Learning to spot the logic in the ads that surround us

The words of a Jesuit prophet and a flashback to "Spot the lie," a game for children

In the crazy world of mass media, there are few ideas or concepts that the vast majority of Americans agree on.

But here is one: If you ask most Americans if they are influenced by advertising, or pay attention to advertising, most will say “No.”

This mass-media fact makes me think about the interviews that I did over the years with the late Father John Kavanaugh, the author of the famous book “"Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance."

When preparing to do his graduate work, this Jesuit tried to learn what were the most powerful “materialist” forces tugging at American minds, hearts and souls. This led him to study advertising theory and what he learned didn’t amuse him. Here is the overture for my tribute column (“Warnings to believers in a consumer culture”) when he died in 2012:

Since the goal was to explore the cultural ties that bind, Father John Kavanaugh asked the young Catholics in a St. Louis classroom a basic civics question: How many national and world leaders could they name?

The Jesuit didn’t allow the seventh graders to include celebrities and entertainers, which meant that actor Tom Cruise didn’t make the list. In the end, they ended up with 12 names.

"You started off with the pope and the president, of course. Then things got harder after that," said the St. Louis University philosophy professor, describing this scene during a 1990 Denver lecture that I covered for The Rocky Mountain News.

The questions got easier, for youngsters baptized in untold hours of commercials on cable television. When asked to name brands of beer, the list on the chalkboard topped 40. How about designer jeans? The seventh graders came up with more than 50 different brands. They were experts when it came to the shopping-mall facts of life.

The Regis University crowd laughed, but it was nervous laughter, as the author of "Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance" walked them through a slideshow demonstrating the power of advertising in shaping the minds of materialistic modern Americans. 

Yes, it was funny when the priest offered Freudian interpretations of popular cigarette ads. But no one wanted to laugh at the images demonstrating how professionals were using bleak, depressing, yet erotic images of children in advertising aimed at adults.

Is this, the philosopher asked, what our culture's powers that be think real life is all about?

On one level, the answer is — “No.”