Two: Lies, Excuses, and Justifications
Political brands are as old as politics itself: the Romans ruled under the brand of the eagle, and had slogans and mottoes such as SPQR that represented qualities they wanted their citizens and enemies alike to attribute to the empire.
Even to the present day, politicians use brand to promote an image they want citizens and voters to have of them - and it is very often not an accurate depiction, but heavily "spun" to suggest that they will serve rather than dominate the people with callus indifference.
This is not unique to American politics: the European Union is constantly stumping to convince people to give their loyalty to the alliance and abandon their former national identities, under the promise that the union will make living better for all. Communism in Europe and Asia made heavy use of marketing to suggest that there would be universal prosperity under their rule, even as people lived in deprivation and misery. Even the terrorist group ISIS promises to provide a better life to those who join and support their cause.
And politics, of course, has a long history of empty rhetoric and false promises that nonetheless seem to have perennial power to herd in the voter and keep the citizens in line - hope springs eternal. Commercial brands have suffered much the same fate, and for the very same reasons.
Diversion: On Government
Having used politics as an example, the author wanders off topic for a while.
He mentions some of the shortcomings of democracy: candidates lie to get elected and don't keep their promises, citizens aren't qualified to choose a leader but vote on superficial qualities, the will of the majority isn't always (or often) fair and just for the minority, and so on.
The people of a nation fare better under a competent dictator who took power by force than an incompetent leader they chose for themselves.
He then provides a list of the basic forms of government, a one-sentence description of a dozen or so of the more well-known "archy" and "ocracy" types - it's too superficial to be worth preserving.
Following a Bad Example
It is all too common that human beings disregard good advice and even their own moral compass when they are desperate to get something that they want. They see someone profit by doing something they know to be wrong, but imitate the behavior because they want the same thing for themselves.
A student cheats in school because they see others doing it, a politician lies and runs a smear campaign because he sees others doing it, an executive engages in unethical conduct because he believes his competitors are doing it. And worse, it becomes so widespread that the absolute worst behavior is canonized as an industry standard.
There's an extended example from British politics, where members of parliament engaged in a war of escalation - or more aptly a war of degradation - in which each party took actions that were blatantly improper and unethical to "retaliate" for similar behavior on the part of the opposing party. An enormous amount of the national budget was wasted on programs and laws that were obviously ill-conceived and bad for the country.
The author then credits the Internet as an open public forum where such misbehavior can be exposed. However, the Internet like the traditional media before it has become jaundiced and unreliable - the preponderance of exaggerations and outright lies cast doubt on the plain-spoken truth, so politics continue to run amok.
Brand Logic and Reasoning
The author considers a number of logical processes that skew our reasoning. Primarily, the manner in which we find meaning in chaos is to seek patterns, and once a pattern is found we tend to ignore or distort information that does not fit the pattern.
Consider the way that we see shapes among the clouds - a puff of vapor has a shape that looks something like a horse. Once we have decided that it is a horse, we ignore the misshapen bits that don't conform to that shape, and then we reinterpret the finer details to see hooves, a mane, eyes, nostrils, etc. until we are certain the cloud looks exactly like a horse.
There are also filters on our perception that influence the manner in which patterns we seek to apply. The horse-owner sees the cloud as being in the shape of a horse, whereas the dog-owner sees the cloud as being in the shape of a dog. Each of them interprets the shape according to shapes that are already familiar to them.
Then there is justification, a manner by which we routinely allow ourselves for be dishonest or immoral because we feel we have a pressing need. The example is given of a person who is late for an important meeting and parks in a handicapped space. They wouldn't ordinarily do this, but they need a fast solution, so they rationalize the decision: there are several unused handicapped spaces, it's unlikely several handicapped persons are going to show up all at once, it's unlikely anyone will even notice, etc.
He eventually wraps back to brand by providing a few examples form the technology sector (devices and software), in which releasing buggy and flawed products has become an industry standard. It's a blend of executive arrogance in believing a product is good enough for release when it's been sloppily rushed to make a deadline (admittedly, at the demand of impatient customers) and a moral shrug at the notion that everyone else in the industry does it.
The practice ahs become so widespread that there are marketing consultants whose entire business is managing customer reactions to flawed products, and various models of calculating the net effect of releasing a flawed product on customer loyalty. There are very few companies that refuse to ship a product until it's ready, and even those who make that claim ship buggy products.
Morality, Wealth, and Religion
While there are many people who enjoy pointing to the moral shortcomings of companies and brands, it is largely hypocrisy: people are not generally very ethical. There is likely no-one who has been flawlessly moral - who has never so much as swiped a pencil from the office - and yet we demand flawless morality of others.
And even as we demand flawless morality of others, we far underestimate the moral fiber that the average person has. People are generally honest and reliable, and tend to commit very minor transgressions when they are under pressure. We lock our doors to protect against thieves, but real thieves consider locks to be mere distractions, easily defeatable. The vast majority of people, over 99%, would never consider breaking into someone's home - yet people are obsessive about dead-bolting their doors.
Further proof comes from an informal study done by a popular magazine (Reader's Digest), which purposefully "lost" a dozen wallets in various countries. Most of them were returned, even in New York City, where there is a perception that most people are dishonest (75% return rate).
An interesting aside: the wealth of people didn't seem to matter. At the top of the list were Helsinki (where most people are wealthy and comfortable) and Mumbai (where most people are desperately poor). Closer to the bottom, Zurich (wealth) and Bucharest (poor) were tied in the number of returns.
So while it seems intuitive that a wealthier person, having less need of money, is less inclined to steal - the facts of this experiment show little correlation.
There then follows a ramble about the lack of correlation between morality and professed religious fervor, but it's not entirely coherent and seems to be mostly speculative and anecdotal.
(EN: A few more sections follow, each of which is also a succotash of brief anecdotes loosely related to unethical behavior, deceptions and frauds done in order to improve the image of a person or company or to gain a competitive advantage. The underlying message is that the practice of doing unethical things to get what one wants has become a common practice.)
Competition and Collaboration
The chapter ends with the notion of social Darwinism, "survival of the fittest" and competition by any means possible. This is often used to justify unethical behavior. It's also a perversion and misunderstanding of Darwin's work:
- Darwin never said that evolution was about the survival of the fittest - and in fact a species that is well adapted to a specific means of survival is less likely to sustain. Those who survive, he said, were those who were most capable of changing.
- Neither did he ever suggest that evolution was a competition. In his consideration of the human species, he observed that humans exist in interdependent cooperative groups rather than as isolated individuals, and cooperation is his means of success.
It is unfortunate that the "victory at all costs" and "every man for himself" attitude is labeled as social Darwinism, because it's not at all what Darwin had to say. But this sort of perversion is common among those whose morality itself is perverse.