Abstract: As a society we have all been indoctrinated into a giant cult. It is the cult of marketing. We experience ourselves and each other as brands, commodities, assets, which are bought and sold at market. Not only does this cult crowd out authenticity of any kind, it is not sustainable in the long run. The current economic crisis is an example of the limitations of the virtual world that has been created.
What is a cynic? A man who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde
If I were to tell you that you are a member of a cult, I bet you'd react with shock, anger and possibly rage. I bet too that if I made that same statement to any religious fundamentalist, or your garden variety fringe fanatic, I'd get pretty much the same reaction.
The main difference between their cult and yours, I would explain, is its size - their cult number in the hundreds, sometimes thousands, while yours numbers in the billions.
In one way or another we must all play in this game. No matter what your particular gift or expertise, you have no choice but to play the marketing game if you are to survive.
Such a game nullifies the value of our gifts, our passion, our intelligence, and our perseverance. Wherever the marketer is king, talking a good game, looking good, being likeable, being sexy become the winning traits. Conversely, knowledge, integrity, fortitude, kindness, generosity and graciousness become nothing more than frills, mere anachronisms. They are the traits associated with those on the fringe - the losers, artists, intellectuals, the has-beens. In fact, substance of any kind becomes a burden and an obstacle to progress. It becomes the ballast that holds you down and stifles your creativity while you concoct what you think your client expects.
If you build homes, for instance, your success is not measured by the quality of homes you build but by your ability to manage your client's expectations. Similarly, dentists, doctors and accountants can no longer build a thriving practice on just excellence and hard work - he too must play the marketing game.
Watch the members of this cult as you encounter them in life. They are all alike, all energetic and healthy-looking, remarkably focussed and intense. Anyone who doesn't conform, or who exhibits traits of individuality does not appear at ease in company like this. The marketers take control, effortlessly talking in their continual patter and turning the subject always back on themselves.
If that person commits the cardinal sin of introducing a topic they are passionate about they are met with glazed eyes and uneasiness. Success in this jungle is measured by how much fun we are; being perceived as intense, is the kiss of death.
You don't have to get very deep into this cult before you realize that selling is not really a choice; it's survival. The market is inundated with hustlers who lack any objective, reliable criteria upon which to assess competence; instead, likeability and slickness become their key success criteria. In this way the consumer is unwittingly steered towards the con men and those who cannot sell are simply invisible.
Once we recognise this, it doesn't take much to see how the investment bankers have done so well for themselves. By presenting themselves as competent and successful they attracted custom, and their customers came to trust them more on account of their reassuring manner, smart suits and neatly kempt hairstyles than because of any real enterprise or ability which they displayed. They are selling themselves and the symbol of success which they represent as much as any other product, and by the time they have found a buyer he is likely to be as much impressed by them as by the deal they offer. What is more, anyone may be a customer, just as anyone may be a victim.
The ubiquitousness of this game forces us to choose between two options, one more repugnant than the other:
We can accept the necessity of salesmanship and set ourselves the task of promoting ourselves and our products just like everyone else. The trouble is that most people are not born with a propensity to lie, and we're not that skilled when it comes to over-selling or over-hyping our own credentials. Thus we end up trapped in a hostile system, trying to compete but being ultimately unable to progress because we lack the killer instinct.
Those who are not socially skilled have to ally themselves with a rainmaker. To add insult to injury, in the event that they are successful in finding such a hustler, they become the drone, the weaker party in the relationship. It is no surprise then to see that professional firms - management consulting, architects, lawyers - are controlled by the partners who are adept at bringing in the clients. Over time their confidence erodes and sooner or later they fall victim to despair, or some form of sedation.
Of course, this entire focus upon making the sale, with next to no thought upon delivering the product, is not sustainable in the long run.
The current banking crisis is a prime example the cult of marketing run amuck. The banks sold homeowners on the idea of buying a house with next to no security. They next sold the debt to fund managers and investors. They in turn re-packaged it in combination with other assets and sold it to other investors.
Over time the volume of these investments, together with the increasingly creative ways in which they were combined, flooded the market with investments of indeterminable value. The high degree of integration between all the world's financial markets took what began as a local problem, a number of failed mortgages in the US and allowed it to infect the entire global investment and banking system.
The only good outcome for this crisis would be a collective realisation that we have all been duped. When that comes, we might finally be able to shake off the cult of marketing and revive the now declining virtues of inner beauty - kindness, humility, generosity. When this happens we might finally have something to live for outside the corporate bubble.
What is a cynic? A man who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde
If I were to tell you that you are a member of a cult, I bet you'd react with shock, anger and possibly rage. I bet too that if I made that same statement to any religious fundamentalist, or your garden variety fringe fanatic, I'd get pretty much the same reaction.
The main difference between their cult and yours, I would explain, is its size - their cult number in the hundreds, sometimes thousands, while yours numbers in the billions.
In one way or another we must all play in this game. No matter what your particular gift or expertise, you have no choice but to play the marketing game if you are to survive.
Such a game nullifies the value of our gifts, our passion, our intelligence, and our perseverance. Wherever the marketer is king, talking a good game, looking good, being likeable, being sexy become the winning traits. Conversely, knowledge, integrity, fortitude, kindness, generosity and graciousness become nothing more than frills, mere anachronisms. They are the traits associated with those on the fringe - the losers, artists, intellectuals, the has-beens. In fact, substance of any kind becomes a burden and an obstacle to progress. It becomes the ballast that holds you down and stifles your creativity while you concoct what you think your client expects.
If you build homes, for instance, your success is not measured by the quality of homes you build but by your ability to manage your client's expectations. Similarly, dentists, doctors and accountants can no longer build a thriving practice on just excellence and hard work - he too must play the marketing game.
Watch the members of this cult as you encounter them in life. They are all alike, all energetic and healthy-looking, remarkably focussed and intense. Anyone who doesn't conform, or who exhibits traits of individuality does not appear at ease in company like this. The marketers take control, effortlessly talking in their continual patter and turning the subject always back on themselves.
If that person commits the cardinal sin of introducing a topic they are passionate about they are met with glazed eyes and uneasiness. Success in this jungle is measured by how much fun we are; being perceived as intense, is the kiss of death.
You don't have to get very deep into this cult before you realize that selling is not really a choice; it's survival. The market is inundated with hustlers who lack any objective, reliable criteria upon which to assess competence; instead, likeability and slickness become their key success criteria. In this way the consumer is unwittingly steered towards the con men and those who cannot sell are simply invisible.
Once we recognise this, it doesn't take much to see how the investment bankers have done so well for themselves. By presenting themselves as competent and successful they attracted custom, and their customers came to trust them more on account of their reassuring manner, smart suits and neatly kempt hairstyles than because of any real enterprise or ability which they displayed. They are selling themselves and the symbol of success which they represent as much as any other product, and by the time they have found a buyer he is likely to be as much impressed by them as by the deal they offer. What is more, anyone may be a customer, just as anyone may be a victim.
The ubiquitousness of this game forces us to choose between two options, one more repugnant than the other:
We can accept the necessity of salesmanship and set ourselves the task of promoting ourselves and our products just like everyone else. The trouble is that most people are not born with a propensity to lie, and we're not that skilled when it comes to over-selling or over-hyping our own credentials. Thus we end up trapped in a hostile system, trying to compete but being ultimately unable to progress because we lack the killer instinct.
Those who are not socially skilled have to ally themselves with a rainmaker. To add insult to injury, in the event that they are successful in finding such a hustler, they become the drone, the weaker party in the relationship. It is no surprise then to see that professional firms - management consulting, architects, lawyers - are controlled by the partners who are adept at bringing in the clients. Over time their confidence erodes and sooner or later they fall victim to despair, or some form of sedation.
Of course, this entire focus upon making the sale, with next to no thought upon delivering the product, is not sustainable in the long run.
The current banking crisis is a prime example the cult of marketing run amuck. The banks sold homeowners on the idea of buying a house with next to no security. They next sold the debt to fund managers and investors. They in turn re-packaged it in combination with other assets and sold it to other investors.
Over time the volume of these investments, together with the increasingly creative ways in which they were combined, flooded the market with investments of indeterminable value. The high degree of integration between all the world's financial markets took what began as a local problem, a number of failed mortgages in the US and allowed it to infect the entire global investment and banking system.
The only good outcome for this crisis would be a collective realisation that we have all been duped. When that comes, we might finally be able to shake off the cult of marketing and revive the now declining virtues of inner beauty - kindness, humility, generosity. When this happens we might finally have something to live for outside the corporate bubble.
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