The advertising men made it clear that there were two ways of

A poet lifts the veil on a wartime workshop and names the fracture within it: “The advertising men made it clear that there were two ways of looking at ideas in a war against fascism. Those of us who were working on the project believed ideas were to be fought for; the advertising men believed they were to be sold. The audience, those at home in wartime, were not ‘citizens’ or ‘people.’ They were ‘customers.’” In this stark division, Muriel Rukeyser reveals a struggle over the soul of persuasion: shall thought be a sword carried by free women and men, or a product wrapped in slogans and priced to move? The line does not merely describe a quarrel of trades; it warns that a republic can lose its center when the marketplace annexes the forum.

The meaning is double and severe. On one side stands the ancient view—ideas as banners for which the brave take an oath, as bread for which they are willing to go hungry, as laws they will carve into stone and carry into the square. On the other side stands the newer reduction—ideas as commodities to be sold, audiences segmented, tested, converted, and upsold. In the first vision, the audience are citizens, participants in a common fate; in the second, they are customers, targets to be captured, “attention” their coin, “clicks” their tithe. Rukeyser’s sentence presses like a thumb on the bruise: even in the holy hour of a war against fascism, the tools of advertising threatened to turn conviction into consumption.

The origin of this warning comes from the American home front, where artists, writers, and filmmakers were enlisted to rouse the nation. Rukeyser, a poet of witness, entered rooms where posters were sketched and radio spots drafted. She found colleagues who spoke of truth, sacrifice, and the hard grammar of liberty—and others who spoke of demographics, placement, and the “sell.” In those rooms the language shifted: “mobilize” became “motivate,” “conscience” became “copy,” and the people became an audience to be “reached.” The poet recognized the danger: if we defend democracy with methods that forget the citizen, we may win campaigns and lose the polity.

History offers a parable. Consider the making of war-bond appeals. Some campaigns addressed the citizen—inviting shared sacrifice, explaining the budgets of guns and grain, teaching how a bond tangibly built ships and fed soldiers. Others leaned on tricks: fear without context, celebrity without substance, limited-time offers as if liberty were a holiday sale. Both raised money, but only the first raised citizens. One forged a long memory of participation; the other left a short aftertaste of purchase. The poet’s charge is clear: resist the temptation to swap education for manipulation, duty for dopamine.

There is also a deeper critique. Fascism treats human beings as masses to be moved, not minds to be met. When a democracy adopts the same posture—calling neighbors customers, measuring success only in impressions and conversion rates—it borrows the enemy’s posture even while opposing his flag. The ancients would have called this a stain on the sacrifice. A free commonwealth survives by consent renewed, not by transactions closed. To fight for ideas is to argue, to listen, to revise, to risk being changed; to sell ideas is to avoid dissent, to smooth edges, to flatter until the conscience goes quiet.

Yet Rukeyser’s line is not an argument against craft. Posters must be designed; sentences must sing. The call is to remember the end while choosing the means. Let the copy be clear, but let it carry truth; let the image be stirring, but let it honor complexity; let the campaign move hearts, but let it educate minds. Speak to the people as if they can learn—because they can—and as if they bear responsibility—because they do. This is how a nation keeps the citizen awake while the sirens wail.

Take the lesson into your own labor. If you teach, organize, govern, or simply post, ask yourself: am I treating my neighbor as a citizen or a customer? Do I invite participation, or do I merely harvest attention? Practical rites: (1) name the idea before the tactic; (2) present reasons before incentives; (3) measure not only reach but understanding and agency gained; (4) in every message about the war—literal or civic—reserve a place for disagreement, for the people to answer back. Do this, and you will honor the poet’s charge: that in the contest with unfreedom, our instruments must be worthy of our ends, and our audience must remain what the Republic first called them—citizens.