Coming Apart.

Charles Murray is a conservative and controversial political scientist and writer who has recently written a book called “Coming Apart, the State of White America.” (You might, even if you’re living in England learn something from taking Murray’s “Coming Apart” quiz here.

I think about Murray and his thesis—that we have become two hermetically-sealed societies that seemingly never interact—as I try to wrestle with the rise of Palin/Trump/Guns and the Tea Party, and England tries to find the reasons why (beyond the so-called reason of ‘racism’) for Brexit.

For whatever reason, the dualities of our world bring me back to the advertising business. Sadly, it seems like a business that has lost touch with the woes, hopes, dreams, fears, needs of real people.

No better testament to that is the festival—the bacchanal—at Cannes.

My cynical side always recalls David Ogilvy’s words: “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”

I think much of our work—much of our work that is lauded and which gets people jobs and promotions—treats people like morons. It forgets that good advertising, ‘afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.’  

I wonder how many ad people today have the sensitivity to understand an ad like this. I wonder how many ad people understand the anger and the fear and the paroxysms of the burgeoning American underclass.