Joriaan De Gruijl growing up, I didn’t know the distinction between a citizen and a consumer. The news typically talked about consumers rather than citizens. And so in my mind I conflated the two meanings because they were the same people One day I realized that you could have citizens that were not consumers of Corporate run enterprises and simply “citizens with rights”. It was also the beginning of starting to understand neoliberalism, the strange marriage of government and corporate. Mind you, I have many Western values stamped on me through and through but not all of them. But the way that marketing has a way of grabbing a child or an adult and changing their attention through misleading their thinking was something I started noticing at the age of 8 with a toy truck commercial : I could see they were lying to me. 2 years later I saw the teachers version of a textbook and saw that she had all the answers right there : written, and she was just reading them off. I could do that. That was the beginning of my righteous indignation. It’s not so much that “it’s a conspiracy” that would bother me : it’s really not because they do it *right in front of us* and make it very obvious I was a child and I picked up on it. Others do too. You just have to watch and notice. Who benefits in this situation ? Some things are altruistic but often they aren’t.

Joriaan De Gruijl growing up, I didn’t know the distinction between a citizen and a consumer.

The news typically talked about consumers rather than citizens.

And so in my mind I conflated the two meanings because they were the same people

One day I realized that you could have citizens that were not consumers of Corporate run enterprises and simply “citizens with rights”.

It was also the beginning of starting to understand neoliberalism, the strange marriage of government and corporate.

Mind you, I have many Western values stamped on me through and through but not all of them.

But the way that marketing has a way of grabbing a child or an adult and changing their attention through misleading their thinking was something I started noticing at the age of 8 with a toy truck commercial : I could see they were lying to me.

2 years later I saw the teachers version of a textbook and saw that she had all the answers right there : written, and she was just reading them off. I could do that.

That was the beginning of my righteous indignation.

It’s not so much that “it’s a conspiracy” that would bother me : it’s really not because they do it *right in front of us* and make it very obvious

I was a child and I picked up on it. Others do too.

You just have to watch and notice. Who benefits in this situation ? Some things are altruistic but often they aren’t.

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