Description

Can the advertising industry benefit humanity?

There's ample evidence for the calculated approach of the advertising industry, government and political agencies toward the control of information. Disregard for life, cover-ups or lack of real solutions for widespread problems are considered the trademarks of this industry. In analyzing, on the one hand, the polarizing effects of human nature's intensified egoism through exploitation and personal gains and, on the other, the power and scope of the new media, Dr. Laitman reflects upon the real possibility of using advertising to deal with life's challenges in a positive way.

Transcript

TV Program with Dr. Michael Laitman
"20 Ideas"

"New Media"

With participation of Eugene Nemirovsky

June 29, 2009
New York

Eugene Nemirovsky: I work in an advertising agency and I can see how, sort of how these things work from the inside, that nowadays bad products are sold to people. It doesn't matter what the product is, it's wrapped in sort of a good paper and it's sold to people, with complete disregard for people.

Back when the advertising industry started, the industry had integrity. Good products were sold to people; the companies actually cared about selling good products to people. Advertising agencies would actually reject companies with bad products, they didn't want to take them as their clients. So, my question is, what has happened to the advertising industry that right now there's complete disregard for people and anything is pushed onto them?

Dr. Michael Laitman: It's human nature; it's the ego, and it's developing every day, from generation to generation. That ego is prompting us to develop in technology and industry, family, education, culture, everything. At our basis lies the ego and it's constantly intensifying, so whether we want to or not, we're always becoming more egoistic.

More egoistic means we're always becoming less considerate of others. As long as we profit, that's what I want-the immediate profit now, at the expense of others, to make other people suffer. I don't care and actually I want people to suffer. I want everyone to be sick if I'm producing medicines, and I want everyone to eat junk food if it increases my profits, etc.

The more we advance, it's certain that we try to sell to each other much worse things, much more harmful ones, and only personal gain will be our goals. We can see that in advertising, in most obvious way. We understand that advertising works with complete disregard for life. We can see that.

For example, the crisis that started more than a year ago is still continuing. There are people being laid off everywhere, businesses are closing down, people are becoming more and more thrifty. We don't see that in the media; we don't see that in the global media. There's a kind of agreement in advertising agencies and in governments; "we are going to hush, hush it, to keep it quiet and not say anything about it."

The same applies for the swine flu. There's something to talk about? Let's make of this nothing really, the biggest problem of humanity! As if everything else is nothing compared to that, or people being in abyss; as if this is the main problem. Even if it is a problem, it's obvious that we can't resolve it. Maybe we can only use it to sell more useless medicines or whatever.

But again, we can see that there is a very calculated approach that comes from the highest places in society, in the country, in politics, in the Government, that wants to use these different kinds of advertising to kind of control and manipulate people. It's like that in every country, not just in America or in Europe; it's in every country.

Eugene Nemirovsky: But we see that humanity is really heading towards a pretty sad conclusion. Advertising is really, in a lot of ways, at the top of the causes that's leading towards that. So, fine, we have these people at the top that are controlling everything, but what will make them understand that they're also going to suffer from this and their children will suffer from this? Do they not completely care that humanity is really going to crash?

Dr. Michael Laitman: No. I once wanted to write a book (it was about eight years ago) with an American scientist, a PhD in Philosophy, and I too have a PhD in Philosophy, so we wanted to do a book together. We started working together and everything was nice and smooth, until we got to a point where I thought that the next part of the book would be written and we would call it "The Crisis"-an "evolving" or "approaching" crisis.

He said, "I'm not going to write about the crisis; I'm not going to take part in a book that writes about the crisis." Why? Because the American Philosophers Guild disagrees with talking about the crisis. That was eight years ago, but it was already sensed; it was obvious that we were headed towards a crisis, a global crisis.

"Well, we're not allowed to talk about it." So even at the highest levels back then, that's what he was saying. I don't know what's happening in America, really, and I'm far removed from all that, but that's what I heard from him. And as a result, we realized that we had nothing to continue writing about together and so the book was never written.

What am I trying to say? These things systematically are manipulated...that the people are manipulated in this way, and many scientists take part in that, including the press and all kinds of media, and that's how we all move. The truth is that there is no solution, and that's why they're afraid of opening up this Pandora box, because there's no solution.

We are in the same crisis, in the same problem of education, culture, economic and ecologic problems. And what else...? But there are no apparent solutions. So people are preferring to blur it and cover it up, and people want it that way. "Why do we need to think about tomorrow, about a bad tomorrow, if today we can still enjoy life, somehow? Why worry about the blows of tomorrow, if there's nothing I can do about it anyway? If I could work out tomorrow's problem today and make sure that tomorrow's much more as a good, then good, but if not, then there's no reason."

Eugene Nemirovsky: It's clear to me at least that we have to eventually come to a point where all these people will realize that something must be done. Since we're on the topic of advertising, is it possible to use advertising to benefit humanity?

Dr. Michael Laitman: The teaching that I engage in is the wisdom of Kabbalah. It says there is a solution. It says that it can show a person that there is a power in nature that can change human nature. Our nature is egoistic; we enjoy harming others.

But within nature, there is a special, very powerful force-a very fundamental force-that can change our nature from being constantly exploitive of others, to wanting to relate to others, to love others, to be considerate of others. It is possible.

And here a possibility opens up. If we advertise this kind of method that can change human nature, then of course we have the ability to go through all these problems in a very good way, in all these crises, and we won't see them as problems or crises. On the contrary-it brings us to a new level of life, a better one, a more successful one. It's all up to advertising, really, of the wisdom of Kabbalah. I'm truly hopeful that we will be able to use different kinds of media to explain there is a solution.

Eugene Nemirovsky: How can we do it? How is it possible to actually use the media to advertise these things you're talking about?

Dr. Michael Laitman: For now, I don't think we can use the media because the media we're talking about, the ordinary media, costs billions of dollars and a lot of human resources. I think that with our little strength, we can use the Internet primarily to reach (and we are reaching several millions) and we will be, if we want to, through them reach many more.

That's how we'll advertise it. But still, we have no choice. The force of advertising is what should do the work for us, otherwise I don't see how else we can, except to live in peace and lie. Until tomorrow, what happens, happens.