Something for nothing

Something clicked for me this morning. It's something that I've known a long time, really, in disparate forms, but never really brought together, connected to form the obvious truth. And so I find myself writing a post about what I said I wouldn't write about for a long time, and certainly this isn't the end of those thoughts, just a beginning. So here we go.

Popular wisdom has it that you can't get something for nothing. To get it out of the way, this is not true. Humans are awesome in that we can give something for nothing, via love and grace. But we live in a world where love and grace are thought weaknesses and wrongs. We live in a world defined by economics, where every action must produce a benefit for ourselves, lest it be deemed a failure. The world doesn't have to be this way (Another World Is Possible), but that's the world most of us do live in, to a greater or lesser degree, that mainstream culture tells us to embrace and act upon, and that we are hippies or idealists or naive children if we act otherwise.

Anyway. There is a curious bit of contradiction, though, in that while we are taught never to do something for nothing, we are also taught that we can get something for nothing, or for less than it is worth. We can get free t-shirts, we can get cheap newspapers, we can get cheap fast food and cheap junk at Wal-Mart.

Partly this is due to horrendous human rights violations where many of those items are produced. Workers are treated horribly, paid next to nothing, with next to nothing spent on ensuring their safety and security, so that we can buy things cheaper. And that's obviously horrible and disgusting and something to work against, but that's not what this post is about.

You could say that with regards to that, what you are paying instead of money is human suffering. Not your own, but perhaps then you are paying in your own moral degradation, but that's getting a bit silly and farther than I want to go. But the point is you are paying something. There is an exchange. You are not getting a free ride, and your actions have consequences.

On to the other part of how we get things cheap, which is: advertising. The simplest example of this, one of my old standbys of hate, is free t-shirts. When we arrived at college nearly everyone was given a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the credit union that's made a deal with the university. I'm a bit infamous for my very limited and specific selection of t-shirts--most feature animals, almost none feature logos. This is because I am very conscious that everything I wear makes a statement.

Those who know me may find that an odd declaration, as I often seem the kind of person who doesn't give a damn about "style" and such; and that's true. But I do care about what I promote, what I support, what I advertise, through my clothing. Those students wearing the credit union t-shirts didn't pay money for them, but they are advertising the credit union every time they wear those shirts. They may not be saying, Go Here! I Like These People!, but they are spreading recognition of the logo and name. And in an information-saturated world, recognition is the first and greatest hurdle for any marketing endeavor.

T-shirts are cheap to produce en masse. Name recognition is harder. For the credit union, it's a positive economic gain. For the students, well, they get a t-shirt? Ultimately, however, it's hard to really fault people who accept such things. They may be helping companies they may not necessarily actually support, but there isn't any real harm being done. Spreading recognition of a name is not a bad thing.

The same processes, however, do cause real damage. The principle example of this is that great pincushion of criticism that is mainstream media. News coverage is almost endlessly criticized for biases of one way or another, but especially (and most truthfully) of being a tool of corporate intent. Mainstream news are carefully articulated tools designed to influence the public towards particular cultural positions that economically benefit the megacorporations that fund them, with little regard for the ethical consequences of such actions.

But most critics stop there, call out the corporations on being unethical and caring only about money and frown a lot. And there definitely is something wrong, obviously, with a culture entirely based on economics. But the situation is our own fault. The public's. Because we believe we can get something for nothing.

Corporations exist to produce money; that is their function. As much as we may like to, we will not change that position anytime soon. But what we can change is how they produce money. The main source of news outlets' profits is from advertising. As newspaper subscriptions have plumetted in the Internet age, more and more money has come from advertising, with more and more advertisements taking up space in newspapers as a result. And as for television news, of course--nearly all of their profits come from advertising.

We pay nothing for basic television, a minimum for basic cable, monetarily. Economically. We celebrate because we've gotten something for nothing, and then complain when the source of that something--the advertisers that keep television news on the air--acts as if it has the right to dictate the nature of that something. As if it should have the right to decide what airs just because it's paid for it, and not us, who haven't done anything for it. We get what we pay for.

News outlets will care about what their readers think, will care about telling the truth, when their readers who care about the truth are the ones making sure they stay in business, and not advertisers who will leave them if they start telling the truth. I say a lot that our culture shouldn't be based on economics, and obviously I believe that, but the first lie we must correct is that in our culture of economics we can get something for nothing. Once we accept that we pay for everything, somehow, we can begin to work towards changing that paradigm.