A review of The Marketing of Evil. By David Kupelian.

WND Books, 2005.

Many books have chronicled the downward spiral of Western culture. This book explains the hows and whys of this decline. It is about how evil is “packaged and perfumed to look good – and good made to appear evil”.

The decline, in other words, is not just happening by chance. It is being planned, orchestrated and coordinated by vested interests. There is money to be made in evil. And many groups are getting involved in the marketing of evil, in the attempt to get rich quick.

But it is not just about money. There is also ideology. There are many who simply hate the West, who hate morality, who hate God, who hate the family. And they are doing all they can to subvert the West and recreate it in their own image.

Kupelian documents these nefarious trends, and shows us why evil seems to be making advances throughout the Western world. He makes it clear that with such activist marketing of evil taking place, a much stronger response is required than is presently being offered.

Now those who are familiar with the culture wars will not find too much new material here, as much of it has been presented elsewhere. But the angle which the author takes is well worth considering. That is, there is an agenda being pushed, and there are those actively working to foist their tarnished vision of society on the rest of us.

It is this emphasis that makes this book compelling reading. We need to know who is targeting us and why. And Kupelian does a good job of identifying and analyzing the many assaults on faith and family.

Consider one chapter, on the youth culture. We do not just have millions of young people who seem to have all descended upon common clothing, entertainment, and consumer culture. They have been carefully studied, marketed to and manipulated by vast entertainment conglomerations. These international corporations are making multi-millions by actively targeting our young people, creating in them a demand for their products.

Take just one small example. Are we really to believe that overnight millions of teens decided they wanted to mutilate their flesh with body piercing? Hardly. Kids are being sold the idea that such things are cool, and they need to have the ‘look’. They are being programmed – duped into thinking – that they must go to such extremes to be with it. And big bucks are being made along the way.

Peer pressure has always had an enormous influence on young people, but when the pressure is effectively created and manipulated by multinational corporations lining their pockets, then the pressure becomes a form of brainwashing. And millions of our kids today are little more than walking, talking zombies, slavishly following the latest trends and fashions created by these big firms.

Other meaty chapters in this book deal with the media, the abortion industry, the sexualization of our young people, the assault on marriage, and the secularist attempt to de-Christianize America.

While the topics discussed here are in the context of the US, they are of relevance to the West in general. There is a war going on, and the marketers of evil seem to be making big inroads. Being aware of their strategy and tactics is an important part of how we can resist these attacks. Thus this book provides valuable information on how we can turn things around.

And as Kupelian reminds us, every transaction has two parties: a buyer and a seller. While this book mainly focuses on the sellers and advertisers of evil, he reminds us that too many of us have been willing buyers of these transactions, or have been complicit bystanders.

The marketing of evil has been a monumental con job, but too many of us have been too easily taken in by the lure and promise of the marketers. We have become bewitched by the spells and persuasion of the marketers, and have done too little to immunize our children from the lure of evil.

This book will go a long way to snapping us out of our trances, and getting us to think more seriously about how we are being manipulated, molded and seduced by various vested interest groups.

[704 words]

4 Replies to “A review of The Marketing of Evil. By David Kupelian.”

  1. Hi Bill,

    I agree with your general point regarding the selling of products/services/fashion in western culture which has created a system of consumerism and materialism that shapes people’s worldview into always wanting more.

    I disagree with your point that piercing is necessarily a bad thing. Like any trend or fashion it will come and go. Yes, like any fashion it is peer driven/influenced, but then so just about every other fashion purchasing decision we all make and any other for that matter. We may buy a car or buy a house because we like the styling, colour or speediness, or a friend has that car and it was good to drive in. Or our friends live in the suburb we want to live in. Or we just plain like the suburb. (For some it is also just the area that we can just afford to buy).

    I wonder…Could one make a purchasing decision without some kind of external influence? I wonder how it would that effect our grocery buying, recreational spending.

    Steven Fogg

  2. Thanks Steven

    Of course I did not actually say it was necessarily a bad thing (that is another debate). What I (or rather Kupelian) said was this is just another – albeit small – example of mass marketing and manipulation.

    And yes, I am not saying there is no place for advertising, and so on. A free economy depends on advertising, so it certainly has its place. The real point of the book (and my review) is to highlight how an essentially idolatrous world system is being aided and abetted by the corporate world to produce much evil that believers (and non-believers) should be rightly concerned about.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  3. Bill, Though Mr Kupelian does showcase Christianity per se, what he says is certainly very relevant to Christians living in a world increasingly hostile to our beliefs. On that note our Bible Life members who meet weekly to study scripture have asked me to find out if there is some sort of program put out that would help us systematically study Mr Kupelians books?
    If you know of someone who has written or did a video of this work, please share it with us. You have my email. Thanks,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: