> Public Relations people plant stories in the media. Public Relations people
are
>Spin Doctors. I'd love to hear all the objectivists in the group claim
>there is no such thing as spin ... Spin is what got Richard Nixon a hero's
>funeral. Spin is what has canonized Ronald Reagan. Spin is what elected
>Bill Clinton. I'll leave it to someone else in the group to come up with a
>definition that might satisfy the objectivist objections to the above
>tautologies.
'Spin' is manipulating images or words to influence people to believe something
that has no foundation in reality. Media people, politicians, heads of
established corporations, and some other people in positions of influence, use
such 'spin' to gain short term advantages over others. This kind of activity is
a way of gaining easy money and/or power by controlling other people's minds as
opposed to using hard work and creativity to create objective values. Ayn Rand's
term for such people is 'second-hander', while a more accurate term is a
Neo-Tech identification called 'neocheater'.
>I contend that Disney's thriving business is based on the meme that Walt
>built.
My opinion is that Walt designed the memes, but he cannot be held responsible
for current problems at Disney.
>... links between Disney and religion seem
>fairly clear to me. <Saints Mickey and Walt, "the miracle of Disneyland",
Yes, I agree. The 'Mickey symbol' meme spreads just as fast as the Christian
'cross' meme.
> Disney is a high profile example of selling image over substance, but
>all corporations are worried about their image. The thing I object to is
>when a corporation finds it more profitable to manipulate memes than to
>deliver a decent product.
Disney is an excellent example of 'spin'. Another example is something going on
at CoV--people imply things about objectivism or about 'what I personally think'
that are not true. Here is a recent example:
Kirt Dankmyer wrote:
>The thing is, many "immune systems" are different -- i.e. Objectivism as
>opposed to, say, Catholicism. I'm not sure there's a memetic AIDS capable
>of affecting the devout Catholic and the devout Wiccan in the same breath,
>as it were. (Disclaimer: Not that there's anything wrong with being a
>devout Catholic, Wiccan, an Objectivist, a Discordian, or a cow
Kirt is giving an example of a popular spin technique in which a commonly
accepted 'big lie' is only implied, not explicitly stated.
I could also show occasions when people discover that what other people imply
about objectivism or 'me' is not true:
Tim R. wrote:
But the very nature of CVStoBVS reeks of
an admission to the subjective nature of experience. And from you,
David?!? I'm both shocked and delighted.
-David Rosdeitcher
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Rosdeitcher