rhetoric: an attempt to pursuade by evoking emotions rather than by appealing to reason.

advertising, the media, politicians... all tend to be masters at it.

i find it rather stomach churning...
and in the case of politics and the media i find it especially disconcerting.

what gets me the most with the adversising in the hypocracy. take your average womans magazine. you can find an article on how to diet in one section and a recipie for a terribly fattening meal in the next. a model in a swimsuit in the following section. the one after on developing healthy self esteem regardless of weight etc. then the next section on expensive cosmetics and hair care.

but it sells...

thats the greatest trouble i have. that people support the industry by buying accordingly. people buy the magazines and buy the products in the magazines. sure they ****** a bit about the magazines, but they continue to buy them regardless.

i was reading something the other day about how most people think that they will be happier with more choices. surveys found that more choices actually resulted in less happiness, however. if you have three brands of spagetti sause to pick from and you know you don't like two of them then you will tend to be very satisfied indeed with your chosen variety. if you have nineteen brands of spagetti sause to pick from then whichever you choose you are likely to feel less satisfied because you will wonder whether another choice would have been better than the choice you made.

they hypothesised that maybe that was why americans tend to rank high levels of dissatisfaction: too many choices.

but consumerism prevails and people believe that more choices is somehow better...

and we don't even need to think about the cost of that to people in developing nations...

sigh.