Whose Nation Is It, Anyways?

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot

One of the things that makes countercultural arguments so irritating at times is the inescapable elitism which goes hand in hand with critiquing mass culture. In regard to fast food and the general western trend towards processed and genetically engineered food, people who criticize the culture often ignore the simplest reason for the ascendance of fast food: it is cheap, and of uniform quality. No matter where you go in the world, no matter where you are, a McDonald's burger and fry combo will taste pretty much the same. Critics decry this as a sign of world-wide homogenity, of cultural hegemony and assimilation, and they are correct, but they are also turning their noses up at the millions of average people who are unable to afford any better. Touting environmentally sensitive and sustainable solutions is certainly admirable and desirable, but the fact remains that unless such solutions are affordable for the majority of a population, they will fail.

Schlosser also ends up in the odd position of contradicting much of his early argument. He goes to great lengths to describe the horrible conditions in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, then goes on to state how the big fast food chains, acting in their own interest, have pushed health reform on the companies which provide their meat. But if McDonald's meat is safer than store-bought meat, isn't that making the argument that more people should eat at fast food chains, since the government is unwilling to pass legislation that would test meat sold in supermarkets?

It is interesting that, like Naomi Klein, he advocates an economic solution; that is, the route to change is through economic pressure on trans-national corporations. Like Klein, he cites the McLibel case as a turning point, a perfect example of how publicity can be turned against corporations and effect change. But what both he and Klein forget is the essential role which government played in the case, in providing the forum and the platform for the words of the two plaintiffs to be heard. Without the legal institutions, without the possibility of McDonald's taking those activists to court, their chances of garnering such international attention were next to nil.

I do believe that we are quickly approaching a turning point, a point from which our development will become irrevocably destructive and which the planet will move to correct. But I also believe there is still time for government to step in, to show the way and to force real, effective change, and it has to be government, because private interests will never provide all the services and goods necessary for a healthy society; if the widespread deregulation of the last 20 years has proven anything, it is this.

I had a friend mention recently that what he found so distasteful about North American society is how isolated it is, how isolated individuals within it are made to feel. He's right. The problems with fast food society are not specific to the fast food industry; they are the same problems faced in every industry, they are the symptoms of a society and a culture which is itself diseased, which is slowly but surely destroying the vast majority of its citizens.