Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.
J. M. CoetzeeRead
Denunciations of the manipulativeness of advertisers can unfortunately all too easily be turned on their heads into denunciations of the gullibility of consumers. Both are forms of scapegoating, neither accomplishes anything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques both advertisers for manipulation and consumers for gullibility, suggesting that blaming either side is unproductive.
J. M. Coetzee's quote highlights the duality of blame in the relationship between advertisers and consumers. While advertisers often manipulate perceptions, condemning them for this can easily shift to criticizing consumers for their gullibility. This dynamic of scapegoating does not lead to resolution; rather, it distracts from understanding the complexities of consumer behavior and advertising ethics. In essence, the quote calls for a more nuanced perspective that moves beyond simplistic judgments.
Themes
AdvertisingManipulationConsumersGullibilityScapegoating
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about consumer rights during a marketing ethics seminar.
More from J. M. Coetzee
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My existence from day to day has become a matter of averting my eyes, of cringing. Death is the only truth left. Death is what I cannot bear to think. At every moment when I am thinking of something else, I am not thinking death, am not thinking the truth.
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He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.
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One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.
J. M. CoetzeeRead
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