The Best of Everything.

Culture is to a great extent a response to images that people carry around in their heads, and in past times most of these images have come to us from an assimilated religion and literature. Today, with advertising taking a good share of time and attention away from these, it is tempting to speculate on the effects of the imagery it tends to substitute. Granted that the mission of advertising is the practical one of selling, and granting moreover that the public has been educated to a certain good-humored skepticism regarding it-the caveat emptor the world over of the man being sold something-there still remains the possibility of definite effects upon outlook and mores. In brief, do certain advertising practices seriously interfere with the representation that man needs to have of himself and his society?

This is not a fresh criticism of advertisers for appealing to such base motives as wanting to get rich or be socially prominent, or for playing upon fear and hypochondria. These aspects of the institution are well-known and have been rather amply canvassed; they seem, however, to be more superficial-or at least more easily coped with-than certain deleterious effects which a great deal of advertising has upon the mind and the personality.

RW

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Richard M. Weaver

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Culture is to a great extent a response to images that people carry around in their heads, and in past times most of these images have come to us from an assimilated religion and literature. Today, with advertising taking a good share of time and attention away from these, it is tempting to speculate on the effects of the imagery it tends to substitute. Granted that the mission of advertising is the practical one of selling, and granting moreover that the public has been educated to a certain good-humored skepticism regarding it-the caveat emptor the world over of the man being sold something-there still remains the possibility of definite effects upon outlook and mores. In brief, do certain advertising practices seriously interfere with the representation that man needs to have of himself and his society?

This is not a fresh criticism of advertisers for appealing to such base motives as wanting to get rich or be socially prominent, or for playing upon fear and hypochondria. These aspects of the institution are well-known and have been rather amply canvassed; they seem, however, to be more superficial-or at least more easily coped with-than certain deleterious effects which a great deal of advertising has upon the mind and the personality.