Is Advertising by Non-Profit Organizations Evil?

After my last post titled Advertising is Evil, Robin Edgar posted an interesting comment about a highly misleading, if not outright fraudulent ad. It turns out to be one of the latest new magazine ads for the Unitarian Universalists. It starts with a very provocative statement for shock value, then goes on to discuss it in a more reasonable tone.

I'd rather not go into a discussion about the effectiveness of this approach at the moment. It does bring up an interesting thought though - if advertising is evil, does this apply to ads from religious groups or non-profit organizations in general? This is somewhat of an intellectual game, but after giving it some thought I came up with the following answer. Advertising by commercial entities can be considered evil because they are trying to change your thoughts without regard to the harm it may cause you or society, motivated solely by their own profit. Non-profit organizations, including religious ones, are by definition not operating only for their own financial gain. They are much more likely to be concerned with benefiting society in general or you in particular, at least according to their view on what is beneficial.

Now it's certainly possible of course that they can end up using unethical and deceptive methods for doing this. No organization is perfect. So I'll view advertisements from non-profit groups as being potentially good or evil, needing evaluation on a case-by-case basis. I think political advertising also falls into this category, though given recent history I'm likely to consider them guilty until proven innocent.

Since I don't know of any TV or radio show supported only with non-profit advertising (with the possible exception of some PBS and NPR shows that have non-profit underwriting), this doesn't really change anything. I'm still left with the big question - what to do about watching the upcoming Olympics? I'm guessing that it will be a commercial advertising extravaganza setting new records for at least the amount of advertising money spent, and possibly the amount of total time devoted to advertising. Ugh.

Advertising is Evil

In my last post I wrote about the 100 Possession Challenge that some people are attempting in order to radically simplify their life. I've spoken to several people about this, and while none of us are willing to try the actual 100 Possession Challenge, it has inspired myself and others to consider significantly decluttering our lives.

This motivated me to think about what other radical ideas I could come up with to significantly simplify and declutter other aspects of my life, both physically and mentally. I eventually started pondering an old idea that advertising is evil. But I don't mean evil as in "really really annoying", I mean evil in the sense that slavery or child pornography is evil.

What in the world am I talking about? Why would I consider this radical notion that advertising is actually evil? Consider the basic goal of advertising. Someone else is trying to modify your thoughts, desires, and even your values for their own financial benefit. They typically use subtle and difficult to counter appeals to very basic emotions, appeals that people are often not even aware of. And they attempt to cause these changes in your mental outlook completely without regards to any harm they may be causing you in the process. Such actions are evil, pure and simple.

But isn't advertising is part of our culture, something we all learn to tolerate? Besides, how could our economy possibly function without it? Well, the exact same thing was said about slavery by its supporters in the early 1800s. People who did not grow up in a culture of slavery could easily see that it was evil, but it took a rare and courageous person who grew up in this cultural tradition to recognize it for the evil it was. And the economy did fine after it was abolished.

But isn't advertising different because it's a voluntary activity for all parties? If you tried to make the same argument about certain forms of child pornography, people would quickly and correctly object because of the harm it causes to individuals and eventually to society in general.

If I focus on the biggest culprits, TV and radio advertising, I can avoid all advertising (or at least the most obnoxious forms of it) by limiting myself to NPR radio, PBS-TV, Book-TV, CSPAN and assorted recorded music and podcasts. That's not that big a change from my current habits, so it's feasible. There are two problems though. What about my family members? I can't insist that they change, and I have to respect their preferences. Does that mean I get up and leave the room every time they turn on a commercial TV station? Maybe so, and just ask them to understand and respect my preferences. The other really big challenge is.... the Olympics start next month. I haven't decided how serious I want to be about this yet, but showing integrity would seem to suggest that I avoid watching the "plausibly live" commercial TV coverage. Hmmmm....