Tuesday, August 03, 2010

You can say whatever you want

freeA package of soymilk reads:

 IT’S FREE! Silk Vanilla is free of lactose, dairy, cholesterol, eggs, casein, MSG and worries. You still have to pay for it though.

Before I get to my point, I’d like to say I love this product and find it an excellent replacement for regular milk.

The thought that struck me, when I read that statement on the package is that it seems so typical of what we hear everywhere in the media from politicians and about most everything.  Statements are made which are the complete opposite of what they say …. and as long as the person somewhere, somehow, clarifies what they are saying, it is considered totally acceptable.

A defendant of this kind of action would likely state: “Why should a person be criticized just because a reader didn’t read on a bit further to learn the real, full meaning of what was said.”

I would tend to agree with that kind of defence, and yet I also see that there is a lack of trustworthiness demonstrated by the person who makes a statement of this nature, because he is relying on his own cleverness and his listeners’ lack of acuity to actually create a false impression which is serving his own ends and not those of his listeners.

It is tragic that this kind of thinking is too prevalent today.