http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/rapaille.html

I don’t know if just jealous of successful people but I find him repulsive. I feel like he is dressing up in intellectual clothing what natural salesmen have intuited since forever.

Its kind of you say I expressed myself clearly, I personally feel I have a predilection for gas baggery.

I agree that this is what manipulators of all sorts often try to use to their advantage. Because an audience that you already “have in your pocket” doesn’t really need to be persuaded in the first place. We listen to (and buy from) those we like, it’s that simple.

This was what I was (somewhat ambiguously) hinting at with my anecdote about my friend calling a particular tv-channel “man tv”, and that many viewers probably somewhat admire Mr. Jilette for his bluntness.

But you expressed the point much more clearly.

I once saw an entertaining TV show on branding and marketing one segment of which featured a marketing/philosopher who was selling “The Code” which was basically supposed to be the language, (not limited to verbal,) of current human desire which could be exploited to sell stuff. This was a serious business with representatives from household corporate names in anxious attendance of its unveiling. He was credited with marketing of the Hummer by its appeal to the reptilian brain.

What I find so depressing about the interchange you had with plotr is how there is no communication taking place. I think that maybe human culture has two poles, maybe they are masculine and feminine but they are not strictly sex linked. On the one hand you have the need to dominate and on the other you have the need to collaborate, hierarchy vs consensus. I feel like we live in a world with two kinds of people that you could describe negatively as those who are afraid of being dominated, that see society as a zero sum game in status, and those who are so afraid that if everyone doesn’t agree or feel good that they are evil.

The “debate” on environmentalism seems to often break right along this fault. Notice how Plotr calls you a “little environmentalist” and says condescendingly how you “had your feelings hurt”. I would say this is very much the argumentative style of adolescent males. (The bullying banter used to try to sort out who has dominance.) On the other hand environmentalisms abuse by green washing and green guilt marketing exploits the weakness of a more feminine personality in the same way that fashion preys upon adolescent girls fears of ugliness and social criticism of anything but passivity.

It seems to me that we live in a masculine world. (Which would you rather be; a bitch or a prick? P & T have always been aggressive and confrontational I believe. It seems natural that they would be libertarians as I would argue that individualism is a masculine value.

I just realized I have gone on way to long, sorry. Anyway have a good day.

It is a while since I wrote this post, and in retrospect I think I (perhaps inspired by the show in question) used unnecessarily strong language in some of the segments. I do not habitually label people things like “ignorant assholes”, but on the Bullshit show they do. Tongue in cheek perhaps, but nevertheless.

That said, I think Piotr mostly makes baseless and stereotypical assumptions about me as a person based on this one post.

I stand by my main points that a lot of the things that I have seen on this show is merely a certain spin on the topics in question, and that they are rather good at making their target audience believe in what they are saying.

As Piotr points out it is certainly not the only program to do so, as virtually all media people always presents their stuff from a certain angle.

That was never disputed in my original post. However, having a story angle is not automatically synonymous with making “a spin” on the truth. Good journalists usually fulfill the criteria of objectivity.