Does Marketing Make Us Less Human? – Dr. John-Paul Heil

Dr. John-Paul Heil critiques modern marketing’s implicit anthropology, explaining that marketing driven by manipulation, simulation, and quantity undermines human dignity, authentic friendship, and the pursuit of truth, advocating for a vision of marketing grounded in transparency, service, and the intrinsic value of persons.

This lecture was given on October 7th, 2025, at Washington and Lee University/Virginia Military Institute.

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About the Speakers:

John-Paul Heil is a Core Fellow in history, philosophy, Catholic anthropology, English, and theology at Mount St. Mary's University. He received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and is pursuing an MBA in marketing. He has received multiple awards from the U.S. and Italian Fulbright commissions. His writing has appeared in Time, Smithsonian, The Week, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the books editor at the University of Pennsylvania's Dappled Things.

Keywords: Abusive Language, Anthropological Reductionism, Aristotle, Authentic Friendship, Cicero, Empathy In Marketing, Joseph Pieper, Regenerative Agriculture, Simulation And Dissimulation, Wendell Berry