Those of us who lack specialized skills in the creation and manipulation of symbols can probably accomplish more than we suspect just by becoming more aware of the ways in which our tendencies toward iconic and mythical thinking enable image-meisters to manipulate us.

To give one example, consider the degree to which Freudian constructs like the unconscious are familiar to us today.   If a term like "iconic behavior" were to become comparably familiar, what would be the effect on economic life?  How might corporate life change if it became commonplace to characterize certain colleagues as "virtual reality types," or just "virtual people?

Understanding how purveyors of virtual reality can exploit our thought processes could also affect our political culture.

This notion must, of course, be accompanied by the caveat that we cannot expect to reorient and revitalize political endeavor all at once.  But it is probably not unreasonable to hope that at some point in the not-too-distant future, when candidates begin to bash one another’s inappropriateness as icons (as they have done repeatedly in the most recent Presidential campaigns—sometimes even in so many words), we might greet them with a large enough chorus of sighs and knowing chuckles that they will discern an auspicious opportunity for a change in tactics.