Labatt's totalitarian tendencies

Earlier this month Labatt provided a choice example of the "Streisand effect" when they threatened to sue the Gazette over a photo of Magnotta drinking Blue. They bullied the press and demanded that they retract the image that no one else, until that moment, had noticed.

The threatened lawsuit was a clear misstep, but what about the underlying motive of preserving the brand's cheery facade at the expense of reality? Isn't it odd that we accept the general desire to tightly-control the public image of corporations?

Andrew Coyne argues that this aggressive form of branding contains an element of totalitarianism:

In endorsing Labatt’s concern for its brand, we are implicitly accepting the essentially totalitarian assumptions that inform most advertising, and its close cousin, politics: in the world inhabited by this brand or that party, nothing bad ever happens, nothing ever goes wrong, no one ever is unhappy. In such a world it is impossible that there could be any negative associations. Therefore, they must be made to disappear. 

First - I like how this gives credence to Steve Murray's illustration. He was making a far more sophisticated argument than I thought. 1,000 words indeed.

Second - Andrew Coyne has a point. There's a vast difference between promoting the idea that only decent people drink Labatt, and eliminating facts to the contrary. When a company sets out to prove their ad-copy by manipulating the real world, the spin turns sinister.

In politics, transforming lies into prophesies is how ideology becomes total, i.e. how a simple, flawed idea becomes the only plausible explanation. A regular politician might say "our healthcare is the best in the world!" It may not be true, it's likely hyperbole, and it's most certainly debatable. A totalitarian politician will say the same thing, only they will suppress any contrary evidence by destroying all superior hospitals. Voilà! The statement is demonstrably true, the politician is sheltered from the changing winds of reality, and there is no room left for debate.

In totalitarian Germany, when Hitler talked about "dying classes," he meant "classes of people I am systematically murdering." See what I mean? Logical. Prophetic. Unhinged. Any statement can be made valid if sufficiently controlled.

Herein lies the allure of totalitarians: they don't "flip-flop," they make good on their promises. Whether in advertising or politics, logical, unerring consistency sells. Alas, water-tight predictions and infallible statements are exceedingly rare in the real world, so they change the world to suit their vision.