January 13, 2009
Suspension of Disbelief
I finally reached my limit reading the various theories put forth regarding the Bernard Madoff financial scam and its aftermath. Of course, the question of the hour is “how did all those people let themselves be swindled?“ What pushed me over the edge was a Wall Street Journal essay published on January 3rd citing the work of Stephen Greenspan. I must admit, despite the fact that I have a Ph.D. in Behavioral Science from the University of Chicago, I have never read, nor heard of, nor seen a citation mentioning this gentleman. However, it appears he is uniquely qualified to comment on the matter, as he has written extensively on the topic of gullibility, but more notably has actually lost money to Bernard Madoff. This is somewhat akin to asking my 12-year-old son to comment on traffic safety after he just ran in front of a car. On second thought, this analogy does not hold water, as my son did not present himself as an expert on traffic safety prior to leaping in front of a car. At any rate, he is available for comment as soon as his broken ankle is healed…
I am not going to go into a discussion of Mr. Greenspan’s theories here, except to offer up that he appears to have no peer-reviewed publications in any major academic journals on this topic. Instead, I am going to take advantage of his inspiration, myself having no peer-reviewed publication in any major academic journals on this topic. Alas, I myself was not scammed by Mr. Madoff, but other than that I feel profoundly qualified to comment.
The concept I would like to explore is “suspension of disbelief,“ a phrase first coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the early 1800’s:
“In this idea originated the plan of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’; in which it was agreed, that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.“
This phrase is often referred to as foundational to the dramatic arts: you put a bed on the stage and the audience believes itself to be in your bedroom. The trick here is that while they are in this state of suspended disbelief, you can have your way with them, delivering all manner of deep or not-so-deep messages, all of which fall into the following categories: 1) man’s inhumanity to man, 2) man’s inhumanity to society, 3) society’s inhumanity to society, and 4) society’s inhumanity to man.
Why do people so willingly suspend their disbelief? They do it to get something. In the case of drama, they do it to get entertained. In the case of religious fundamentalism, they do it to get to their version of heaven. And in the case of investing, they do it to make lots of money. Pretty simple.
Of course, marketers were among the first to understand the potential value in this concept. We quickly realized that we could leverage this phenomenon to sell stuff. From PT Barnum to Pamper’s most recent “Peace on Earth” commercial, we have mercilessly suspended disbelief and in doing so created a capitalist society. In the Pampers ad we are mesmerized by successive vignettes of blissfully peaceful sleeping infants, innocent, precious, etc. etc. Is this a direct result of the diapers? When this proposition presented as a logical argument, the answer is a resounding no. When it is presented while our powers of reasoning have been rendered useless by a bunch of sleeping infants, the answer is yes. Suspension of disbelief is (I believe) the foundational concept of all successful marketing communications.
Bernard Madoff stole money, and that is a bad thing. But are we, the victims, more gullible for hoping to gain 20% on our money, or for shelling out $50,000 for a BMW X5? I recently committed the latter offense; doesn’t this qualify me at least a little for a 2-page WSJ article? I’d be happy to talk about how I ended up on this unfortunate path, believing the promises of an automobile company that clearly duped me into trading my hard-earned cash for a promise of status and safety.
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