How the Media has Changed our Morals

Mr Holdsworth points out the ubiquity and power of advertising.

His introduction:

We don’t realize how pervasive advertising is because we are so acclimatized to it, but in reality, it underpins and influences so much of our society. We like to think that we have an understanding with the advertising industry wherein, they remain confined to their specifically allocated times and places, like billboards and commercial breaks, and then they leave us alone when we’re preoccupied with our tv shows or our social media feeds. Our culture has dramatically changed over the past 70 years and our values have dramatically changed. We’ve gone from believing in common and objective truths and morals to being more persuaded by relativistic ones, as in what’s right for you isn’t necessarily right for me. We’ve gone from holding up individuals who represent nobility and virtue to being obsessed with people who are merely nice to look at but vapid in every other way. This shift has occurred, coincidentally, right along side the rise and dramatic spread of media built upon advertising. For generations they’ve used their messaging to convince us to let go of the ideals that make it harder to sell us stuff we don’t need. And in place, they’ve been convincing us to adopt a value system that is obsessed with being fashionable and cool. Think about it, a person who cares about being a good steward of the money and resources they’ve been given in life, a person who cares about exercising wise and prudential judgement, a person who cares about being disciplined in the face of temptation *which are timeless traditional values* is not the kind of person that will easily run out to drop $1000 on the new iPhone just because it now comes in rose gold and will make your friends jealous. A person who cares, primarily, about being cool, however; is helpless before a slick marketing campaign that promises to satisfy their need to be cool and cutting edge if they just get the latest model. Our obsession with being cool has been instilled in us by people that care nothing for our happiness. Our values have been sold to us by people who don’t care about actual moral values, as long as you’re buying what they’re selling.