The
KIDVID Controversy: Child Molesters and "Statutory Deception"
from the testimony of Hugh Rank to the 1979 hearings of the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) on Children and Television (KIDVID)
In the past I have written in defense of the corporation's right
to persuade. In a free society, I believe everyone, including corporations, should
have the right to persuade. I see advertising not as a conspiracy against the
consumer, but as the corporation's way of encouraging the desires for those things
which the corporation can supply, efficiently, at a profit.
In the past I have also attacked other critics of advertising as being Rousseauists
(that is, those who deny an institution the right to persuade) or Luddites (those
crazies who simply want to destroy the system). I am not against advertising.
I believe advertising can play an important and useful part in the manufacture
and the distribution of consumer goods., I'm not against "the system."
It is important that human effort be coherently organized so as to feed, clothe,
house, and serve the needs and wants of the hundred of millions of people who
will be coming into the world in the next generations.
Thus, I speak as one who believes in advertising, in the system, and in the right
of everyone to persuade. It is totally consistent to say that certain reforms,
certain limits and restraints, are needed, desirable, and possible ....
Inequality
All people, in all eras, in all countries intensify and downplay as they communicate
to persuade others. But, some people have been more skillful, more aware, more
able, more interested, or better trained than others. In the past, this natural
inequality was limited. Before the 20th century inventions of radio, tv, and film,
all previous persuaders in human history had rather small audiences -- either
in a face-to-face situation, or limited to a literate audience, trained and able
to read.
Now, using the mass media, persuaders are able to reach large audiences including
millions of people unable to read or write. Today, this situation is most obviously
seen in the new nations of Africa and Asia. But even in other nations which have
a high literacy rate, we watch and listen more than we read or write or speak.
During the past two generations, there has been a growing
inequality between the professional persuaders and the average persuadees.
In the past, only a rare person had the memory, intelligence, wit, and skills
of strategy to be an effective persuader; these abilities died with the person.
Today, computers can store massive amounts of information, retrieve it instantly,
sort it for use according to pre-set plans. Such tools, together with money, media
access, research abilities, and organized work teams are available today to the
professional persuaders.
Consider the gross inequality, for example, in the United States which permits
(at present) tv ads to be directed at very young children: the pre-school children
watching the ads are hardly the equal of the sophisticated adult teams which plan
them.
In the past, I have written that certain advertisers were "child
molesters." Indeed, this is an attention-getting charge, but it is accurate.
In Language and Public Policy (p. 228), 1 presented this analogy:
"Our moral sense is outraged by inequality. In sexual matters we already
have a sophisticated vocabulary to describe situations of equality and inequality.
For example, we speak of seduction when there is not an equality, a mutuality
of exchange, when the knowledgeable or crafty seducer takes advantage of the
innocent or naive; we speak of rape when force or violence creates a situation
of inequality; we speak of child molesting when age is concerned, when the young
are abused. Using this analogy, it is clear that in language situations today
many of our advertisers are seducers and child molesters, taking advantage of
the young, the innocent, the naive, the gullible."
This sexual analogy focuses on the main issue: inequality. An analogy moves
from the known to the unknown, from the familiar to the unfamiliar. We know
and are familiar with those laws relating to sexuality. We can see the patterns
of distinction being made there; the principles of equality and mutuality --
"consenting adults;" in the case of statutory rape, "informed
consent."
Laws against rape and statutory rape are not blanket prohibitions against human
sexual activity. Laws against deception or such "statutory deception"
are not blanket condemnations of advertising. These parallels with statutory
rape need to be extended because our laws have already established doctrines
of "special protection" of children. Children may willingly do things,
if enticed or lured by adults; yet the law gives "special protection"
based on the premise that they lack the knowledge and experience to know the
potential consequences of their acts.
"Deceit and violence," as Professor Sissela Bok of Harvard put it,
in her recent book, Lying, "are the two forms of deliberate
assault on human beings. Both can coerce people into acting against their will.
Most harm that can befall victims through violence can come to them also through
deceit. But deceit controls more subtly, for it works on belief as well as action."