The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification
Mon Sep 8 14:00 EDT 2014
Paul Roberts, author of "The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification" (Bloomsbury 2014) interviewed by Kojo Nnamdi Monday, Sep 8, 2014
Kojo NNAMDI [host]
Let's go back about a century. How would you compare the introduction of Siri in 2011 to Henry Ford introducing Americans to affordable cars in the early 20th century? What was he offering American society when he made the Model T, something that ordinary Americans could aspire to?
Paul ROBERTS [guest]
Well, this is a classic example, because Ford was offering people freedom. And power, individual power on an unprecedented scale. And other people had come up with automobiles, but Ford had figured out a way to make them cheap. So he had this new industrial model. And suddenly, mechanized mobility becomes available to the masses, and it's transforming. What's interesting there is that most people who bought a Ford, a Model T, regarded it as an elaborate tool.
And it was going to help them become more productive as citizens. It might allow them to be more productive, in terms of transportation. They could, you know, their speed just increased by a factor of five or six. If they had been relying on horse and wagon. They could use the car to - they could convert it into a tractor. They could use the motor to grind. I mean, there were all sorts of things that they could use it as a tool. And that really underscored where we were individually, in terms of the culture.
We were a work related, productive country of producers. People made things. And it wasn't too long though, after that…
NNAMDI
You point out that Ford's profits dipped significantly after many Americans bought their first cars. The vehicles were well made. They gave people more personal freedom, but people didn't have much of a reason to buy a new one very quickly after that first purchase. What approach did Ford's rival, General Motors, take towards changing that, and why do you find that so significant?
ROBERTS
Because he recognized that Ford was old school. That he was a 19th century man and that we were in a new era that was driven, not just by technology, but psychology. And he recognized that Ford had done his job too well. These cars, as you say, were too well built. So once you bought one, there was no need to buy another. You didn't have a need for twice the mobility. You could only drive one car at a time. What Albert Sloan over at General Motors recognized was that if it was a needs based society, our economy was really stuck.
Because we couldn't sell enough to pay for those big factories that made the products cheap enough for people to afford them. And that was Ford's problem. Sloan recognized if we make people want something faster than a needs-based economy would dictate, we're set. And so, he realized that you could help people move, not just physically, but in status. By buying a nicer car, you could move up in status. And you could do that along any other dimension once you had a wants-based economy. Since wants are infinite, this was perfect for a new kind of industrialist who needed, you know, to constantly be raising his output.
NNAMDI
So when we today try to have a discussion about our, oh, aging infrastructure, and whether or not we should rebuild our aging infrastructure, and that debate gets bogged down in whether or not the taxpayers should pay for that or whether, well, that's something that the market can handle, the private marketplace will take of it, that bridge doesn't need to be strengthened, let it fall apart because we're not going to pay for it, what's going on there?
ROBERTS
Right. Well, I mean, you've just pointed out another paradox here that the market is interested in things that provide a dependable and large return. And so it's not necessarily in the case of infrastructure. Why would the market build a bridge to a poor neighborhood? Those motorists can't afford to pay enough to make it worth it to a private investor to build a bridge there or to build a highway there or any other piece of infrastructure.
So that was sort of the argument behind government in the first place and has been for some time that, you know, you have to spread the benefits across society. Because if you're simply allowing the market to choose, you're going to have a pretty patchwork set up. But I think the infrastructure question also points to the other challenge we face, which is to think and act long term. You know, we built a massive highway system in the post-war period. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of miles, billions and billions and billions of dollars. I mean, in current terms probably trillions of dollars.
Try to imagine us building even a tenth of that today. Try to imagine the political culture that would have to emerge in order to allow us to make that kind of a long-term commitment. We don't have it at this moment. In the current atmosphere it's not present. And one of the hallmarks of that is an unwillingness to spend less now or tax ourselves more now.
....
Right. Because we've been told - our political culture has sort of allowed this story to emerge that you shouldn't have to pay more taxes. The taxes are always an evil. And, you know, certainly there's evidence that we have misspent our taxes, that they've been, you know, poorly organized, inefficiently collected. There's a - you know, there's a great deal of argument for reforming the tax system. But as an example of being able to sort of pay for things now and make long-term commitments, you can't just do away with things just because they're unpleasant.
(caller) ADAM
Hi. Thanks for an interesting conversation. I was wondering what your guest thinks about how tactics in marketing have changed or have evolved with this culture of impulsiveness. I was thinking, back when you were talking about the sort of historical context, I was thinking of the late, I think his name is Edward Bernays, who was sort of a marketing genius and had these various foils to sort of take advantage of the subconscious in people. And I was wondering where you see - is there an importance in taking advantage or having some subtlety in marketing, if this impulsiveness is so at the forefront of our consumer culture?
ROBERTS
That's a great question. And it reminds us of the history of this. I mean, this isn't new. This has been going on for a century. Bernays was the - you know, he's the nephew of Sigmund Freud and really one of the leaders of this movement to psychologize the sale of things. And, you know, that's really - that sort of culminates in the "Mad Men" era, right? Where we've understood that what we need to do is be inside the consumer's head. And you know, that then takes a step up in terms of intensity with the computer revolution, which allows us to almost literally do that.
I mean, think about your personal technology. It's almost an appendage. If you lose your smartphone, you feel as if you've lost an arm. That, you know, we don't know sort of where our psychology stops and the market begins. So absolutely. And marketers take advantage of this. And this is something that consumers who are interested in not just being consumers but being citizens again - I mean it's sort of a side question, why we allow ourselves to be called consumers in the first place, but be that as it may. Individuals who are interested in sort of taking back their own lives from the marketplace need to start by asking, you know, how is it that we allowed the marketplace to get so close to us?
And one of the ways is through our personal technology. Another of the ways is sort of allowing the market to so closely survey us and sort of monitor our preferences that it can personalize its offerings. On the one hand, that's great because we get personalized offerings. On the other hand, we've essentially merged with the marketplace. And that's a merger that we need to reconsider.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/693740.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Paul Roberts, author of "The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification" (Bloomsbury 2014) interviewed by Kojo Nnamdi Monday, Sep 8, 2014
Kojo NNAMDI [host]
Let's go back about a century. How would you compare the introduction of Siri in 2011 to Henry Ford introducing Americans to affordable cars in the early 20th century? What was he offering American society when he made the Model T, something that ordinary Americans could aspire to?
Paul ROBERTS [guest]
Well, this is a classic example, because Ford was offering people freedom. And power, individual power on an unprecedented scale. And other people had come up with automobiles, but Ford had figured out a way to make them cheap. So he had this new industrial model. And suddenly, mechanized mobility becomes available to the masses, and it's transforming. What's interesting there is that most people who bought a Ford, a Model T, regarded it as an elaborate tool.
And it was going to help them become more productive as citizens. It might allow them to be more productive, in terms of transportation. They could, you know, their speed just increased by a factor of five or six. If they had been relying on horse and wagon. They could use the car to - they could convert it into a tractor. They could use the motor to grind. I mean, there were all sorts of things that they could use it as a tool. And that really underscored where we were individually, in terms of the culture.
We were a work related, productive country of producers. People made things. And it wasn't too long though, after that…
NNAMDI
You point out that Ford's profits dipped significantly after many Americans bought their first cars. The vehicles were well made. They gave people more personal freedom, but people didn't have much of a reason to buy a new one very quickly after that first purchase. What approach did Ford's rival, General Motors, take towards changing that, and why do you find that so significant?
ROBERTS
Because he recognized that Ford was old school. That he was a 19th century man and that we were in a new era that was driven, not just by technology, but psychology. And he recognized that Ford had done his job too well. These cars, as you say, were too well built. So once you bought one, there was no need to buy another. You didn't have a need for twice the mobility. You could only drive one car at a time. What Albert Sloan over at General Motors recognized was that if it was a needs based society, our economy was really stuck.
Because we couldn't sell enough to pay for those big factories that made the products cheap enough for people to afford them. And that was Ford's problem. Sloan recognized if we make people want something faster than a needs-based economy would dictate, we're set. And so, he realized that you could help people move, not just physically, but in status. By buying a nicer car, you could move up in status. And you could do that along any other dimension once you had a wants-based economy. Since wants are infinite, this was perfect for a new kind of industrialist who needed, you know, to constantly be raising his output.
NNAMDI
So when we today try to have a discussion about our, oh, aging infrastructure, and whether or not we should rebuild our aging infrastructure, and that debate gets bogged down in whether or not the taxpayers should pay for that or whether, well, that's something that the market can handle, the private marketplace will take of it, that bridge doesn't need to be strengthened, let it fall apart because we're not going to pay for it, what's going on there?
ROBERTS
Right. Well, I mean, you've just pointed out another paradox here that the market is interested in things that provide a dependable and large return. And so it's not necessarily in the case of infrastructure. Why would the market build a bridge to a poor neighborhood? Those motorists can't afford to pay enough to make it worth it to a private investor to build a bridge there or to build a highway there or any other piece of infrastructure.
So that was sort of the argument behind government in the first place and has been for some time that, you know, you have to spread the benefits across society. Because if you're simply allowing the market to choose, you're going to have a pretty patchwork set up. But I think the infrastructure question also points to the other challenge we face, which is to think and act long term. You know, we built a massive highway system in the post-war period. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of miles, billions and billions and billions of dollars. I mean, in current terms probably trillions of dollars.
Try to imagine us building even a tenth of that today. Try to imagine the political culture that would have to emerge in order to allow us to make that kind of a long-term commitment. We don't have it at this moment. In the current atmosphere it's not present. And one of the hallmarks of that is an unwillingness to spend less now or tax ourselves more now.
....
Right. Because we've been told - our political culture has sort of allowed this story to emerge that you shouldn't have to pay more taxes. The taxes are always an evil. And, you know, certainly there's evidence that we have misspent our taxes, that they've been, you know, poorly organized, inefficiently collected. There's a - you know, there's a great deal of argument for reforming the tax system. But as an example of being able to sort of pay for things now and make long-term commitments, you can't just do away with things just because they're unpleasant.
(caller) ADAM
Hi. Thanks for an interesting conversation. I was wondering what your guest thinks about how tactics in marketing have changed or have evolved with this culture of impulsiveness. I was thinking, back when you were talking about the sort of historical context, I was thinking of the late, I think his name is Edward Bernays, who was sort of a marketing genius and had these various foils to sort of take advantage of the subconscious in people. And I was wondering where you see - is there an importance in taking advantage or having some subtlety in marketing, if this impulsiveness is so at the forefront of our consumer culture?
ROBERTS
That's a great question. And it reminds us of the history of this. I mean, this isn't new. This has been going on for a century. Bernays was the - you know, he's the nephew of Sigmund Freud and really one of the leaders of this movement to psychologize the sale of things. And, you know, that's really - that sort of culminates in the "Mad Men" era, right? Where we've understood that what we need to do is be inside the consumer's head. And you know, that then takes a step up in terms of intensity with the computer revolution, which allows us to almost literally do that.
I mean, think about your personal technology. It's almost an appendage. If you lose your smartphone, you feel as if you've lost an arm. That, you know, we don't know sort of where our psychology stops and the market begins. So absolutely. And marketers take advantage of this. And this is something that consumers who are interested in not just being consumers but being citizens again - I mean it's sort of a side question, why we allow ourselves to be called consumers in the first place, but be that as it may. Individuals who are interested in sort of taking back their own lives from the marketplace need to start by asking, you know, how is it that we allowed the marketplace to get so close to us?
And one of the ways is through our personal technology. Another of the ways is sort of allowing the market to so closely survey us and sort of monitor our preferences that it can personalize its offerings. On the one hand, that's great because we get personalized offerings. On the other hand, we've essentially merged with the marketplace. And that's a merger that we need to reconsider.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/693740.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]