The flaw in our system of trust becomes more exposed when looking at past incidents where an argument of a propaganda had changed. When at one time we were told to believe a certain thing in a certain way, then suddenly forced to pivot, based on new information. Of course, the frustrating part being the good chances that the only reason for even caring about the thing in the first place was because of propaganda: the use of symbols, repetition, and various appeals by marketers, advertisers and information brokers to sell products, people, and ideas to the public without the use of physical coercion.
A commonly used and effective appeal, is the appeal to authority.
The clean diesel myth
“Everyone believed Volkswagen’s clean diesel fantasy. Maybe we wanted it. Maybe some needed it.”[1]
Volkswagen did the impossible: they changed the public image of diesel engines from a stinky dirty polluter into an eco-friendly hero, and the advertising was “fun” and persuasive[2]:
“For the eco-conscious and the high-performance-conscious.
We build our fuel-efficient vehicles so that you’ll have a great time passing all those other fuel-efficient vehicles out there. The steering wheel is more fun to turn. The accelerator is more fun to press. And because stopping for fuel is as much “fun” as it’s always been, our hybrid and TDI Clean Diesel vehicles are designed to allow you to stop less and go more.”
“TDI vehicles use clean diesel fuel and advanced engineering to achieve up to 43 miles per gallon with a range of up to 795 miles. That’s up to 30% better fuel economy than comparable gas engines.”
Whether you believed this fairy tale at the time didn’t matter. Questioning the narrative was not allowed. Then when it was discovered that some of the “advanced engineering” was manipulation through software to detect when the car was on a dynamometer being performance tested (i.e. no “fun” stuff happening like turning the steering wheel or pressing the accelerator), the message had to change.
Martin Winterkorn received a doctorate in 1977. He became CEO of Volkswagen in 2007, the year before the company introduced it’s new line of “Clean Diesel” vehicles. He remained CEO until 2015 when the allegations of the emissions scandal had surfaced. He issued a heartfelt apology[3]
“I personally am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public. We will cooperate fully with the responsible agencies, with transparency and urgency, to clearly, openly and completely establish all of the facts of this case.”
Although he has been charged with crimes in the US and Germany, he has yet to be sentenced or see a trial.
The smartest guys in the room
“Still, it’s hard not to wish for that naïve time when Enron was shocking, when we believed President Bush when he said that Sarbanes-Oxley would rein in greed, and when we really, truly thought that the act of putting Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay behind bars would solve everything.”[4]
Enron was in to everything: they traded in over 30 different products, and the appearance of trustworthiness (and fun) was reinforced using persuasive language [4]:
OUR VALUES
RESPECT: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.
INTEGRITY: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.
COMMUNICATION: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another . . . and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.
EXCELLENCE: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.
— From Enron’s 1998 Annual Report
It’s easy to be skeptical now, but how do you question what was considered at the time to be the most innovative company? When the company went bankrupt in 2001, and it was discovered that they had defrauded investors and customers for mucho dinero, the message had to change.
Kenneth Lay received a doctorate in 1970. He founded Enron through a merger in 1985 and was CEO until he stepped down in February 2001, only to return to the position later in August as the company was in a tailspin. He did not apologize[5]:
“I respectfully ask you not to draw a negative inference because I am asserting my Fifth Amendment constitutional protection on instruction from counsel.”
Although he had been found guilty of several crimes, he died before the sentencing hearing.
Violating the airwaves, a public trust
“[The co-producer] also told me that the show was merely entertainment and that giving help to quiz contests was a common practice and merely a part of show business. This of course was not true, but perhaps I wanted to believe him.”[6]
In the early years of television, TV quiz show contestants appear to know everything. Sweating in a soundproof isolation booth, answering obscure long-form five-part questions, attracted millions of viewers to the new medium… who wanted to watch the money for fun[7]:
Do You Qualify for TV Quiz?
So you fancy yourself a quiz kid? So you want to get on a television quiz show and make a fortune?
Well, here are some of the 100 questions which, until a new batch was cooked up recently, were answered by every hopeful seeking to appear on the National Broadcasting Co. quiz show Twenty One.
Producers of shows like Twenty One thought they themselves had hit the jackpot. They could sell advertising to big business, and give the audience the illusion of big instant winning, all while claiming to further the cause of education by turning the TV of millions of homes into a classroom each week. Then it was uncovered that contestants of many of these shows were given the answers in advance, so the message had to change.
Charles Van Doren received a doctorate in 1955. He will become a contestant on Twenty One in 1957 and be given the answers to the questions in advance. He will win $129,000 in cash while on the show, and following that run received an NBC contract worth $50K/year, committing him to a minimum of one appearance a week on the network[8]. He will commit perjury during the initial investigation, eventually being arrested for it [9], but did come clean to the House Investigation of Television Quiz Shows in a long prepared statement with his lawyer by his side [6]:
[Albert Freedman] also stressed the fact that by appearing on a nationally televised program I would be doing a great service to the intellectual life, to teachers and to education in general, by increasing public respect for the work of the mind through my performances. In fact, I think I have done a disservice to all of them. I deeply regret this, since I believe nothing is of more vital importance to our civilization than education.
Charlie will lose two jobs as a result: the lucrative NBC contract and his teaching job at Columbia University.
Furthering the cause of education by the educated
What’s maybe even more fantastical is that the producers of Twenty One, Freedman and company, will recycle their successful formula of fabrication in the summer of 1957 to produce another show using Charlie’s younger brother.[8]
“That Van Doren family is all over the broadcasting scene. Now it’s John Van Doren (Charles’ 29-year-old brother) who will trade knowledge for money as a regular panelist in “High-Low”, the NBC quiz game which will be unveiled July 4. John, a resident of Cornwall, Conn., teaches at Brandeis University.”
John was never implicated in the quiz show scandal for receiving answers, but that detail is moot because it was uncovered that the producers could not do this type of show of complex long-form questions, the ones that really showcase their intellectual flex, without doing so. They originally tried and it absolutely failed.
These educated, credentialed people are in the same class which Dostoevsky points out should not even have to lie, but yet they do. And we trust them because we think, “why should they lie?” They are the people propped up (repetition) with their credentials (symbols) as an authority (appeal) by marketers, advertisers and information brokers to sell products, people, and ideas to the public without the use of physical coercion.
Charlie’s parents, Mark and Dorothy, were both involved in the massive propaganda network made up by the publishing world working with the government during World War II. It was so big, in fact, that we still get new WWII-era content being produced almost every month. That propaganda never sleeps. And Mark’s best friend, Archibald MacLeish, was a major influence and is perhaps one of that era’s greatest propagandists… and he gets no credit for it.
That’s next.
Notes:
[1]“We Have All Been Smoked by Volkswagen”, Chicago Tribune, Sep 27, 2015, Phil Rosenthal
[2]Fremont Volkswagen Advertisment (2013, Feb 2). For the eco-conscious and the high-performance-conscious. Casper Star-Tribune (Casper, Wyoming), p. C12.
[3]“VW Halts Diesel Sales”, The South Bend Tribune, Sep 21, 2015, USA TODAY, Nathan Bomey
[4]McLean, Bethany & Elkind, Peter (2012). The smartest guys in the room : the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron. Penguin Group.
[5] “Man with few words gets earful of criticism”, Journal and Courier, Feb 13, 2002, The Washington Post, Susan Schmidt
[6] “The Truth Is the Only Thing with Which a Man Can Live”: Quiz Show Contestant Charles Van Doren Publicly Confesses to Deceiving His Television Audience. TESTIMONY OF CHARLES VAN DOREN, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS ATTORNEY, CARL J. RUBINO, Congress, House, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Investigation of Television Quiz Shows, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., November 2–6, 1959 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960). http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6566
[7]“Do You Qualify for TV Quiz?”. Asbury Park Press, Sep 15, 1957, Cynthia Lowry, Associated Press, New York
[8] “Van Doren to Remain In Teaching — Also NBC”. Democrat and Chronicle, Jun 27, 1957, Marie Torre, New York Herald Tribune, Inc
[9] “Van Doren, Other TV Quiz Stars, Purjured Selves”. Reno Evening Gazette, Oct 17, 1960, Associated Press, New York, p. 1