In 1649, Oliver Cromwell beheaded King Charles I.
Cromwell became Lord Protector, a dictator much more powerful than any king.
He banned all form of parties, singing, dancing, drinking, celebrations, even colourful dress, no one dared argue, his rule was absolute.
When he died his body was buried in Westminster Abbey, as befitting any head-of-state.
But the pendulum began to swing the other way.
The King’s son was reinstated, Cromwell’s body was dug up and beheaded.
His head was stuck on a spike outside the House of Parliament where it stayed for 20 years.
Pendulums will eventually swing the other way.
In 1794, Maximillian Robespierre was the Head of the Committee for Public Safety.
He became more powerful than anyone in France, he oversaw ‘the Terror’.
He had many people guillotined, no one dare oppose or even disagree with him.
But the pendulum began to swing the other way.
He was arrested and shot, before being guillotined himself and buried in an unmarked grave.
Pendulums will eventually swing the other way.
In 1922, Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy.
As a fascist, he ruled via fear and violence, everyone obeyed him without question.
But by 1943 the pendulum had begun to swing the other way.
He and his mistress were arrested and shot, their corpses were hung upside-down from a streetlight outside a petrol station.
Pendulums will eventually swing the other way.
In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy gave a speech in which he said 205 members of the communist party were working in the US government.
He drove a witch-hunt where anyone even suspected of being a communist was fired.
The entire country was in thrall to McCarthyism, scared to even whisper against him.
But by 1954, the pendulum began to swing the other way.
McCarthy was shunned by everyone; ignored and depressed, he became a pariah and drank himself to death.
Pendulums will eventually swing the other way.
In 1966, Jiang Qing became the Chair of the Cultural Revolution Group.
She was Mao Zedong’s wife and, after him, the most powerful person in China.
For ten years she oversaw the persecution of 730,000 people and the deaths of 35,000.
But in 1976, Mao died and the pendulum swung the other way.
She was arrested and sentenced to death.
It was commuted to life imprisonment but, in 1991, she hanged herself in the prison toilets.
Pendulums will eventually swing the other way.
Whatever the current orthodoxy, however much it can’t be questioned, history teaches us it will eventually be reversed.
However deeply embedded it seems at the moment of it’s greatest power or influence.
Young people coming into advertising are desperate to learn whatever the current orthodoxy is because they assume it is the fundamental truth of advertising.
Brand-purpose, big-data, ad-tech, behavioural science, wokeism, Millward Brown, Nielsen ratings, the Gunn report, interruption-is-dead, the campaign is dead, advertising is dead.
They don’t realise it’s just the prevailing view, the bandwagon everyone’s jumping on.
It won’t last forever, and where do you turn when the pendulum swings the other way?
Isn’t it better to learn why advertising exists, what its real purpose is, not just the current fashion?
If you learn the truth of something you can hold onto it when fashions change.
You’re not left clinging onto a pendulum that keeps swinging one way and the other.
“This too shall pass”
Hi Dave, a great read, as usual.
Reading it brought to mind what Oscar de la Renta, the fashion designer once said.
“Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself.”
It’s not much of a leap from this to what you’re saying here, where style is knowing what advertising is and more importantly isn’t.
Cheers, Jeremy
“The entire country was in thrall to McCarthyism, scared to even whisper against him.” Not even close. The media and the establishment wings of both parties were largely against him.
From Wikipedia –
“Estimating the number of victims of McCarthy is difficult. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs. In many cases, simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired.
In the film industry, more than 300 actors, authors, and directors were denied work in the U.S. through the unofficial Hollywood blacklist. Blacklists were at work throughout the entertainment industry, in universities and schools at all levels, in the legal profession, and in many other fields. A port-security program initiated by the Coast Guard shortly after the start of the Korean War required a review of every maritime worker who loaded or worked aboard any American ship, regardless of cargo or destination. As with other loyalty-security reviews of McCarthyism, the identities of any accusers and even the nature of any accusations were typically kept secret from the accused. Nearly 3,000 seamen and longshoremen lost their jobs due to this program alone.
Some of the notable people who were blacklisted or suffered some other persecution during McCarthyism include:
• Larry Adler, musician
• Nelson Algren, writer[91]
• Lucille Ball, actress, model, and film studio executive.[92]
• Alvah Bessie, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, writer, journalist, screenwriter, Hollywood Ten
• Elmer Bernstein, composer and conductor[93]
• Leonard Bernstein, conductor, pianist, composer[94]
• David Bohm, physicist and philosopher[95]
• Bertolt Brecht, poet, playwright, screenwriter
• Archie Brown, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, WW II vet, union leader, imprisoned. Successfully challenged Landrum–Griffin Act provision[96]
• Esther Brunauer, forced from the U.S. State Department[97]
• Luis Buñuel, film director, producer[98]
• Charlie Chaplin, actor and director[99]
• Aaron Copland, composer[100]
• Bartley Crum, attorney[101]
• Howard Da Silva, actor[102]
• Jules Dassin, director[103]
• Dolores del Río, actress[104]
• Edward Dmytryk, director, Hollywood Ten
• W.E.B. Du Bois, civil rights activist and author[105]
• George A. Eddy, pre-Keynesian Harvard economist, US Treasury monetary policy specialist[106]
• Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, philosopher, mathematician, activist[107]
• Hanns Eisler, composer[108]
• Howard Fast, writer[109]
• Lion Feuchtwanger, novelist and playwright[110]
• Carl Foreman, writer of High Noon
• John Garfield, actor[100]
• C.H. Garrigues, journalist[111]
• Jack Gilford, actor[102]
• Allen Ginsberg, Beat poet
• Ruth Gordon, actress[102]
• Lee Grant, actress[112]
• Dashiell Hammett, author[100]
• Elizabeth Hawes, clothing designer, author, equal rights activist[113]
• Lillian Hellman, playwright[100]
• Dorothy Healey, union organizer, CPUSA official[114]
• Lena Horne, singer[102]
• Langston Hughes, writer, poet, playwright[100]
• Marsha Hunt, actress
• Sam Jaffe, actor[100]
• Theodore Kaghan, diplomat[115]
• Garson Kanin, writer and director[100]
• Danny Kaye, comedian, singer[116][full citation needed]
• Benjamin Keen, historian[117]
• Otto Klemperer, conductor and composer[118]
• Gypsy Rose Lee, actress and stripper[100]
• Cornelius Lanczos, mathematician and physicist[119]
• Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter, Hollywood Ten
• Arthur Laurents, playwright[102]
• Philip Loeb, actor[120]
• Joseph Losey, director[100]
• Albert Maltz, screenwriter, Hollywood Ten
• Heinrich Mann, novelist[121]
• Klaus Mann, writer[121]
• Thomas Mann, Nobel Prize winning novelist and essayist[121]
• Thomas McGrath, poet
• Burgess Meredith, actor[100]
• Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist[100]
• Jessica Mitford, author, muckraker. Refused to testify to HUAC.
• Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor, pianist, composer[122]
• Zero Mostel, actor[100]
• Joseph Needham, biochemist, sinologist, historian of science
• J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, scientific director of the Manhattan Project[123]
• Dorothy Parker, writer, humorist[100]
• Linus Pauling, chemist, Nobel prizes for Chemistry and Peace[124]
• Samuel Reber, diplomat[125]
• Al Richmond, union organizer, editor[126]
• Martin Ritt, actor and director[127]
• Paul Robeson, actor, athlete, singer, writer, political activist[128]
• Edward G. Robinson, actor[100]
• Waldo Salt, screenwriter[129]
• Jean Seberg, actress[130]
• Pete Seeger, folk singer, songwriter[100]
• Artie Shaw, jazz musician, bandleader, author[100]
• Irwin Shaw, writer[102]
• William L. Shirer, journalist, author[131]
• Lionel Stander, actor[132]
• Dirk Jan Struik, mathematician, historian of maths[133]
• Paul Sweezy, economist and founder-editor of Monthly Review[134]
• Charles W. Thayer, diplomat[135]
• Dalton Trumbo screenwriter, Hollywood Ten
• Tsien Hsue-shen, physicist[136]
• Sam Wanamaker, actor, director, responsible for recreating Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, England.
• Orson Welles, actor, author, film director[137]
• Gene Weltfish, anthropologist fired from Columbia University[138]
Hi Dave, none of your list was anything to do with McCarthy he was a member of the Senate. What you were talking about is the house un-American activities committee, which was actually started in 1938 so McCarthy had nothing to do with that. What he was criticising was the Soviet infiltration into the army and State Department. I wouldn’t bother with Wikipedia for anything political if I were you and if you want something decent to read about McCarthy I suggest “blacklisted by history”
All the best
Nick
Nick,
“Difference of opinion is what makes horse races” – Damon Runyon
Given today’s news, I very much look forward to the pendulums swinging against Putin.