ABSTRACT
As the postmodern culture of consumerism ascended, the impulse to meddle, so firmly entrenched that few questions were any longer even being raised about it, joined the marketing revolution to create a climate in which meddling was for sale. If the meddling industry in question is nonprofit, it may be able to market its services without cost through free "community service" ads in local newspapers. Selling the meddling impulse depends on convincing people that a class of experts exists who possess special knowledge that ordinary people do not have. The marketing trend toward self-help constituted a recognition that everyone's life was capable of change—that no matter how disordered, one could take charge of it at least enough to seek out both services and helpers on one's own. So there does indeed exist an alternative to the meddling interventions of the marketers of the meddling trades.
