I guess I made it up on the spot but I’m sure it’s been coined somewhere prior to this.
I simply meant that people are conditioned to be eager to please, to sound intelligent/informed even when they are not, and to placate the herd by not appearing or sounding too strident.
A ‘focus group’ merely draws these traits out in spades. Every idea and action is pushed toward the soft, squishy, nonthreatening middle where it is colored a safe shade of beige. Unfortunately, this false consensus is sold as Holy Writ by Luntz, Rove et al who tell us that the GOP and conservatives should take baby steps cos lots of people think we’re scary.
Luntz and his dial twisting are especially odious. He reduces any speech on any subject to a pointless game of buzzword bingo.
Meanwhile the first black president is jailing political prisoners, dragooning ‘free’ citizens into another Ponzi scheme masquerading as health care and his fellow lefties are eliminating (not redefining) marriage. They’re even attempting to claim that the biological differences between the sexes don’t really exist.
But our focus group oracles still tell us that being nice to fence-hopping, disease-ridden illiterate dole scroungers is the way forward. Their methods are flawed, their advice even worse.
Was curious if you were referencing the work of B.F Skinner, behavioral psychologist. I liked your phrase even if it wasnt.