“Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or Cadillacs.”

“Mechanization was never so vividly fragmented or sequential as in the birth of the movies, the moment that translated us beyond mechanism into the world of growth and organic interrelation. The movie, by sheer speeding up the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure. The message of the movie medium is that of transition from lineal connections to configurations. It is the transition that produced the now quite correct observation: “If it works, it’s obsolete.” When electric speed further takes over from mechanical movie sequences, then the lines of force in structures and in media become loud and clear. We return to the inclusive form of the icon.
To a highly literate and mechanized culture the movie appeared as a world of triumphant illusions and dreams that money could buy. It was at this moment of the movie that cubism occurred, and it has been described by E. H. Gombrich (Art and Illusion) as “the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture-that of a man-made construction, a colored canvas.” “

“Children are responsibility and subject to education of their parents.”

sure, but that doesnt exclude them from the picture, as children-parents is not an isolated entity, and the issue of raising and educating children is also one of utmost importance, criminally disregarded at current.

I totally agree with that, but still I would move the bar between telling people they are manipulated and manipulating people they are being manipulated closer to the latter. After all that’s the way of the Hacker of Man, exploit the vulnerability to turn it against the exploiters, there’s a definite good taste to it :)

I don’t agree about the billboards / miniskirts though. When you drive, chicks don’t just jump into your field of view (ok, except in some computer games ;). One may even say that billboards are unnatural, since they induce reactions normally induced by other people. As much as I like photos of well-photoshopped girls in scant clothing, I prefer watching real girls, in real clothing and real situations. I am again responsible for having my “weakness” under control (hey, I’m talking about watching, okay!), only it is about real life ™. I don’t want to be “trained” (in the Pavlovian sense) to get a hard-on when I see a photo in a magasine which is shown in a TV ad which I watch on the internet over a remote desktop connection from my home to my computer at work. Screw the levels of indirection, I want to react to people of the first order!

Otherwise, you repeat my point with one exception. Yes, it is necessary that people realise they are subject to manipulation. The way to remove/diminish the influence is to let people to be more independent and certainly not to brainwash them with the idea that it is not their fault, but of the nasty mean greedy manipulators, or someone else’s in general (the government/CIA/Jews being among the top choices).

The exception. Point me where I say it is OK to exploit weaknesses, would you? It is not ok, but it happens. Including in our everyday communication. I am exploiting your way of thinking right now, you know, which way could be treated as a weakness in a context. How far are we ready to go in limiting communication, since the problem is mainly the scale? I am not sure even if I agree with your argument about billboards on road elsewhere. Pornographic/erotic billboards distract drivers, you say. What about young nice looking ladies with short skirts and low necks - shall we ban them too? No. People shall be responsible for having their weaknesses under control.

As a conclusion - it is OK to point to the people they are being manipulated. It is wrong to manipulate them that if they are fat because they eat too much chips it is someone else’s fault.

But you see, the problem is that you can’t change human nature! The only way to improve the situation is to try and remove (okay, diminish) the influence. People need AT LEAST to be aware of what is done to them. And this doesn’t even cover people who simply CANNOT take “responsibility for their own lives and souls”, take children for example.

Wow, good thing you probably guess what I mean :)