image credit: Raymond Yee
Is marketing evil?
When Seth Godin pondered the question earlier this year, he came to this conclusion:
Just because you can market something doesn’t mean you should. You’ve got the power, so you’re responsible, regardless of what your boss tells you to do.
Last night in a Twitter exchange with Jessica Gottlieb (@JessicaGottlieb) about how people market and sell, I suggested that the question isn’t anything new. In fact, I think it dates back a few millennia…
[Disclaimer: this post is purposefully philosophy light.
Email theword[at]wordpost[dot]org if you’re craving discourse on metaphysics]
The story of persuasion in ancient Greece
[heavily abridged]
In a similar fashion to modern democracies, during the fifth century B.C. forensic discourse (debate) was the tool the Greeks in Athens used for political and court proceedings.
To make a long story short, political power (and the fate of accused parties) rested on the ability of great speakers to persuade. The great orators of the time were called Sophists, and their practice of great oral persuasion was known as rhetoric (cf. Ober).
An ethical challenge to Sophistry and Rhetoric
Following a devastating loss of power in the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians grew critical of their political system, seeing it as a puppet for the benefit of the Sophists and a failure to the common person (Biesecker-Mast).
In the midst of unrest, the great philosopher Plato began his conquest against the practice of rhetoric. In his famous argument against the sophist Gorgias, he claims that
…rhetoric is not good for society because it does not lead to truth, only to persuasion, and only the pleasure for the individual who is persuasive. Rhetoric is not necessarily good for the society that must often suffer wrong ideas have been advanced through persuasion. (Irwin, as cited in Katula, pp. 29-30).
The dialectic argument put forth here is a matter of ethics. Rhetoric is no good for society—making it’s practice unethical.
Is Plato right? Is rhetoric (read: marketing) evil?
No. And here’s why:
Name three “wrong ideas” that “have been advanced through persuasion.”
Go.
Off the top of my head: (1) subprime mortgages are a great idea, (2) women don’t need to be paid as much as men, and (3) crocs are stylish.
Okay, maybe not the last one.
Now name three “right ideas” that “have been advanced through persuasion.”
Go.
Off the top of my head: (1) the US should have a national park system, (2) people should have access to clean drinking water, and (3) smoking can cause cancer.
The point: tools are neutral.
Tools are neutral.
Are guns unethical? Guns kill people.
Are cars unethical? Cars kill people.
Are hammers unethical? …you get the point.
Plato’s student Aristotle went on to argue against his teacher: namely that rhetoric is a
“neutral tool that can be used by persons of virtuous or depraved character” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Nothing new under the sun
And really, what other than persuasion are we working on in marketing?
When I was working for Spectrum, we always made sure to stress the importance of delivering the right message to the right person at the right time to maximize marketing’s effectiveness. This too comes right out of Aristotle’s rhetorical playbook.
So is marketing evil?
Nope. After our journey through 2500 years, we’ve come back to Godin’s point: “Just because you can market something doesn’t mean you should.”
What do you think? Is marketing evil? Please share.
-Andrew
Image Credit: Raymond Yee on Flickr; original here
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keywords: Aristotle, ethics, evil, Marketing, Plato, rhetoric
