Humanity’s Madness Would Not Be Possible Without Extensive Marketing

 

 
by Caitlin Johnstone

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that inhaling cigarette smoke into their lungs all the time is a nice thing to do.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that Mountain Dew is something they should put into their bodies.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that Madonna should be famous.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to women that they should always feel somewhat to severely uncomfortable with the way they look.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to women that slicing apart their bodies to be more attractive is something sane that they should do.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that women should not have pubic hair.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to men to spend hours at the gym building up muscles they'll never actually need to use.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that they need to drive their car to a room where they run in place for thirty minutes and then drive home again.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that fabric designed to cover the body can go "out of style".

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people to believe in an invisible patriarchal god whose church must be believed and funded on pain of eternal torture.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that being overwhelmed at work means they need better stress management instead of better unions.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that widespread depression and anxiety are a sign that they need to take more pills instead of a sign that they need to drastically change society.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that something which grows in the ground should be illegal.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that anyone should be locked in a cage for having an addiction.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that you could own land that you don't live on and tend to.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people to worry about nations on the other side of the world who have never harmed them in any way.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that they should accept their nation's wealth and resources being continuously used to kill strangers in endless wars.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to anyone that murdering human beings in other countries is a good career path for young people.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that opaque military powers brandishing armageddon weapons at each other all the time is something we should allow to continue.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that deliberately starving children whose government disobeys their government is no big deal.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that human life should be spent and gambled like pennies over elite struggles for unipolar planetary domination.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that it's normal for some of them to become homeless or go without medical treatment because they don't have the right amount of imaginary numbers in their bank account.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that it's normal to spend eight hours a day doing something you hate to no benefit other than the imaginary numbers in the bank accounts of shareholders.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that humanity's collective behavior should be governed by a desire to add more imaginary numbers to one's bank account.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people to throw the entire ecosystemic context in which they evolved into the gears of a machine which generates imaginary numbers for their bank accounts.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that scores of species going extinct forever every single day is not cause for extreme alarm.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that a two-party system which promotes the same policies in both parties should be called "democracy".

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that billionaire oligarchs in Silicon Valley should control how humans communicate around the world.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that in order to give money to poor people, you should give it to rich people.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that it's fine for someone who works no harder than they do to make a thousand times as much.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that their governments should pour money into massive corporations and the military but not into taking care of their own citizenry.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that some humans are superior to other humans.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that some people ought to have power over other people.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that a few rich people should control the information that people consume which governs their thoughts, actions and votes.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that any of this is normal.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that the young should spend their childhoods in buildings where they are trained to believe that all this is normal.

Without extensive marketing it would never have occurred to people that they should spend hours staring at screens which train them to believe that all this is normal.

Without extensive marketing, none of this madness would be possible at all.

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