How to breed a nation of drones, cowards and weaklings

Yesterday Warren Cottis from Australia asked me what I study nowadays and I mentioned some books.

I love history, and read a while ago an excellent book about Alexander Pope, who wrote some 300 years ago that “The proper study of mankind is man”.

He was right, of course. People are by far the most intriguing, worthwhile object of study. Their follies and eccentricities constantly entertain, appall and astound me.

Take this sign, to be seen at many points in Bristol Temple Meads station. Ignoring (with difficulty) the silly slogan some fool stuck at the end, it assumes that all passengers are half-wits. I believe that as you treat people, so they become.

In the last 60 odd years nanny governments in their insatiable desire to control every aspect of our lives have succeeded in making half the nation fit for nothing.

So one can hardly blame the feckless millions who in fact do nothing except collect money just for drifting though their pointless lives. That is how their masters have trained them to behave.

Depressing.

Having written all that and read it with a certain quiet pleasure, she who is smarter than me then said “Actually, I think the signs are up because some bastard sued them.”

Two thoughts come to mind.

1. Nobody should be allowed to recover damages because they didn’t use the wits God gave them.

2. “First, let’s kill all the lawyers” – Shakespeare, Henry VI

After I wrote this we went shopping. Outside the Odeon cinema is a sign “Fanatical about film”.

P. S. I don’t know what the hell’s happening with the spacing on this.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

4 Comments

  1. Rezbi

    I think it should be against the law to study law.

    Spacing sorted.

    Reply
  2. Rezbi

    Check this out for a bit of history: http://directmarketing.edu.pl/2011/03/28/advertising-agent/

    Reply
  3. Shannon O'Hara

    'Hang'.

    The Devil's Dictionary – Ambrose Bierce

    Reply
  4. Drayton

    The book I couldn't recall the name of: The making of Victorian values – Ben Wilson. A poor title for a beautifully written, entertaining and instructive book. I paid £2 for the hardback. Cheap bastard

    Reply

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