On Trademarks, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Pig Milk

This is what started this rumination. I note that the way it ended was in defeat - the T-shirt is no longer available. All it took was a threatening letter.

Corporations want to colonize our mental space. The whole marketing thing is about pushing slogans into our minds - about making these slogans more familiar to us than just about anything else. It's about creating easy and easily accessible verbal associations. They spend lots and lots of money in order to make sure that when we are thinking or talking, slogans come easier to us than, say, quotations from literature or philosophy. Instead of learning the multiplication table or Shakespeare's sonnets, we now learn advertising slogans - and those seep deeply into our subconscious and become part of who we are. They are an easily accessible part of our culture; I may be unsure about whether a conversation partner knows what Blaise Pascal said about religion, but I am perfectly sure that he'd know what "The Other White Meat" is.

Mind you, this wasn't always the case. Here's where Lord Peter Wimsey comes in. He's a character created by mystery novelist (and scholar) Dorothy Sayers, and he has a habit of incessantly quoting stuff - mostly "classics" of various kinds, though I'm not educated enough to tell which ones. Lord Peter would be immune to such restraints on free speech - but how many of us are that educated in the classics?

Now, when we actually want to produce something - to create, to communicate to others - we draw on the mental associations that our minds give us. And what are those phrases, words, mental associations that come easiest and are most likely to be understood by our audience? Those given us by corporations. Except we can't use those - those are protected. Thus, we're effectively hobbled in our ability to express ourselves - the very associations that are most likely to reach our audience are unavailable to us for use. Note that when we saw "The Other White Milk" on a t-shirt, we all instantly knew why it was funny. It didn't have to be explained to us. The phrase is part of our culture. Had she used an obscure phrase from Aristophanes, I doubt that the t-shirt would have been as funny - or, for that matter, as comprehensible.

Because trademarks and corporate slogans are such a huge part of our discourse, a corporation that dislikes what someone is doing can instantly "pull the plug" on their "free speech". So, if the Pork Marketing Board had received some very nice money from some very nice baby formula manufacturers who wanted to shut down this lady's site, they would be able to do that easily. They wouldn't even have to sue - the threat is enough to force most people to voluntarily censor themselves.

First Amendment? What First Amendment?