Pretty interesting discussion! I can't say that I've ever considered matching brands of pipe with brand of tobacco. Just hasn't ever occurred to me. Have I ever made irrational decisions? Of course. I'm not a Vulcan. If I was completely rational I wouldn't be smoking a pipe or wasting my dwindling lifespan writing posts to forums. Not all pleasures are rational and I'd even opine that most really aren't. I can rationalize as well as the next fellow, but that doesn't mean that my rationalizations are rational.
Television news has been on the decline for decades, ever since it went out of the "public service" sector and into "entertainment", and focused on smiling mannequins over erudite reporters. But it's more the pundit class that's the problem. A lot of good reportage is still going on by dedicated journalists. It just gets dwarfed by the loudmouths.
People are very suggestible, no less so the person who thinks he, or she, is immune to suggestion. They are often the easiest to lead by the nose. We live with a constant assault of suggestions about what to buy, what to believe, how to be, etc, etc. Having worked on hundreds of commercials, many of them formulated by agencies who conduct "research" into how to hook a market, I can attest to the amount of calculation that goes into every particle of the message. Symbology plays a large role at every point. It works, and people spend large sums of money on, and make larger sums of money from, telling others what they want for a better life. Monkey see, monkey do.
