Back to Gaffer's Archives.
Mythology, Myths, and Cults:
A recent set of events has caused me to think about myths and
mythology. I may as well give away the plot right now. I got took
in by a myth. After thinking about that, I am concluding that
this stuff is much bigger than it seems. We think of mythology
and myths as two different things. For example, the Coors myth
is seen as a reality by many of us. We may think that it is just
a fact that Coors beer is superior. Others see it as just another
advertising fabrication.
In either case few of us would think of these modern creations as equivalent to the stories and fables of Mount Olympus or of the ancient religious epics. On examination, I believe we will find them quite identical in nature and structure. Particularly in structure we can notice that a strong myth will produce a cult of true believers.
I personally remember a myth and the cult which grew up around the Digital Equipment products in the seventies. The only people who would know about that one are those involved in the computer industry. A little later there was a myth and a cult which grew up around the Apple computer.
These myths were very similar in nature. Each one produced a cult of true believers who became blind to all other realities. When the technology changed and superior and more versatile products were produced by other companies the myths collapsed. Sadly enough the cults did not. Many people were left floundering around in the computer and associated industries refusing to acknowledge changing technology. In fact the publishing industry is still loaded with die-hard, foaming-at-the-mouth Apple worshipers who like to pretend that PCs don't exist.
Compared to other mythologies, these myths and cults which grow up around aspects of technology are relatively short lived. For example, they are mere blinks in history when compared to theological concepts and ideas. The myths and the cults die off quickly as change overtakes them. In this way all cults will eventually destroy themselves because they refuse to adapt to evolving realities.
Beyond the cult phenomena I believe that mythology is involved in every facet of our lives. At some later time I want to get into a more detailed discussion of this aspect of mythology. In this essay, I want to look at the myth as a tool of Madison Avenue.
I have come to believe that the very best advertising vehicle is a well constructed, believable myth. The best of these will be the ones which seem to have no origin. There will be no direct advertising which can be traced to the myth. I have already mentioned the Coors campaign. My own son told me about the effects of this nonsense on college kids. They believed that it was not possible to have a real fraternity or dorm party without Coors. These kids actually sent students on round trips from the University of Michigan to Colorado in order to smuggle Coors beer back for each and every party.
I do not know if Coors managed to get the support of a vulnerable legislature to actually make it illegal to export the beer from Colorado or if it's just part of the myth. In any case Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason gave enormous impetus to the myth when they did Smokey and the Bandit. They made it a part of our cultural history. I don't know if they got a bonus from Coors, but they should have. If they did, that would make it the longest paid commercial of all time. Infomercials would pale in comparison.
The myth which took me in was not that well constructed. In fact, I am rather embarrassed by the fact that I was so easy. The myth was nothing more that a direct advertising creation of Madison Avenue. It was the one about the zero maintenance Maytag appliances.
Do you remember when appliances were permanent things in your life. If you're as old as I am, you do. When you bought an appliance, you just forgot about it. It was there for several decades. There was nothing to think about. You just used it and used it and used it. Even after it was obsolete and out of fashion, you used it. That was long ago.
Mr's. Gaffer and I have been married for almost fifty years. That's a long time, mostly good. Because of that time duration, we recently had occasion to purchase some new appliances. In the last ten years, we have purchased two Gibson products, one GE product, and four Maytag products. Of those, there have been two failures requiring service calls. As an aside, we discovered that service calls are almost as expensive as new appliances used to be.
The cost of service calls is not my point. The point is, that the failures were both in Maytag appliances. They were in the products with the greatest reliability myth. These failures occurred within the first five years of service. The most expensive one was a failure of the Maytag drop in electric range. The cost of that was about $150.00.
I discovered as the saga unfolded that the range had failed due to an engineering design flaw. One of the control boards had a transformer mounted on it. The transformer was so high that it was in direct contact with the splash pan heat shield which mounted between the board and the burners. The metal actually pressed down on the wires of the transformer coil. Thus, whenever burners were turned on, the heat from the burners was transferred through the metal pan directly into the transformer. A cooling fan could not offset that bizarre situation and after a time, the transformer shorted out. Then the control unit stopped working.
Now here is an amazing thing. The certified repairman is not a cute little round faced fat guy with a beagle. He is a big old overweight guy with bad knees who knows nothing about electronics. He is an old style switch and relay man who has out lived his talent. If we were not involved we could almost pity him, struggling to survive in a changing technology. He could not troubleshoot or fix the problem when it was intermittent. He had to wait for a hard failure so he could know which board to replace. In the meantime, we had to live with a near $1000.00 appliance which failed whenever we tried to use it.
Here's another amazing thing. The repairman replaced the board and did not notice what was obvious to me as soon as I looked. The lurking failure is still there. The pan was still in contact with the new relay. If I had done nothing, that range would fail again in a short time. What I did was to take a couple of electric fence ceramic insulators and stack them under the pan. That put a slight warp in the pan and caused an air space between it and the relay. It's a home made kludge on a $1000.00 appliance to compensate for an engineering design blunder.
I learned a lesson from this. I hope it will be of help to someone else. If someone should happen to ask me what brand of anything they should buy, I will have this answer. I will not advise you on brands. Just look at my experience. Look at the myth and make your own decision.
Don't ever believe in myths. It could be a myth created by
a multi million dollar movie. It could be a myth created by a
multimillion dollar ad campaign. It could be a myth more subtly
created and paid for through the use of individuals and dupes.
Don't ever confuse myths and TV ads with reality, no matter how
cleverly they are done. If you hear by word of mouth, make sure
of the mouth it came from. The most subtly done myths will be
the most powerful and the least likely to be true. Enough said.
Back to Gaffer's Archives.
|
|
|
|