• by Jeff Einstein , June 1, 2004

Question: How do you know when an addict is lying? Answer: His lips are moving.

Today's column will focus on the third of four signature characteristics inherent in our addictions to technology and media: deception and denial.

The latest promise to gain significant traction in the Age of Technoculture is ROI: Return on Investment. But ROI seems to me to be an extremely curious focus in an age when accountability has all but vanished. We see the conspicuous absence of accountability all around us: Captains of industry--presumed pillars of society--line up like bowling pins to perjure themselves in Congressional hearings, or abscond with billions of dollars of shareholder money. Superstar athletes enhance their performance with designer drugs while coaches and fans look the other way in self-serving denial. The President of the United States stares directly into the TV camera and lies through his teeth. Journalists for major news organizations fabricate stories. By some estimates, as many as three out of every four high school students cheat. How often do we first stretch the truth, then overcommit ourselves and our resources in order to close a deal--one we wouldn't even have considered just a few years ago? Butter wouldn't melt in any of our mouths because we no longer see anything wrong with our behavior. Nowadays, the ends almost always seem to justify the means.

The modern post-World War II era is renowned as one of great technological promise and optimism. The operative word, of course, is "promise." The newly christened atomic age promised an end to all war and a limitless supply of cheap energy. Other equally Utopian promises based on other emerging technologies followed in short order, chief among them an end to world famine, universal unemployment and illiteracy, increased leisure time, and the global eradication of disease.

Of course, none of these promises were kept. Then again, addiction and broken promises run hand-in-glove. So we didn't even break stride when the old promises were summarily dismissed by Madison Avenue in the mid-1990s, and replaced instead with a new and improved promise, one more commensurate with the times: unlimited wealth and prosperity for all--the natural and inevitable byproduct of digitally enhanced and greatly accelerated productivity. An entirely new virtual economy emerged as the latest and greatest stepchild of Technoculture.

Within five short years, however, the new promise of unlimited wealth and prosperity was revealed as a fraud, only the latest stepchild of Technoculture to be abandoned and orphaned. It vanished like a thief in the night--along with almost the entire new economy--and left no forwarding address. Only the promise of increased productivity remained, so it was quickly and quietly repackaged, repositioned, renamed, and reborn--this time as ROI.

But why should anyone follow the Pied Piper of ROI in the wake of the dot-com collapse? ROI seems way too much like a tired euphemism, just another dealer loaner for the new luxury car that keeps breaking down. The warranty may be great, but the product itself leaves a lot to be desired. ROI is, in fact, just our latest narcotic du jour--the most recent excuse to keep our lips moving.

Besides, we don't need an Orwellian Ministry of Truth to promote deception and denial nowadays. We have the media. And the media--like every other industry--is driven by the spreadsheet, the primary tool of deception and denial in the Age of Technoculture.

Ironically, universal adoption of the electronic spreadsheet--a business tool designed to mitigate risk and promote accountability--all but eliminated any future ability to distinguish fact from fiction, a signature characteristic of late-stage addiction. The global spreadsheet culture that ensued transformed the personal act of accountability into an abstract and sterile notion--utterly devoid of actual accountability--in much the same manner that the widespread deployment of the airplane during World War II forever sanitized the act of killing. Like Adolf Eichmann seated behind a desk with a pen and ledger instead of a gun, we became much more efficient killers the very moment we were no longer physically compelled to stare into the eyes of our victims, the very moment our technology liberated us from the bonds of our own humanity. Likewise, we became much more efficient liars the very moment our addiction to the electronic spreadsheet liberated us from the bond of truth, as all addictions do.

Thus, the spreadsheet evolved from a tool designed to promote accountability into an utterly disingenuous form of modern numerology whose primary function is not only to justify everything we do on the front end, but to defer and deflect accountability of any sort for as long as possible on the back end as well. Identifying the truth under such circumstances is a task worthy of a forensic accountant, a talent in ever-increasing demand nowadays.

Now, a mere twenty years after the introduction of the electronic spreadsheet, the paradox is complete: We have statistical proof for everything we do before we do it, but little or no accountability for any of it after we're done. We have thousands of experts to advise us--each armed with a phalanx of spreadsheets--but almost no way to determine the truth. The exact same spreadsheet culture that drives CNN drives Fox News and the FCC. The exact same spreadsheet culture that promotes the interests of the pharmaceutical industry also promotes the interests of the FDA, not to mention the Colombian drug cartels, the major advertising holding groups, and all global entertainment and media corporations.

Our digitally enhanced inability to discern the truth provides all the more reason to suspect the validity of ROI as the latest promise of Technoculture, especially since all of the previous promises over the years have met with essentially the same ignoble fate: failure followed by obscurity, the pop culture equivalent of denial.

Next week, I will discuss the last (and the most obvious) of the four signature characteristics of our addictions to technology and the media: obsessive-compulsive behavior. The following week, we will begin to explore how each of the same characteristics--unmanageable complexity, paralyzing inertia, deception and denial, and obsessive-compulsive behavior-- manifests itself in various day-to-day work scenarios, as graciously supplied by you, my good and patient readers.

Meanwhile, please don't hesitate to contact me directly with your own experiences and comments. I rely on the kindness of strangers...

Many thanks, and best to you and yours.

Jeff Einstein is a strategic marketing consultant and an early pioneer of the digital marketing industry. He was a co-founder of EASI, one of the nation's first interactive advertising agencies. His column, "Einstein's Corner," appears each Wednesday in MediaDailyNews.