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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Douglas Holt and James Twitchell

the breakfast table
entries

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from: James Twitchell

Who Is Seducing the Innocents Today?

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2001, at 1:20 PM ET

Yo Doug,

OK, now let's just settle here for a second. You wrote:

Another point is that companies often have tremendous power to shape the stories that we consume. This is not the narratological equivalent of perfect competition that we're witnessing. Certain stories get spun more often because it's easier to make money with them, regardless of audience tastes.

Is this true? Well, I guess it is, in a way. I really don't know, Doug. There's just something about it that rankles me. Perhaps because I hear it every day. I mean it's what we have for the Gregorian chant of the Church of High Culture. No one listens to us (the Professorate); they only listen to them (the Vulgarians).

This self-serving tripe comes from the very subject I am a supposed teacher of, namely, romanticism.

Here's a little Wordsworth for you to swallow with the latte double supremo:

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can. (The Tables Turned)

This is the myth of the noble savage who is daily being corrupted by forces who are telling stories to subjugate him. If only he were free in nature, free to have those impulses, free from those self-professed "sages," free just to ... be. But, oh no, when he's down at Kmart and that blue light special comes on, he has to buy more meat patties, underwear, nose rings, raucous CDs.

So who is it today seducing the Innocents? The nasty state? The corrupt church? No! It's the villainous corporations. If only "they" would leave us alone, we'd be eating salad and reading Chaucer and burning peat and just getting along great with all living things both great and small.

But no! The nasty Harvard MBA, who is buying your coffee, Douglas, is trying to sell us snake oil, building McMansions in the vernal wood, making us buy those SUVs.

And, hey, if these Masters of the Universe (who you are training) are so smart, how come 80 percent of new products fail? Could it be that they don't really know what stories to tell? How to account for the New Coke, Betamax, corfam, the Edsel, the eight-track?

And what would the stories be if we had "perfect competition"? Stories of love and compassion, of sharing, of nurture?

Is commercial storytelling not letting us have these stories, the true stories of "audience taste"?

Did you ever see that piece that Jib Fowles did on "Advertising's 15 Basic Appeals"? Here are the appeals in no particular order:

need for sex
need for affiliation
need to nurture
need for guidance
need to aggress
need to achieve
need to dominate
need for prominence
need or attention
need for autonomy
need to escape
need to feel safe
need for aesthetic sensations
need to satisfy curiosity
physiological needs for food, drink, sleep

You know what I think? I think that commercialism is telling us stories pretty close to the core. I think that's why they get listened to. Mostly.

Best wishes,

Jim

the breakfast table
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from: James Twitchell

Who Is Seducing the Innocents Today?

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2001, at 1:20 PM ET

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

James Twitchell is supposed to be teaching English literature but is more interested in the marketing of stuff. He has written books on advertising (Adcult USA, Twenty Ads That Shook the World) and has a mild defense of luxury consumption coming out next year (Living It Up: Why We Love Luxury). Douglas Holt is a professor at Harvard Business School.

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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Let's talk about coffee. Joseph Britt., below, was just one of many--follow the thread, and consider the question of tipping the barista. He still had time to discuss milk, here, too. And Brendan Herlihy took on ice-cream here. Neill Hamilton is looking for more "dissent, anger, blood feuds... I want the people writing in the Breakfast Table to open up life long vendettas" here (he always is, he's the Breakfast Table's official trouble-maker), but Richard Walrath enjoyed the banter: "it's almost like being there with the third cup of coffee."]

We're really talking about two different things here, aren't we? Coffee, and then all the froofy coffee-influenced liquid dessert-style beverages that take up most of the space on coffee house menus. I have nothing against the latter (because making fun of them is always a good time), but coffee is a really serious subject. If you're going to drink something nearly every day, it might as well be good. This is why I've never understood all the sneering condescension directed at Starbucks. Pre-Starbucks, most coffee served in public places was awful--you were ahead of the game if you ordered came out hot, caffeinated and with no taste at all. OK, most coffee served in public places is still awful, but with Starbucks you at least have the choice of having a good cup of coffee.

I confess I think Starbucks is slipping, based on extensive research I've done at the Minneapolis Airport. They used to offer a rotation of different coffees--Sumatra, Mocha Java, even New Guinea--but now seem to mostly serve up a couple of blends with names like "European" and "Christmas." Talk about your brand marketing. Also they routinely serve the coffee so hot you wonder if there is something wrong with the water they're using.

--Joseph Britt

(To reply, click here.)

Maybe the students in Mr. Twitchell's anecdote couldn't tell good poetry from bad without guidance, but this doesn't strike me as being universally true. Poetry isn't my thing, but music is, and I have no trouble separating the good from the bad using only my own ears. If there wasn't something intrinsic in good art, we wouldn't, over time, have come to a general agreement about the relative worth of, say, Mozart vs. Salieri.

--Chloe Pajerek

(To reply, click here.)

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