Closer to Finding Common Ground

This paper investigates the image and role of the advertising industry in U.S. society.

Closer to Finding Common Ground

Daniel L. Jaffe

In 1924, Canadian economist Stephen Leacock claimed, in his book The Garden of Folly, that advertising “may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” Unfortunately, at that time, this was one of the more benign statements from critics. George Orwell later described advertising as the “rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket,” and H. G. Wells described it as “legalized lying.” Then there was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mincing no words, he called advertising a “racket” whose “constructive contribution to...

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