I have to admit I didn't read this whole thread. I saw through the Madison Avenue Cult and identified it as such many years ago. I philosophized about it, read books about it, and wrote poetry about it. Then I lost interest in it.
The only way out of it I can see is to not participate. I don't own a television set. I don't subscribe to periodicals or look at billboards. I only listen to the radio when the severe weather sirens go off in my town.
For a full philosophical treatment of the "Spectacle", as the Situationists called it, see Guy-Ernest Debord's
Society of the Spectacle. Then unplug yourself from the boob tube and go live your own life.
