Years ago when Marlon Brando was famous, he popularized the concept of "Method Acting". As I understand this technique, the actor really gets into the part to the extent that they really think they are the person who they are playing. By doing this it is supposed to develop the realism where the audience feels that the actor is not acting, but is the real person. That is the final objective of the actor isn't it? In life there are all kinds of examples where this technique is employed to reach an objective and that objective is to influence people for their own ends. Here are a few real life examples.
We all know that for a salesman to be affective, he must believe in his product and company. Given two products that are near equal, the salesman who believes most in his product will be the one who comes home with the order. In every sales meeting that I have ever gone to, it was the objective of the meeting to convince the salesman that he had the best products and that he was the best salesman. There are all kinds of examples where a company with inferior products was able to get the orders away for their competitor who had the superior products. You know this is true. We see this in sports too. The person who feels most that they can win, normally is the winner. The point is that the best product is not always the winner and that the messenger can have more of an affect than the product they represent.
Take another example from religion. Did you ever listen to a preacher who had any dought about the existence of God or Heaven? We all know that there is "Zero" proof of the existence of either and the preacher is working with this same "Zero" proof that we are. If this is the case, then why do so many normal people buy into what the preacher is saying? This is a case where a good salesman can take a product that does not appear to exist and still sell it to people all over the place. I have listened to the claims made by many preachers of detailed facts that they claim to know about God or Heaven and even to extent of knowing what Jesus was "thinking" at a particular time. We all know that his statement is impossible and a complete fabrication, but still many believe and accept the preacher's claims as "fact".
I used to teach Decision Theory at a major university. In the decision making process it is critical that one separate "fact" from "fiction". Most people know this, but they don't seem to be able to do it when the chips are down. One very simple concept or rule that has been around for a while is, "Actions talk, bull shit walks". If more of us would listen to this simple rule, we would make a lot better decisions. It seems that "Talk" is placed ahead or on the same level as "Action" when it comes to decisions. That can be a very big mistake. What we want in a decision is to select the "correct" or "best" product or solution. If we listen to the best salesman alone, do you think we will select the best product or will the best salesman convince us to buy their inferior product? I am getting close to the point now.
In this past Presidential election we had two candidates or salesman out selling their products. The real question before us was, "who had the best product". If we were using our brains, we would have been trying to find out which one had the "best" product, but that is not what many people did. Some voted to "punish" a person who was not even running. "I hate George Bush". I think that everyone would agree that Obama was a better salesman than McCain, but who had the better product? The point that I am trying to make is that when a decision comes along that is as important as who will be President of the USA, we need to look at "Actions" not the "Bullshit" and we did not do that. I can only conclude that the average voters here in the USA are among the dumbest in the world. After spending more per kid on education than any country in the world, we only graduate 60% nation wide and only 50% in Los Angles and 25% in Detroit. While in Wisconsin we graduate 98% of non black kids, we can only get 40% of blacks thru high school in the same state.
Final note on "Method Acting". Obama used "Method Acting" better than Marlon Brando, all the way to the Presidency of the USA and you now know it. He just might be the best "Acting" President that we have ever had, but right now we need the real thing.
PS
Remember the old Dragnet TV program with Jack Webb? He was Sargent Friday and he used to say, "Just the facts m'am". What he meant was to give him the facts and forget all the "bullshit". We seem to have forgotten that in this last election and allowed Obama to spin us full of "bullshit". Now "bullshit" is all we have to show for the election.
