bombarded by advertisements. They absolutely saturate our consciousness. On the radio, on television, plastered all over buses and buildings, in our inboxes, on the internet.... the number of advertisements that we encounter on a daily basis is unfathomable. Due to the very extent of its presence in our consciousness, marketing possesses an unparalleled capacity to affect that conscious.

I have learned quite a bit about marketing from my job. It is no secret that the most fundamental principle of marketing is that its end goal is to manipulate people’s behavior. It is not to provide information about a product. For example, an email campaign will be considered successful if it compels people to click on a link; it need not include any information about what is being promoted. The science of marketing is the art of inducing behaviors.

One of the basic ways that this is achieved is through the creation and reinforcement of particular identities. It is more than just “knowing your audience.” Marketing creates the audience. Generally, to achieve maximum success, the market is broken into a number of segments that align with categories of race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. Then, the marketers determine what their targeted segment desires, in order that they can use those desires to manipulate behavior. (In this sense, one can view political campaigning as a subset of marketing.)

However, marketers don’t merely tap into the pre-existing desires of clearly defined, homogenous groups. Through the use of particular images and the placement of ads in particular contexts, new associations are made and old associations are reinforced. It is these associations themselves that define both the categories and the desires simultaneously.  For example, a whole network of interlinked cultural artifacts marks sports as a masculine domain; the commercials that a man sees during a game will both reinforce the idea that "men" (aged 20-40?) are the primary audience, while also elaborating the behaviors and desires that typify masculinity (drinking beer, objectifying women, etc.)

Then there is the less visible side of marketing – the one most intimately involved in the production of knowledge. This is the side of marketing that has been receiving the most critical attention lately, and the side that has shed light on the intersections of technology and privacy in the modern world. Obviously I am referring to the collection, sharing, and selling of personal data. This is governmentality extraordinaire (if only Michele Foucault were alive to witness the development of trends of which his later work portended). Data. Data is the lifeblood of modern power relations. The technological means of culling personal data have become outright Orwellian. Every little move you make: every time you use your cell phone or your credit card or do anything on the internet, information is being recorded about your location and actions. Of course, what Orwell could not predict (see my post about 1984) was that such surveillance does not have to be conducted by a state. We have been too busy fearing the government to realize who/what is really capable of infringing on our privacy.

We tend to think of marketing as a relatively benign practice. Or, at worst, perhaps slightly dishonest and maybe promoting unhealthy behaviors. Yet, the most insidious aspect of marketing is its omnipresence and its hegemony in the most intimate areas of our lives. It surveys (often in the other sense as well), records, and tracks. It concerns itself with our habits and desires. It shapes identities. It monitors what we do in order to tell us who we are and what we want (in order to influence what we do).

Intentionality, Human Will, and Power

Last night as I was driving around, I heard a segment on NPR about the death of Christopher Hitchens, renowned atheist apologist.  The very first thing I head when I turned on the radio was a discussion of his debate with Dinesh D'Souza. An excerpt was played that started with D'Souza trying to explain the difference between Christian and Islamic morality.  He said something to the effect of, "In Christianity, intentionality is central to morality.  The Bible says that even if you think about committing a sin, you have already committed the sin in your heart."  To which Hitchens replied, "Thought Crime.  Thought Crime.  That's totalitarianism!"  And the audience cheered.  Now, I know I have said that I think these debates are stupid (to even participate in one requires a certain amount of ignorance of social processes and history), and I also said that I probably would not blog about such things again.  (Once you get started, it's hard to stop?)  But this really isn't about religion.

Hitchens claims that the role of intentionality in the Christian moral framework places it on par with totalitarianism.  If I were participating in the discussion, I would have pointed out to Hitchens that intentionality also plays a significant role in modern legal systems.... more than just "significant," intentionality is actually the fulcrum.  It goes beyond just various sorts of charges for "conspiracy" and "intent to commit a crime," but also hinges on whether or not a person is capable of distinguishing between "right" and "wrong."  So, then, by Hitchen's standards, are all modern states totalitarian?

The problem, as I have pointed out before, is with the word "totalitarianism" itself.  The separation of "democracy" from "totalitarianism" is a false dichotomy.  In fact, to the extent that modern sovereignty and jurisprudence are based on notions of human rights (which include "life" itself), and in so far as the governmental impulse is a force that penetrates individual subjectivity and shapes consciousness, then "seeds" or aspects of totalitarianism very much are embedded in all modern institutions.

And here is where I would circle back to D'Souza.  The fact that intentionality is an important aspect of Christian morality today (though not, I would argue, historically), is merely a reflection of the development of "religion" complementary to, and following the same principles of organization as, other co-depend institutions of modernity, such as law, the state, the capitalist economy, and science.  Thus, intentionality in "religion" mirrors intentionality in, for example, law, because they arose together as part of a single systemic emergence.  If Islam is claimed to lack this interest in intentionality, that is only because Islam and everything else outside of "the West" (culturally or geographically) is represented as the antithesis of modernity - its "Other."

I thought these points were worth elaborating because they provide a demonstration of the way in which the concept of the "subject" (that internal, thinking, willing, feeling part of the human) is vital to the form and character of all modern institutions and relational structures.