Ways of Seeing by John Berger

John Berger has an axe to grind, and he does this, rather naively, when he compares oil painting and publicity (see NOTE below), using that comparison to attack the evils of capitalism. Oil painting, he explains at length, "celebrated a new kind of wealth." It demonstrated "the desirability of what money could buy." He points out that Holbein's The Ambassadors illustrates that the men "belonged to a class who were convinced that the world was there to furnish their residence." It is a historical document that also documents their value in society. His exposition of this medium is written about in a didactic style, devoid of value judgments.

Publicity, he says, proposes that we can "transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more…will make us in some way richer -- even though we will be poorer by having spent our money." His analysis of this medium, in every paragraph, is written with a sneer; it is quite clear he disapproves of what advertising purports to do.

He concludes with a sweeping indictment of capitalism, which, he says, "survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable."

Just today? I'm surprised someone as intelligent and as thoughtful as Berger is blind to the fact that this is true for all societies and always has been. In African tribes, for instance, if your body isn't painted a certain way, you're not desirable, not part of the group. And just look at pictures of Cleopatra! What else is new? Standards are arbitrary, made up by whatever group happens to be in power at the time, and are always in flux.

Why do writers, thinkers and reformers keep railing against human nature? Like the alligator who promised not to eat the fox when he ferried him across the river, and then ate him, he simply explained: Of course I ate him; I'm an alligator. People would be more successful in making great, beneficial changes in society if human nature were taken into account, instead of denied.

NOTE: Publicity and advertising are not synonyms. Publicity is Jamaica Kincaid doing a book signing at Barnes & Noble. Advertising is a page in a newspaper urging you to buy her book. During class, I would be happy to discuss advertising in greater detail -- I had a 22-year career in the industry.