To answer my question, yes magazines are propaganda. They are glamour. They exist in the space between “what is” and “what we hope for” (and frankly, they wallow in and widen that space).

The problem is they do not necessarily help us get from where we are to where we want to be.

This article (“Start a 1-acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead“) is republished by Mother Earth News 2+ times per year, and has been for a decade or more.

Why?

Because the dirty little secret of how-to magazines is that they are not instruction guides, they are tools for guided dreaming.

I’ve advertised in them (when I read http://Smartflix.com ), and talked to their ad sales people

They’re very forthright, and explain that their readers are “aspirational”.

There’s an argument that the reason that people play the lottery is not rational expectations, but buying an opportunity to dream.

Related, the reason people buy Mother Earth News and all the other homesteading magazines is because it gives them enough data to give their dreams a patina of realism. Same reason Lucas Films puts greebles and exhaust marks on spaceships.

Doesn’t make them real.

…but when you dream about living on a small self sufficient farm, and you can picture it with an old tractor that you’ve greased the zerk fittings on, it’s a BETTER, HIGHER QUALITY dream.

In 1970s and 1980s folks talked about Star Wars, Blade Runner as “lived in futures”

So Mother Earth News, etc. give you a “lived in future” for yourself. Instead of just thinking “in 10 years maybe we’ll live on a farm”, you think “in 10 years maybe we’ll live on a 3 acre farm with an old Ford tractor and some Buff Orppington chickens”.

Much more “real”.

But notice the difference between the PATINA of a lived in future, and an ACTUAL future.

The patina is painted on the surface, and it doesn’t need to actually work, it just needs to LOOK real, not BE real.

This creates selective pressure for the types of articles that are written and – PRAISE GNON! – this is the kind of article we get.

Which sells better? “Live debt free on 4 acres” or “Hobby farming is very hard and very expensive”?

You know the answer.

Now, with this in mind, go to the newsstand and look at all the farm LARP magazines. Every headline on the cover, & every article inside matches the template I just laid out.

(Go read the rest of the tweetstorm, especially if you’re a city person interested in starting a farm.)

This tells us two things. Probably more, but let’s focus on two.

  1. Details make dreams more powerful
  2. Publications create a dream-gap without actually providing a viable way to fill it

I used to be a magazine addict. I loved magazines, especially fashion magazines, especially weird or foreign fashion magazines. One of the reasons that I quit buying them (other than money), is that I started to think about how little value they added to my life. Yes, the pictures were pretty and I enjoyed posting some on my wall, and I liked the entertainment factor—but in terms of actually advancing my life, nothing.

During this time, I found that it was more satisfying to look at super-high-end fashion—couture—than it was to look at “regular people” fashion. Couture I knew I would never be able to afford, so I just enjoyed looking at it for art’s sake. The “regular people” fashion presented clothes to me that I would fall in love with, but couldn’t quite afford. It always left a bad taste in my mouth, because I found the perfect bag/shoe/coat to no avail.

Both types of magazines left a gap between what I was looking at and my actual life. One was large and expansive, and 100% fantasy—fun. The other was small

So how can we turn this to our advantage? How can the dream-gap work for me instead of against me?

Dream with details. Details make everything more powerful. The more realistic something is, the more it sticks in your brain (think about cartoon violence vs live-action) and part of that is the details. You’ll always viscerally remember how something smelled, or a specific texture during a significant moment.

It always struck me that Tony Robbins corrects people who say you should think about your greatest moments as a way to create a positive vision for yourself. No, he said on a James Altucher podcast, you should relive that moment. Mentally put yourself back there and experience all the little details. That, more than anything, will wake up your brain and give you the feeling of success that you’re after.

If you’re going to dream “realistically,” actually take the actions to do the things you’re dreaming. Otherwise, dream insane and dream big. Then your dreams will never fail you.

And certainly don’t count on magazines to get you where you want to go.