Thread by @KrisAtLarge

let us follow up on this.

I don't know if it's possible easily to demonstrate that #capitalism requires trauma (although I am sure that it does) but it is certain, at least, that #marketing requires trauma.

"psychological #advertising" works on buried trauma.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/KrisAtLarge/status/1615831826832183297

American right-wing chat, dominated by "manly" persons of the @MattWalshBlog / @benshapiro / @JackPosobiec sort, pretends that only cops and soldiers suffer trauma—as if (say) child abuse victims, or marginalized persons enduring routine bıgotry, aren't also traumatized.

(2/x)

in reality, trauma is everywhere. Western society is harsh and cruel— "competitive", Mr. @dick_nixon and other defenders of #capitalism might say. life is hard, suck it up, etc.

we've had decades and *centuries* of indoctrination in the purported virtues of _austerity_.

(3/x)

there's a reason for the propaganda: a cruel society is useful to #marketing.

a harsh and violent society, one that habitually abuses it children and forces people to fight each other, is a society that is easier to manipulate through the selective application of *pain*.

(4/x)

thus does #advertising exploit trauma: marketing psychologists scrutinize human behavior for flaws and weaknesses—sore spots that marketing can target.

let's say you wish to sell dish soap, for example.

*doing the dishes* is, in abusive families, a form of punishment.

(5/x)

so is doing laundry, sweeping the floor, dusting things, and all that other necessary household stuff: these activities, in Western society, are "chores". there's a general sense in Western culture that chores *need* to be unpleasant, because how else would anyone do them?

(6/x)

does that sound absurd? it is.

Western society, right-wing society especially, is positively intoxicated with the conviction that *necessary* jobs "need" to be punitive. why? it's what people remember from childhood.

they recall doing dishes, laundry, &c. as punishment.

(7/x)

that's a *gift* to the #advertising and #marketing people, who know that they can sell soap with the help of buried traumatic memories about doing the dishes.

consider, for example, the phenomenon of *water spots* on dishes—slight residues left when water drops evaporate.

(8/x)

municipal tap water in the United States is highly variable, especially after decades of right-wing doctrine. @GOP lawmakers (and some of @TheDemocrats) recognize no public duty to furnish the people with good drinking water.

but even clean tap water has dissolved salts.

(9/x)

hence drops of tap water, evaporating on dishes and glasses, leaves behind *spots*.

abusive parents are inclined to _punish_ children for leaving spots on dishes. abusers (@MattWalshBlog, say) tend to be fixated on cleanness, and fearful of blotches on pristine things.

(10/x)

the spots do no particular harm—if the water is good then the residues are likely to be salts of sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. (if a @GOP crook like @RonDeSantisFL is running the state, there's likely to be worse things in the water than some mineral salts.)

(11/x)

but water-spots on dishes are—to the suitably trained mind—*unsightly*. they're blemishes, signs of impurity and failure, the sort of thing that an abusive parent (@MattBruenig, say) is apt to use as a pretext for an angry or even violent outburst about "discipline".

(12/x)

canny #advertising and #marketing people know how to exploit this tendency. they create advertisements that linger over the sinfulness of water-spots on dishes—and people with buried memories of parental abuse over water spots on dishes will respond to those ad campaigns.

(13/x)

the abuse has left a scar, and marketers are expert at prodding or *punching* at such scars.

being reminded of old injuries and old pains _makes people do things_. feeling pain—especially pain with no clear source—is unpleasant. people do things to try to stop the pain.

(14/x)

they *buy* things to try to soothe the pain.

and that's how #capitalism makes a good deal of its money—through #marketing that skillfully exploits and *reinforces* our childhood traumas.

~Chara of Pnictogen

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