Is your pleasure principle pimped?

Of course, the title question is rhetorical.

It is common knowledge that advertising wizards of Madison Avenue are paid big bucks for creating successful advertisement campaigns.

For example, in 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide.

It is also common knowledge that Madison Ave uses the science of behavior psychology to manipulate the targets of their ads. Madison Ave have mastered tapping into the hidden desires of people to persuade them to buy things we often do not even need.


As George Clinton once stated in Funkentelechy:


Mind your wants 'cause there's someone that want your mind
Yo, this is mood control
(Yo, ho)


Saying you might as well pay attention
(This is mood control)
We can't afford free speech
(Mood, mood, mood, someone's funkin' with the mood)

Mood control is designed to render funkable ideas
Brought to you by the makers of Mr. Prolong
Better known as Urge Overkill
The pimping of the pleasure principle

Oh, but we'll be pecking lightly
Like a woodpecker with a headache
'Cause it's cheaper to funk than it is to pay attention, you dig?
Huck-a-buck, A-Lo and behold
Someone's funking with the mood control


But on a bigger level, the questions arise: Can the general populace be controlled by pimping people's pleasure and desires? 


In particular, in Urban America -- knowing that Hip Hop has been thoroughly co-opted by corporate America -- what role does our music hypnotically play to keep a people trapped in a hedonistic lifestyle?


Ra Un Nefer Amen writes in the Metu Neter (Volume 2):


In addition, the leaders of many societies, who are well trained in the secrets of behavioral control, have learned to control the populace by reinforcing their animalistic tendencies through the instrument of art. They have succeeded so well, that the oppressed themselves will be vehemently opposed to any attempts to restore art to its proper function. 


The oppressors arrange things in such a manner that a sector of the oppressed can become extremely wealthy by creating artistic pieces designed to facilitate their own oppression, and that of the majority of people. As to the majority, they are quite oblivious to the enslaving power of their pet vehicles of thrills.


Once again, as George Clinton stated: Mind your wants because someone wants your mind. 


And: Free your mind and your ass will follow.