Talk:Vance Packard
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Well, I think that Vance was 40 decades ahead of what was comming. Just cinsider the recent book "Behind the Scenes" (http://users.tpg.com.au/triems/).
The only intelectual effort required is to replace "persuaders" with "entertainers".
the work of vance packard shaped my thinking as a high schooler. the hidden persuaders was an eye opener. if more people read his work maybe gangsters like bush wouldn't get away with murder. read seveal of his works for american government class in h.s. it was pretty much required reading then.
hidden persuaders is a masterpiece
Comment - sans political observation,
As the previous poster, I too was assigned Packard's book in 1959 as a high school junior - a pre-baby-boomer by several years. Having later been exposed to a rigorous education in biological and economic science followed by a career in behavioral science, I look back on that reading as a wake-up call to the world around me and an important catalyst in the early development of my analytic abilities not only as a consumer, but as scientist and citizen as well. I think that the piece on "The Hidden Persuaders" here does a disservice to that work by taking it out of its time and judging it by more rigorous analytic standards (he was only a journalist) and current values, which is to say, values highly influenced by just those superficial and fabricated persuaders that Packard was calling attention to and softly warning against. I don't think I'm being too curmudgeonly when I point out that there are now generations of young and middle-aged Americans who, never having been exposed to Packard (or an udated exposition of equivalent scope and, perhaps, greater rigor) that are being haplessly buffeted around with little more than made-for-tv values while trying to navigate a world obsessed with "persuading" them to vote this way or that, think this way or that, and to consume this product or that. The book deserves a better review and an updated version of the book should be written and assigned as manditory reading in all secondary schools.
