I have often pondered why it seemed that the Covid product placement marketing messages seemed to hit their target so much more effectively with "lefty" oriented people than with "righty" oriented people (although in my own family, it went exactly the opposite way)... but I often think it has something to do with what JMG calls (paraphrase) "the fuzzy good feelings" that the left associates with the word "progress" together with its "we are all in this together" orientation. (As opposed to the "fuzzy good feelings" the right associates with "tradition" and "personal responsibility" orientation). In this case, a new, and experimental technology, was able to plug some fuzzy associations around "progress" - which always arises from heroic experimentation, amirite? - straight into a carefully cultivated fuzzy warm sense of "we are all in this together", and, well, we have our product expertly placed straight into deep layers of identity and meaning. For myself, while I have always been inclined towards the "we are all in this together" orientation, which has often attracted me to politics of the left, the idea of "progress" and especially of "technological progress" never really gelled for me. Also, I personally found it impossible to be inconsistent with my "right to choose" values, which in a broader sense really do gel extraordinarily well with the rightward "personal responsibility" angle. I mean to choose IS to undertake personal responsibility. And to refuse to choose, or to outsource your choice IS to refuse to undertake personal responsibility.
And, so, some of that marketing and product placement never "hooked" with me, and now I find myself in different company, without ever having experienced much alteration of my own values and orientations at all. Strangely, my rightward leaning family, who went all out to be foxed, and insist on only foxed visitors (for a time), and my leftward leaning self, who was simply never convinced that getting foxed with an experimental product held out any benefits, are beginning to have some tentative, bridge crossing meetings... and, strangely, the "bridge" may be most strengthened by our mutual interest in and embrace of spirituality, which is interesting, and welcome.
And I realise I have dodged Temporary Reality's actual question, although I suspect she and others recognise me as a long term commenter from the ArchDruid report days, which blog I was so thrilled to discover in around 2012 or 2013 that I spent around 6 weeks going back and reading every single post from the start. And, so, here I am, still...
Re: fluffy thread
And, so, some of that marketing and product placement never "hooked" with me, and now I find myself in different company, without ever having experienced much alteration of my own values and orientations at all. Strangely, my rightward leaning family, who went all out to be foxed, and insist on only foxed visitors (for a time), and my leftward leaning self, who was simply never convinced that getting foxed with an experimental product held out any benefits, are beginning to have some tentative, bridge crossing meetings... and, strangely, the "bridge" may be most strengthened by our mutual interest in and embrace of spirituality, which is interesting, and welcome.
And I realise I have dodged Temporary Reality's actual question, although I suspect she and others recognise me as a long term commenter from the ArchDruid report days, which blog I was so thrilled to discover in around 2012 or 2013 that I spent around 6 weeks going back and reading every single post from the start. And, so, here I am, still...