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7
THURSDAY, JULY S, 1958 NUMBER FORTY-FIAE
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•- Overlook On [Life -
By WARREN S. REEVE
The idea of “Overlook” is taken from the Overlooks provtoeo lor
viewing panoramas abyig the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The study of pscyhology and
psychiatry during the la&t few
decades has given us new un
derstanding of the workings of
the human mind and of the com
plex relationships that together
make up the human conscious
ness. We have read. and heard
much about the '’‘subconscious"
"repression”, and “neurotic”
terms which arq suggestive of a
whotg- new vocabulary that has
become current just within the
span of a generation or so.
The professional psychologists
and psychiatrists have no doubt
attained a deeper and more pre-.
cise understanding of human
psychology than most people of
former generations had; and
even we who are “laymen" in
this field have learned a great
deal about it.
Thoughtful people who are
familiar with these achievements
cannot but be grateful for this
new “science” and for the utili
zation of it for the alleviation of
many nervous, emotional and
disorders.
For a long time, however, I
have been gravely apprehensive
over the ihisus e some practition
ers and some professional groups
have put these skills to.
Among and psy
chiatrists there are those, I think,
who are not competent. They
succeed in skilfully dissecting
the tangled web of drives and
fixations, etc., but they are not
able to effect a wholesome syn
thesis of personality afterwards.
The group, however, whose
procedures alarm me still more
are thidse in the employ of large ;
advertising and industrial con
cerna-jvho by very subtle and
clever psychological devices are
to control the mind of the public.
I have a suspicion that if we
could get an accurate picture of
the prevailing state of mind of.
th e American pepple and com
pare it with a Mmilar picture of
the minds of the Russian and
Chinese people, we could find
that we are just about as much
enslaved in our thinking as they
are, though in a different way,
perhaps. We are all of us being
“duped” right along, I consider
Mrs* AMERICA says**
* "
take care
of yours too l,
v Ml
■* m A j&SfSL
WITH
U.S. SAVINGS BONDS
by high-powered advertising tech
niques that enslave us mentally
just as the “party-line”- in Rus
sia dominates the thinking of
masses of the people there.
The aim of advertisers is to
make people think the way they
want them to think. How do they
want the public to think? They
want them to think they need,
and to think they desire the par
ticular goods they are selling. I
wonder s how many people there
are who at first said to themsel
ves they didn’J. need and didn’t
want this particular article who
an the end changed their minds
and bought it. 1
As I listen to some commer
cials, I am astonished at the ri
diculousness of some of the ar
guments that are presented. And
I am saddened -to think that
there are people who do not see
th.jugh the falleciousness of the
logic employed. I think, for ex
ample, of a firm that argues
that because th e medicine they
put on the market is a compound
of several ingredients, therefore
it is necessarily superior. A com
pound multiple drugs might
in some cases be better and might
in some cases be worse. The ad
vertiser of that article uses atro
cious logic because it has a
plausible sound; and his aim is
not to be logical but to be per
suasive. He wants to exercise a
measure of control over the
thinking of people with respect
to the particular article that he
offers for sale. The pathetic
thing is that hundreds and thou
sands of people have their think
ing established for them by pow
erful I "advertising media. Constant
repetition, day after day, is
just -an American version of
“brainwashing” that we often re
proach the Russians or the Chin
ese for using.
An even more sinister techni
que is coming into use, and
most people have no inkling that
they ar e being “worked on” by
the craftiest kind of mind-con
trollers. I refer to the device of
directing appeals to the sublimit
ed consciousness. “Subliminal”
means "below the floor level”
“floor level,” here, meaning our
ctiONtllß* tfcflttgfct. Dowiy |n ti»
“cellar”, of ©ur minds, all kinds
of idtfti seethe around without
our knowing anything abodt
Kiem. Secretly also they sneak
pp to the “first floor”, and /In
sinuate themselves into our con
scious thinking, without our
realizing where they hav e come
from. Clever psychologists in _ the
employ of rich and powerful cor
porations, have devised ways’ of
controlling some of the thoughts
in the “subliminal” part of our
that is, in the "cellars” l of
our minds. For example, they
contrive to bring it about that
in our subconscious mind, we are
saying over and over to oursel
ves, “Oh, I want a drink of such
and-such a soft drink. Oh, I am
so thirsty. Oh, I must have a
bottle of ‘such-and-such ‘ a drink”.
That thought whirls around in
our cellar like a m ad animal,
and finally slips “upstairs", and
we find ourselves saying con
sciously, “Oh, I must- have a
drink of “such-and-such”, and
we immediately go and get' a
bottl e of *t. The great and pow
erful corporation that bottles
that particular drink has accom
plished what it wanted to, do. It
shoved us around into thinking
what' it wanted us to think,
which was that we should have
a bottle of their drink without
any delay. In that way, you or
I are just one of thousands and
perhaps of millions who hav e
Our thoughts get shoved around
by these clever manipulators.
Th e big corporation makes enor
mous profits. It pays the adver
tising agency a large sum, and,
in turn, the advertising agency
pays the psychological expert
that it employed a large amount,
with perhaps a fat bonus added
on.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of
July, Independence Day, when
Freedom in this 4and of ours is
lauded. It is profitable that on
this occasion we should ask our*,
selves how much real freedom
we have. It appears to me that
the general public is being sub
jected to a species of “brain
washing” that, if not so demoral
izing is perhaps all the more pa
thetic than . any brainwashing
carried on by the communists.
It is a small matter, perhaps,
whether w e succumb to the
vertising that persuades us to
buy this particular soft drink
rather than that. It is not a
small matter if w e are induced
to start drinking or increase our
drinking of alcoholic beverages.
It is even more serious if a phi
losophy of life, entirely material
istic, gets established in our
minds. And that is precisely the
kind, of a philosophy that under
lies th e advertsiing of many ar-
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Holes. We are made to thlqH
having things, ahd buying
things, is the most abundant life.
There is no doubt, I thihk, that
powerful interests, are using all
possible media of mind-education
to create that kind bt a “climate
of public opinion” in which ev
erybody feels that life isn’t worth
living if they can’t have this and
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they ;©ib’t have the newest and
most up-to-date. model and style.;
We are encouraged to buy more
things whether we can ( afford
them or not. A vast amount of
the advertising appeals made
both to our conscious minds and
subliminally are an effort to
create an unthinking, uncritical
’mentAl Attitude/ Thus, this po
tentially wonderful human scien
ce of pill, psychology, is being
'diyerted into a demonic service.
On this’ eve of the remembran
ce of our classic American docu
ment of Freedom, I would urge
therefore that, figuratively speak
ing, we rise in arms, like the
Minute Men of '7B and resist the
*\ ■ ■ • ->
fHgjWPATt jtjCE %
-A ■ >
subtle and ceaseless bombarding
of oiitminds by ec
lated ua mehsdly
to thos,, who. for thetf own felf
ish advancement desire to sub
jugate the minds of the publio
and mak e us no better than the
dumb animals in our response
to their goadings.