Bill Bernbach, the godfather of modern American advertising, once observed that our brains are not designed to pursue the truth. Rather, he suggested, our brains are designed to pursue the advantage.
If true, any pursuit of the truth would have to classify as extracurricular, something we choose to do despite our genetic and chemical predispositions, and despite our obvious preference to seek the advantage. That’s not to say that there aren’t certain universal or divine truths. Also not to say that our deliberations can’t arrive on occasion at a place that approximates the truth.
Of course, any pursuit of the truth, divine or otherwise, would need to assiduously avoid all commercial media. After all, his intimate relationship with commercial media was the reason Bill Bernbach made the statement in the first place.
What do you think? Do you agree with Bill Bernbach? And — in the end — does truth serve the advantage, or does the advantage serve the truth?
nicely designed to provoke, the elegance of sophistry.
Beauty:truth, truth:beauty is advantage.
Everything else is phenobarbitrage & camouflage.
Would it were more than minuscule minority were wired for “that is all ye know on earth, & all ye need to know.”
(( “The Know Nothing Party, officially known as the American Party, was a nativist political movement in the United States during the 1850s that opposed immigration and Catholic influence, advocating for the interests of native-born Protestants. Members were instructed to respond "I know nothing" when asked about the party, which led to its nickname.”
Internal contradictions of that particular Not-In-My-Back-Yard-which-was-the-back-yard-of-others-before-i-murdered-many/most-of-them-&-ran-off-or-ghetto’d-the-rest glob aside, Sergeant Schultz & Tyler Durden/The Narrator have been & will continue to be the perennial population bomb they cannot help themselves but to be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ag4nkSh7Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC1yHLp9bWA
NIMBY-Gumby-Oh, No! Mr. Bill (comes due)! :
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zibLSqLpses
))
Whether that’s recognized or not, aligned with more, or less, or not, depends on the advantaged, or disadvantaged, nervous system in question … vis a vis truth, justice & the human way … & as versus the much more prevalent, & virulent, peas-in-a-pod-people-that-can’t/won’t-open pod-doors “HAL” anti-human ways.
Plenty of room for generalizations about “our” brains.
Leave some room for exceptions, too.
Even every general plus/minus 2 sd’s is unique/xception … at the minimized margin individuals are pushed into … until it becomes a huge, stinking, CAFO blight, at least.
But …
“Choosing” has nothing to do with it. Any of it.
The “Grecian Urn” slates aren’t blank. And the instructions aren’t in chalk. The instructions are carved inscriptions. If that’s redundant let it speak to the depth of the abysstructions.
***
You write about rhythm. I think about that, too. Music.
Or it thinks about me & I notice. Canary in the Cohle* mind.
Life is conceived from, into, preexisting music. From between the notes into the notes … &/or vice versa … notables & gaps between tune-teeth.
You *can* tune a piano, but you cannot tune a fish … unless you take liberties with what constitutes “tune” … which I’ve been known to do … because words, language, are thicker than blood & thinner than water.
Some people have perfect pitch, some less than perfect, some are pitched baseballs with tin “ears” (nervous systems) & gap-toothed smiles.
“That pure sound”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_1cv0D1Y64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jseRjSPQGNY
“Ironically” there are plenty of musicians who have “trouble with the curve.”
Relatively fewer, a lot fewer, are truesicians.
***
Truth-beauty-truth is in the same category as liberty for many.
And that, liberty, is mis-heard as insecurity, or hard work, & it’s unwanted.
Tin-nitus-eared, hearing impaired, disabled - not “differently abled.”
Advantage? Yeah, that sounds better. More “security,” please. I wanna be kept/like Rin Tin Tin.
Division of labor, specialization, union shop. “That’s not my responsibility/job.”
Slower traffic hardly ever keeps right, anymore. It’s mostly all slower traffic, anymore.
And the machine agrees, & insists, with sanctions galore of all kinds, too: “That’s not your job/responsibility.” So, “Don’t do it - or else.”
***
The sound of silence is the space between the notes … the sound of one hand clapping holds all the music in the other hand as it tries getting your attention: “listen, hear.”
Kodachrome man can read the writing on the wall, & the rhymin’ Paul Simon posters, & that is good, but can he read the wall? That would be even better.
Not just read - comprehend.
And not just lowest common denominator comprehend - the better to turn those walls to manipulative self-advantage & to other-disadvantage.
Blakeprehension: you put the walls up, now take them down.
But Blake was Blake & nobody else will ever be Blake.
And “go thou & do likewise” is an uncorrected note.
Because/besides “you” didn’t put up the walls.
Conception did that.
Demolition ability came at conception, too. Or it didn’t. Or whatever in-between an individual got at the little big bang fuse.
Truesicians make mistakes. And learn.
Too many musicians double-major specialize in mistakes … and not learning.
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. Frank Zappa
“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” ― Miles Davis
Hollywood, theater, ‘are you not entertained?’ Coliseum seat-warmer? - suspension of disbelief ossified into manipulated V-reality - is all about blank slates happified endings & 0 to 160 in nuthin’ flat:
~ 29:48
https://archive.org/details/shout-1991-dramady-musical
Tablature is training wheels.
The whole point of training wheels is to dispense with them, as soon as possible.
That goes just the same for lesser languages, like English, too.
Which one is mad? Yes, a trick question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vryBKvh4tEQ
Heads they win, tails you lose, you can have any color you want so long as it’s black, “or” blue dems, “or” red repubs … flip ‘em if you got ‘em, but obverse/reverse scams & reverse repo scams & FedRes/cue scams are all the same lesser evil manipulations … so maybe just pocket the coins & walk … before the plank is all that is left to you:
***
Bernbach had clouded lenses in his eyes that led to, eventuated in, thickening & widening occupational cataracts. Like Bernays. And book-cookers. And bankers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_eyeshade#/media/File:Visorlayout.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banker%27s_lamp#/media/File:Desk_lamp.jpg
How Green Was My Valley Of The Dolls, Dollars, & Predators:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdPxyAWV7FE
Burn Down The Mission … now there’s a “torch of freedom” (Bernays hooking the hookable womenfolk on smoking cigarettes … & posing just as “cool” as the hooked menfolk):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGG4G8_wPGk&list=RDEGG4G8_wPGk&start_radio=1
The Mission … redemption? No. Too much tablature. Too many uncorrected notes in a row. Too late. Better luck at being able to try harder next time. If there is a next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdS3QJ5gjKk
***
*They’re both right. But Rust Cohle is more right, closer to the truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RfUj09pWfM
***
After my last post I thought about Emily Oster, & her amnesty assertion.
Went to review her outside pitch. The Atlantic has it paywalled. And Laurene Powell Jobs - very much of that Hole-In-The-Wall-piece-of-work-Gang - already has too much money to misuse.
But I crossed a FEE piece (Foundation for Economic Education) that speaks to the order of things, the rhythm. Torah(too)say:
https://fee.org/articles/the-problem-with-declaring-a-pandemic-amnesty/
Tora tora tora … Toro toro toro … every Zorro has his day … but not so many as the buynary zeros & ones spit-swapping mono back & forth do.
Ethel Merman, George Gershwin. I got rhythm, I got music …:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ViCaVW5JWs&list=RD7ViCaVW5JWs&start_radio=1
Balance is rhythm. But first beat isn’t second beat. One & two are not interchangeable. And swapping them puts the cart before the horse & expects the puller to become a pusher.
“Pssst … the first one’s free, kid.”
***
After my last post I also baked a cheesecake. Basque style. Crustless. No water-bath. “Burnt.” With pomegranate molasses.
Now I know those Separatists are onto something.
German, like grandma used to make, & Jewish, “New York,” like fave Reuben sandwich delis make, must now compete for second place.
The (manu)mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to burn down the mission.
And “burn” up the cheesecake.