You can’t argue with the fact that we live in some pretty strange times?  Our world seems terribly terrible?  You ever wonder why?  I do.  But I still have a hard time arriving at the conclusion that we are bad.  It’s hard for me to accept that.  I think that human beings are open beings, much like animals in the wild.  When you observe animals in their natural conditions without a master, they operate with instinct and logical natural law.  But under the control or influence of the master, the animal can be trained.  It can be conditioned.  We have known this for many years.  Our use of animals as entertainment (circus), as food, as protection, as transportation and for experimentation proves this fact.  There is no reason that at one point, someone wouldn’t figure out that these principles apply to human beings as well.

Someone did.  And they developed marketing.  Conditioning of the human being with imagery.  When you get a catalog for clothing, what you are really looking at is the imagery the marketing team came up with that would invoke a felling of identification with the values that the image presents.  That is, when you see that cute girl in the Banana Republic catalog or the hip skater in the Urban Outfitters brochure, you get a feeling from that character, and the imagery around him or her.  And if that feeling is a good one, then you will buy their product.  Culture being a product of our decisions and value placement, is also susceptible to conditioning.  Our behavior is modified by marketing, and our cumulative behavior is called culture.  So then it is logical to conclude that culture can be modified by marketing secondarily.

I propose that we need to rethink our values,  and we need to do this fast, before the problems we face get even bigger.  I was sent a very interesting email from a family member with a graphic art story about the differences between Anglo culture characteristics and Asian.  I thought this was compelling enough to post for you all to see.

The blue side is the Anglo behavior or characteristic.  The Red side is the Asian response.  Now, it is a given that these icons are based on the “average” cultural response or behavior.  I posted the slides in the photo gallery so you can access it with THIS link.  Take the 5 minutes and look at these.  It shows the highs and lows of our value systems.  For me, it reaffirmed that some of our values must be reconsidered.