Comments on: “There is no big lie” http://blog.voyou.org/2009/09/07/there-is-no-big-lie/ Lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:24:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: echeneida http://blog.voyou.org/2009/09/07/there-is-no-big-lie/comment-page-1/#comment-46990 echeneida Wed, 16 Feb 2011 06:16:30 +0000 http://blog.voyou.org/?p=784#comment-46990 Surely he wasn't right about there being no system. (Also I was a bit confused about what the "universe's" indifference had to do with anything.) I couldn't watch many episodes after that one (Quality Cable Dramas are too oily for me) but being reminded of that line makes me wonder if the concept of "system" was much explored; in a show about the 60s, that could be great. Surely he wasn’t right about there being no system. (Also I was a bit confused about what the “universe’s” indifference had to do with anything.)

I couldn’t watch many episodes after that one (Quality Cable Dramas are too oily for me) but being reminded of that line makes me wonder if the concept of “system” was much explored; in a show about the 60s, that could be great.

]]> By: roger http://blog.voyou.org/2009/09/07/there-is-no-big-lie/comment-page-1/#comment-37543 roger Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:40:37 +0000 http://blog.voyou.org/?p=784#comment-37543 I'm for the hippies on this one. More pertinent than Zizek is Alan Brandt's The Cigarette Century, which shows precisely how the big lie - the combination of lobbying, science as a front, and advertising - could be used to spread big lies. The cigarette industry was an avant garde liar and heavy advertiser, borrowing tactics from the AEC (with their big lie campaign to convince people that testing atomic bombs was harmless) and the Pentagon (whose campaign of lies about Vietnam took exactly the form that the cigarette companies used to increase cigarette smoking by half AFTER it was discovered that smoking led to cancer). Don Draper knows not whereof he speaks. If you intercut his speech against the big lie (such sophistication) against say your standard TV cig commercial, it would be easy to see that the hippies - as well as Galbraith - were right, and Zizek and the neo-classical economists (who also refuse to grant advertising any power whatsoever - after all, everybody has all the information they need in an efficient market) are wrong. I’m for the hippies on this one. More pertinent than Zizek is Alan Brandt’s The Cigarette Century, which shows precisely how the big lie – the combination of lobbying, science as a front, and advertising – could be used to spread big lies. The cigarette industry was an avant garde liar and heavy advertiser, borrowing tactics from the AEC (with their big lie campaign to convince people that testing atomic bombs was harmless) and the Pentagon (whose campaign of lies about Vietnam took exactly the form that the cigarette companies used to increase cigarette smoking by half AFTER it was discovered that smoking led to cancer). Don Draper knows not whereof he speaks. If you intercut his speech against the big lie (such sophistication) against say your standard TV cig commercial, it would be easy to see that the hippies – as well as Galbraith – were right, and Zizek and the neo-classical economists (who also refuse to grant advertising any power whatsoever – after all, everybody has all the information they need in an efficient market) are wrong.

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