Gillette recently ignited a fire on social media with it’s the Best Men Can Be themed advertisement. The name is, of course, best on Gillette’s classic advertising line—”the best a man can get.” As would be expected, the likes of Piers Morgan and James Wood responded harshly. In the case of Morgan, he accused Gillette of virtue signaling, fueling the “global assault on masculinity” and called for us to “Let boys be damn boys” and to “Let men be damn men.” Woods merely noted that Gillette was jumping on the “men are horrible” bandwagon and said that he was done with using Gillette products. Other men were not upset by the ad at all, noting that its message appeared to be “Don’t be a jerk. Don’t raise a jerk. Call out other men being for jerks.” And, of course, some pointed out that Gillette was just trying to sell more razors and shaving cream. While I will not attempt to see it through the eyes of those who hate it, I will address the philosophically interesting aspects of virtue advertising.
While some loath the content of the advertisement, it is advancing a set of values, advocating certain behavior and encouraging men to serve as role-models by acting on those values. It is, of course, doing this to sell razors and shaving cream. From a moral standpoint, this raises two questions. The first is whether the values being advanced are morally good. The second is whether the motivation is relevant.
Since I generally follow Aristotle’s virtue theory, I think that men should be the best they can be. Intuitively, this seems morally commendable—that men should be the best they can be seems to be morally obvious and the burden of proof would rest on those who would deny it. The real dispute is over what it is to be the best.
Each society and subgroup has its own notion of what it is to be the best man and the easy answer is to just go with what the society or subgroup asserts. The obvious problem with is approach is that such relativism collapses into subjectivism and that collapses into moral nihilism (“morally best” refers to nothing). This puts an end to moral discussion, so one must accept moral objectivity to enable the discussion to progress.
While the response to the ad from Morgan and Woods would seem to suggest that the values it advances are wicked, this is not the case. The values endorsed seem to be classic virtues, such as respect and courage. For example, one man rushes to stop a group of boys who are attacking another boy—which is a virtuous act. As another example, one man is shown talking another man out of harassing a woman—which is also a virtuous act. To treat others with respect and to protect those who need protection certain seem to be what good men should do, hence it would be odd to condemn the ad. But perhaps the critics did not take issue with these values, but with another aspect of the ad.
While the ad ends with displays of virtuous behavior, it begins by showing men and boys behaving badly, such as talking over a woman at a business meeting and laughing at sexual harassment in a sitcom. It does make sense that the like of Morgan and Woods would be angry at this—they see it as an attack on men aimed at showing that all men are terrible. The problem with this interpretation is the ad obviously does not say that all men are horrible. As noted above, the second part of the ad presents men acting ethically. As such, the ad simply says the obvious: some men are awful, some are good. Its message is also quite benign: don’t be awful, be the best you can be. There seems to be nothing here to take issue with, unless one thinks that behavior such as bullying and sexual harassment are morally fine. In that case, the problem lies with those who think this and not with the ad.
Some might object to being preached at by a company trying to sell razors and shaving cream by virtue signaling. This is a reasonable objection and people are free to not watch the ad or complain about this technique. However, the motivation of the company is irrelevant to the correctness (or incorrectness) of the claims and values in the ad. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem—that the motivation of someone making a claim makes their claim false (or true). Even if Gillette is cynically trying to sell more razors and shaving cream and could care less about men being their best, the claims and values presented in the ad stand or fall on their own. Naturally, it is reasonable to condemn or praise the folks at Gillette based on their motives, but that is another ethical issue distinct from whether some men behave badly and whether being the best men means acting in the ways presented in the ad. I certainly agree that if Gillette is cynically exploiting values it does not endorse, then that would certainly be morally dubious behavior—but, once again, this is not relevant to whether the claims and values expressed are right or not.
This analysis is wrong on many levels.
Lets start with the right of the management of a business to effectively steal shareholders funds to push personal agendas. It is one thing to for a company to virtue signal when doing so builds sales and profits even if it is just cynical tactic. But in this case – grievously insulting a large number of your customers is far more likely to reduce sales and profits.
The job of a business is to sell quality products at fair prices to their customers, pay a just wage to their employees and make a profit for their shareholders. It is not to take a side in social controversies that have nothing to do with their area of expertise. Whatever side they take they will be working against the interests and values of many of their customers, employees and shareholders.
As to the Gillette add. you misrepresent what it is actually saying. It doesn’t say that some men are awful and the rest of us need to intervene to change them. It says most men are awful, that this awfulness stems from masculinity itself and that we need to have a good long look at ourselves and stop being reprobates. It accompanies this message with visuals that depict men as brain dead morons, like the mantra chanting conga line of men at the BBQ. The add is quite toxic which anyone could plainly see in a half a second if they imagined a gender reversed version of this add.
“…As would be expected, the likes of Piers Morgan and James Wood responded harshly.”
As is all to common, this whole issue has been reduced to “left” vs “right”. Any opinion on this ad is instantly categorized, so that the ignorant, the lazy, or the “followers” can know how to think about it.
The article you linked was quick to point out in their headline that
“Toxic Men Freak Out over Ad Urging Men to Combat Toxic Masculinity”
Of course, based on the next paragraph,
“Some high-profile conservatives … quickly and angrily suggested that the images Gillette showed did in fact represent the best men can get, pledging never to use the company’s products again in the face of its “assault on masculinity.”
…the inference is quite clear. This isn’t about all men. No! Not all men are toxic. But conservative men certainly are!
For the last 25 years or so, I have been told that I am guilty of “microaggressions”. My very lifestyle indicates hostility towards all kinds of minority groups. I’ve been told how unaware I am of these offenses, told through social media, web articles, and even formal training sessions at work. I am told that no matter what language I use, in what context I use it, or what I actually mean by the words I choose, what really matters is how other people react to my words. I am told that my explanations are meaningless, no matter how reasonable they may be.
So why is it that if I, as a reasonable man, take offense at the microaggression and outright misandry of an ad like Gillette’s, my offense marks me as one of the enemy?
(Last week, a Rochester on-air meteorologist with a 20 year career, stumbled over his words. He jumped ahead in pronouncing “Martin Luther King, Junior”, and said “Martin Luther Kunior… er, King, Junior”. No one at the station gave this a second thought – it was a common stumble. But someone heard the word “coon” in there – and the African American mayor of the town went on TV and called for his resignation. This incident has received national attention, and the man’s career, his reputation, his family, and his life have been ruined – not because of his attitudes, not because of what he meant, not because of his long history of excellence in broadcasting, and certainly not because of an entire life free of any hint of racism – but rather, because of how someone else decided to interpret, and be offended by, his completely innocent stumble).
So do we believe the actual intent of the weatherman, understand who he is and the verbal challenges under which he works? Or do we jump on the meme, the popular trend, the unassailable wave that will not tolerate even the slightest hint of departure?
We are told over and over again to believe the word of the offended, not the explanation of the offender. It’s actually written into HR policy at academic institutions and corporations; compliance with these policies is required for advancement, and (on the part of the institutions) for federal funding.
But, in the case of this Gillette ad, if I am offended, as a man, as a masculine human being, at the intimation that I am somehow to be stereotyped as “toxic”, why is my offense not only disregarded, but turned against me, resulting in the accusation that I am by virtue of my offense “Toxic” and worse – maybe even Conservative or a (gasp) Trump Supporter!
In another world, Donald Trump has complained publicly that there are many Mexicans crossing the border illegally who are drug smugglers, human traffickers, gun runners, and other criminals, determined to break our laws and disrupt our lives in this country.
Reasonable people completely understand his words. He’s not making the case that all Mexicans are like this – he is focused on all Mexicans who fit this description. He has explained this many times, his supporters have explained this, the Republican Party has issued official statements to this end.
But his words are taken as interpreted by his detractors – he is a racist, a xenophobe, and worse. Is that interpretation genuine? Or is it politically motivated? Or does that really matter?
The same is true of terrorists. While it is absolutely true that not all Muslims are terrorists, and also true that a vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people, it is also true that according to the World Terrorism Index and other very credible sources, a significantly large majority of terrorist acts that result in death or injury around the world are perpetrated by Muslim or Islamic extremists.
But – in this world of political correctness, to point that out and try to identify the extremists among their peaceful Muslim counterparts is somehow a racist act.
So then we come to the issue of “men”. Men have become a targeted group within the #meToo movement; if there is ever a question about a situation in which a woman, without proof or even evidence, claims to have been the victim of a man’s “bad behavior”, it is politically incorrect to disbelieve the woman. How many times, in an academic or intellectual discourse, are we accused of “Mansplaining”, even in the context of speaking on topics where we are credentialed, published, and have recognized professional expertise?
We live in a world where “Toxic Masculinity” is a real thing – a major concern, a topic that is frequently discussed among groups that will not tolerate opposition.
In the same way that “Illegal Immigration” has become conflated with “Immigration”, and “Islamist Extremism” is conflated with “Islam” – thus shifting the focus from the real criminal to the racist, xenophobic accuser, so has “Toxic Masculinity” become conflated with “Masculinity”, and anyone who dares defending one’s own definition of “what it means to be a man” is soundly demonized and assigned, by very virtue of the defense, to that group of “Toxic Men”.
There is actually a definition of “Toxic Masculinity”, one which starts out with some fairly valid and benign descriptions, but ultimately fails completely:
“Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression.”
OK. So far so good. I’ll buy that.
“It’s the cultural ideal of manliness”
wait … what? Whose culture? Whose ideal? Where was the survey? Was I asked? This is the beginning of the feminist-misanthropic view of all masculinity – as though it’s some kind of disease. It continues ..
“…the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away.”
No one asked me about this. Did they ask you? Is this you?
By this definition, then, “Toxic Masculinity” is the norm – it is a cultural ideal, a prototypical definition. And anyone who doesn’t fit that definition (like an honest Mexican who only wants to come to this country to make a better life, or a peaceful Muslim) is a rare exception to that rule, that ideal, that over-arching definition. (But deep down, he probably sides with his toxic “bros”, doesn’t he? You can’t fool us!)
Except that the rules are different, depending on whether or not you are talking about a Mexican, a Muslim, or a Man. If you make a blanket assumption about one of the former, you are a racist – but if you make a blanket assumption about a “man”, you’re probably correct.
Conversely, if you object to the stereotype of the Mexican or the Muslim, you are an honest, truth-seeking, compassionate, open-minded person. If you object to the stereotype of the man – well you’re probably just a man – or worse, a conservative man. And we all know about conservative men, don’t we? “Trump Supporters”. “Racists”. “Xenophobes”. “Misogynists”. Trump! Kavanaugh!
And so we have a meme. Men suck. Some men are abusers, bullies, misogynists, sexists, brutes, boors, assholes . Some men, of course, are not. But where to draw the line?
We hear every day about Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, John Conyers, and dozens of others (even that boy scout Garrison Keillor, the poster child of NPR!). These men are on everyone’s Facebook and Google news feeds every day – so it’s no wonder that someone like Brett Kavanaugh could be thrown on that pile. After all, he’s a man, isn’t he? And he was accused by a woman, wasn’t he? Well, given the preponderance of evidence against those other miscreants, well, I repeat: he’s a man, isn’t he? “Guilty!”
Men like us, though, who love and respect our wives, who treat women in the workplace no differently than any others, who are as comfortable fixing the plumbing as we are doing the grocery shopping, cooking dinner, doing the dishes, and caring for our children – well, we just don’t make the news, do we?
Where’s the headline? “NEW YORK MAN TAKES CHILDREN TO THE PARK, WHILE CEO WIFE SPEARHEADS IPO!”
So what we have here is a meme. A commonly held belief, backed by billions of #meToo posts on Facebook, whether accurate or not.
There are some ethnic, gender and social groups who are officially protected by the US Government, members of which if, discriminated against in word or deed, have official legal standing by which to seek recourse.
There are other ethnic, gender, and social groups who, while not officially “on the list”, can claim a kind of allegiance or solidarity with the protected classes, and while unable to seek legal recourse against their perceived oppressors, can certainly find ways to “out” them publicly, turn them into social pariahs, and ruin them that way.
And then there are men. White men, in particular, and especially Conservative White Men. We seem to be the only “unprotected” class in the US these days. I guess our days of dominance are over, and it’s open season on us.
Which brings me to my point. Gillette’s ad, as you say, is an unapologetic quest for profit. And in that quest, it is leveraging, and even exploiting, a completely false, but commonly held belief that “Most, if not All, Men Are Guilty of Toxic Masculinity”.
This ad is no different from the ads of the 1950’s that pictured women, in cultured pearls and cloth aprons, standing in the kitchen worrying about what to cook for dinner. It is capitalizing on a stereotype that is false, ignorant, and downright insulting – but very widely held, nonetheless.
And to say “Oh, gee, well that’s not what they mean! is equally insulting. Why not put out an ad targeted to Mexicans, with the message, “hey, Jose – if you want to come to this country and stay here, just stop stealing!”
Or one to Muslims – “Here’s how a real peaceful Muslim should act. If you’d only stop killing people, maybe we’d be more accepting of you!”
I wonder how that ad would fly, one that just demonstrates Muslims behaving themselves, and maybe running out into the village square stopping other Muslims from blowing themselves up with a suicide vest.
(“we’re not saying all Muslims blow themselves up! How could you think that? No – we’re just demonstrating how a good Muslim should act!”)
Mike, you and I watch the same videos for our “diversity training” class. Who is the one rubbing the shoulders of the female Asian receptionist? Who is the one selecting the task force of “men”?” Who is the one who, if you don’t know who the offender is in the multiple choice quiz, is your best guess?
And why is it impossible to defend against a painfully obvious stumble of words with an even more obvious and reasonable explanation, as in the case of Jeremy Kappell? Why is it impossible to defend the civil liberties and rights to privacy and rules of evidence when merely accused by a woman, as in the case of Brett Kavanaugh?
Why, in simple daily pleasures like crossword puzzles of all things, do constructors get excoriated for answers like “Go OK” because, when scrunched together in a four-letter grid they merely look like an archaic slur left over from the Korean war – but when the same rules are applied to men, well, the bias is correct, the common prejudiced perception is acceptable, and the men, no matter how they protest and pretend not to be, are toxic. (We all know this, don’t we, ladies? And men – as for you – if you don’t agree, well, you must be toxic too! And don’t think we won’t call you out! Just look at Piers Morgan and James Woods! Don’t think you won’t be next!)
And Gillette certainly didn’t mean anything by it, did they?
Final thought here –
While it may seem as though I’m coming down on the side of conservatives, or on the side of that horrid Piers Morgan or the equally despicable James Woods, I’m really not.
I’m coming down on the side of truth. And I’m shouting, practically screaming, on the side of “Critical
Thinking” as opposed to “Groupthink” or “Memes” or “Political Correctness”, which have taken over this country, backed by a bunch of intolerant Word Police Storm Troopers, telling us what is OK and what is not OK. And forget the First Amendment, right? The government is helpless. But WE can ruin people’s lives, and the constitution protects us!
Here is some truth:
“There are some men who act like boors, who define their manhood by violence, sex, status, and aggression. These men are problematic to our society, and need to be dealt with harshly”
“There are other men, very likely in the overwhelming majority, who do not engage in the above behavior, and it is not only inappropriate, but dishonest to characterize or even hint at the characterization of this group as being even remotely similar to the “bad” group of men. “
So now we can play the substitution game, as follows:
“There are some [Mexicans, Muslims, Others] who act like boors, who
define their manhood by violence, sex, status, and aggressioncommit crimes when they come to America. These men are problematic to our society, and need to be dealt with harshly”“There are other [Mexicans, Muslims, Others], very likely in the overwhelming majority, who do not engage in the above behavior, and it is not only inappropriate, but
dishonestdownright racist to characterize or even hint at the characterization of this group as being even remotely similar to the “bad” group of [Mexicans, Muslims, Others]. “A company like Gillette certainly knows its audience. They have done their market research, they know who follows Facebook, they know who “falls in line” with liberal idealism and political correctness.
They had a choice – they could deal with the “truth” of masculinity, and not descend into this miasma of opinion, lies, bigotry, “PC” attitudes and false, but oh-so-commonly held beliefs,
Or they could jump on the bandwagon and ignore and even avoid the truth, perpetrate the stereotypes, and sell more razors.
If you were an inscrutable capitalist with no morals, what would you do?
Oh, and by the way, I also hate the Patriots.
I feel bad adding to the chatter about this.
Why did the management of the company do it?
It wasn’t for the stated reason, as a means to improve men’s behaviour. Any teacher, psychologist, most parents, and certainly anyone who has taken even a basic course in marketing knows that the most effective way to influence people towards desired behaviour is to showcase it with a reward message. Showcasing the undesired behaviour with a negative message is counter-productive. I consider it near to impossible that a major company like that created such a high profile splash without getting input from someone who knows the findings and experiences from so many domains.
If they wanted to improve behaviour, they would create an ad showing their preferred behaviour with a positive and feel-good message. I read that Somebody On The Internet with enough interest estimated that there was about 25 times as much bad behaviour as good shown. So no, I dismiss any possibility that this was any attempt to improve behaviour.
Even more impossible, as I see it, is that anyone involved in the making of the ad was unaware of the MTV “Dear White Guys” ad, to which this is remarkably similar. That ad was infamous for a day, until MTV pulled it and did their best to cover it over. (Of course, people copied it and reposted it, so it’s still available.) So the people who placed this ad knew the reaction it was going to get. Therefore, they wanted this reaction.
Why did they want this reaction:
1. “To start a conversation”. This possibility is at least somewhat in line with their statement. If this has any part in their intent, we should be scheduled to see a series of ads to follow, showcasing what they consider good behaviour, with aspirational messaging.
2. To distract from the increasing criticism against them for price-gouging women who buy their razors with the “Pink Tax”, an increased cost for the same thing but coloured pink.
3. To make their brand name more prominent at a time when both their market share and their margin is eroding and their brand value is declining, in the belief that “There is no such thing as bad publicity”.
4. To fit in with some planned business strategy – disposal, acquisition, line of products – that is not yet public.
Of course, a mix of all four is possible. Personally, my money is on #3, but I can’t be as certain of that as I am that they knew this ad by itself would run counter to their stated aim.
From a purely marketing standpoint, there is an interesting article in Forbes magazine, discussing what the author calls the “Brand Risk-Relevance” curve. This curve assesses the risk of negative publicity for a given company as their ads become incrementally more relevant (or at least how the marketing team defines relevance).
The theory is that a “head in the sand” attitude bears a small amount of risk, which diminishes as the ads gain relevance – moving the perception of the company towards the “aware and with-it” category.
From there, a company can, with increasing relevance and increasing risk, move towards “Values” (low risk), “Purpose”, “Issues”, and “Position”
The highest risk is “Position”, because a company is taking a stand on a controversial issue. The comparison in the article was to IBM supporting the “Dreamers” of the
DACA controversy. “Issues” is somewhat less risky because, while wading into some tension-filled territory, the company stops short of declaring for one side or another.
I think that your first bullet point would be the case if they were on the “Issues” part of this curve, but they have gone beyond that. The comparison in the Forbes article is to the Frito-Lay ads that address suicide among LGBTQ teens. No controversial line in the sand drawn there, just “starting a conversation”.
Anyway, the main point of the article is that Gillette may have done better if they had stopped a little short of the “Position” part of the curve; the risk of negative publicity is being realized.
I still bristle at this idea of political correctness. There is a wide latitude for people and corporations to stereotype men, either directly or by intimation, as “Toxic” – to enough of a degree that you can say, “C’mon, guys! Stop being toxic! You can do better!”
But that latitude narrows substantially with virtually other group – and to even narrowly stereotype a group in the service of correcting bad behavior by some within that group is met with huge blowback, public shaming, accusations of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and worse.
So maybe my objection is not about this ad, specifically – but rather, about the fear of taking a “Position” with other, more protected groups.
“Taking a position” with any group is wrong, except if the criteria are clearly defined and solely on those criteria, not merely statistical correlates. Incorrect at best, with a large possible degree of error, and harmful quite commonly.
We humans are very limited, so we need to keep reminding ourselves of this.
I am now going to hope to ignore this ad and all the lip-flapping and virtue signalling about it in future , though like your comment below “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in.” The marketing types have had their 15 minutes, and that’s more of my attention than they deserve.
The issue with Gillette is certainly an eye-roller and one easily avoided (or so I thought), but it does speak to a couple of larger truths, which make it relevant to this column.
The first is a comment you made …
“…“Taking a position” with any group is wrong, “
…but it does happen every day.
One notable point with regard to this statement, and the Forbes article that I wrote about, is that you’re talking about “right and wrong” from a more global, ethical point of view. Forbes (and Gillette) are much more utilitarian. “Right and Wrong”, according to the “Brand Risk-Relevance” curve are defined much more mathematically. If the move from “Issues” to “Position” results in a net negative perception of the brand, well, then, it was “Wrong”. The opposite is also true.
Advertising often moves from merely selling products on their own merit to selling lifestyles that they would like to identify with their products. Beverages are famous for that – “The Pepsi Generation” is the classic example, but Ford has just come out with their “Little Bit Country / Little Bit Rock ‘n Roll” campaign for their trucks, and associating their brand with hard-working, hard-driving Americans.
There’s a subtle difference here, I think –
Whereas Ford and Pepsi are creating the image they want to sell, saying – “Here, check this out – look how these people are … you can be like them – you are like them …” , Gillette has switched things around a little bit.
They see a meme, an identity, a political stance that already exists, and have jumped right on the bandwagon.
I think this is a little dangerous, because it echoes the same kind of propaganda that is proliferating in this post-truth era, propaganda that is widely publicized, widely believed, but with any basis in fact derived of pure coincidence.
So first there was Trump – and the image of him as a boorish, toxic male who is a sexist and misogynist. (Actually, this groundwork was laid with Romney, whose innocent comment about “Notebooks full of women” created a real PR firestorm for those who chose to promote its unintended meaning). Suddenly, a wave begins to form, with Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, and others – and by the stories’ proliferation and constant repetition on headlines, in Social Media, in blogs, suddenly there is an epidemic, that all men are of that ilk.
I read a comment today on a blog about 2018 having been the “Year of the Woman”:
“The year when Dr. Blasey-Ford came forward to tell her story, only to watch Kavanaugh get a lifetime appointment anyway. When a zillion women relived their own assaults and harassment as the media reported on others’ experiences. Equality remains so far away.”
The assumption, of course, being that despite a lack of evidence, we all know he was guilty – the boorish men’s club still controls … and, of course, speaking of “factual” evidence – maybe “zillion” might not cover all those who have come forward.
And so Gillette – “We don’t know or care what the real facts are. We know what people believe, and if we don’t catch this wave, we’re going to sink”.
It’s a very forward looking position to take – and while it may be controversial now, it will soon be very mainstream.
Trump, in his latest tweet about the feud between himself and Pelosi said something like “They’re looking to 2020, but they will lose … BEST ECONOMY!”
Poor backwards man. “It’s the economy, stupid” is SO 1990’s! No one cares about that anymore.
Take a look at all those who have announced their candidacy for President in 2020. Notice anything similar about them?
I doubt that there will be any issues seriously debated in the upcoming race. Just as Obama supporters were able to deflect any and all criticism with that feared accusation of “Racist!”, so will this campaign focus on gender as a major issue.
Gillette, of course, is focused on market share, but is unwittingly playing into that stereotype, opening up new and different ways for it to be drilled into our heads. It’s a bandwagon, and there will be many, many more.
And I still hate the Patriots.
One notable point with regard to this statement, and the Forbes article that I wrote about, is that you’re talking about “right and wrong” from a more global, ethical point of view.
Yes, it does happen every day, but please note that I am first saying that the statement is factually wrong – incorrect, inaccurate, in conflict with reality – before being morally wrong, “Incorrect at best, with a large possible degree of error, and harmful quite commonly.”
When someone says “[Men / Women / Australians / Scientists / Lawyers / Kantians / Rotarians] [are / do / say / want] X” they are incorrect, except for definitional statements – and for that matter I’m sure I can find people who can be seen as lawyers who don’t practice law and so on. Personally, I think it is accurate to denote all such statements as lies when expressed without at least a quantitative adjective – “some”, “most”, “nearly all” – as qualifier.
Two handy, if oversimplified, bookmarks of mine
https://i.imgur.com/VHzRctC.gif
and same site, but not to fall foul of the bot-dogs:
k1Fmtpb . jpg
Ideally, we would say something like “the probability distribution of an attribute A across the population P is approximated by a normal distribution with mean, variance, and skewness as follows: ….” so instead of saying “Aussies love barbies” we’d keep our mouths shut unless we had viable values for those. Or at the very least make a weaker but less inaccurate statement.
And never again would I have to read in science news stories the dreaded phrase that makes me want to tear my hair out “Scientists today said …”
Anyhow, ads, including this one, work on us because we let them work on us, because we don’t interrupt their collapsing of what we know to be some variant of a normal distribution to a single value, as in that first graph. This is as incorrect in an ad for barbeque grills as it is in this case
Interesting; there is probably a mathematical formula lurking here that companies could use to sort out what approach would yield the most sales with the least risk. Politicians, one presumes, would also love that formula.
“I feel bad adding to the chatter about this.”
So true. I heard about this peripherally, and made a conscious decision to not pay any attention – but then I got sucked in. Sigh,.
“note that I am first saying that the statement is factually wrong – incorrect, inaccurate, in conflict with reality – before being morally wrong …”
Ah. Thank you for the clarification. I did miss that.
But –
In this world it doesn’t really matter if the facts are lacking, does it? Gillette paints a picture of men that millions of people believe to be true – and as long as enough people believe it, they have their bandwagon, they have their followers, they have their sales, they have their image.
On any given issue of any importance (or at least ones getting attention) – the behavior of men, racism, the threat (or lack thereof) of illegal immigration and border crossings, gun control, abortion, etc., etc, etc, the facts rarely, if ever, enter into the real debate. It’s much easier to follow the concepts illustrated in your links. No thinking necessary.
It’s tribalism in a post-truth world.