Monday, July 31, 2006
Kids and Madison Ave, or Why Capitalism is Evil
Indulging once again in my summer fling with NPR, I heard this piece about children and commercial advertising: All Things Considered July 31, 2006. I thought I should share it with everyone here since we have already touched on the topic of children, television and commercials. The billions of advertising dollars aimed at preschoolers and toddlers give us one more example-- and a particulary insidious one at that-- of what capitalism is really about. Capitalism is not about meeting needs; it is about creating them. It is not about fulfilling the demands of people in the system; rather, it is the strategic destruction of fulfillment in consumers in order to meet the corporate need to sell more and more units. Why supply what people demand when you can get them to demand what you supply? After all, if you supply what people demand, they might be satisfied, and satisfaction is bad for the bottom line. It's better business to sell desire, and start as young as possible...
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Steps to sanity:
1) Lock your children in their rooms
2) Turn off the TV
3) Say, "Goodbye TV"
4) Get comfortable with step 3
5) Unplug your TV
6) Get out a hammer
7) Repeat step 3
8) Roll play, pretend the TV has just broken into your house and you have been waiting by the door with the hammer. Go to town on the TV with your hammer.
9) Clean up TV parts
10) Throw away TV parts
11) Put on protective clothing
12) Insert ear-plugs
13) Unlock children's door
14) Wait a month
15) Get used to asking questions like, "what book are you reading now?" or, "how far are you into memorizing Pi?" or, "now, can you translate that Latin into German?!"
16) Keep kids from going to friends' houses, school, public transportation, or anywhere they might see advertisements (this might involve moving to Wyoming or Montana and writing a manifesto...).
We're probably all familiar with arguments about the pervasiveness of media saturation as it relates to the construction of body image (especially for women, although MadAv is catching up with us guys... you should see the billboard across the street from me right now!!!). Consider that only a portion of these environmental images are aimed at creating disatisfaction with our bodies (usually for the purpose of selling the promise of a perfect body incarnated as a pair of jeans or a body spray), but almost all of them are aimed at selling us one thing or another (in the end they're all selling the same thing: the idea that what we are and should be is consumers-- not citizens, not responsible humans, just consumers)!
I'm pretty sure we can stop at 14 and call it a good day's work. Step sixteen, if you wanted to keep going, would involve something a bit more constructive. Like, say, creating spaces with likeminded neighbors where citizenship and responsibility can be fostered. We can also act legally. Vermont, where I grew up, outlaws billboards; that is a good thing. If not statewide, I'll bet a good neighborhood coalition could do a lot of work to change their local zoning laws to restrict advertizements if they had the right connections and such. But, of course, restriction only goes so far. We must begin practicing lives which center on the value of nurturing trusting relationships while we work to quell the nagging of our consumer-selves which center on getting things.
I think that steps 2-12 should also be performed as quickly as possible. Otherwise 1 and 13 might be a little cruel.
Dave is absolutely right about the importance of positive action and not merely prohibitions. Studies have shown that all sorts of activities and lifestyles-- from sports and athletics (yeah, soccer!) to music and the arts-- help foster healthy mental and social development.
I'm curious about which if any of these steps Dave, as our only father, is taking...
I was watching PBS while eating lunch today, and they were showing a program about kids and nutrition. One of the presenters made the point that TV is a huge source of information about food, and most of that information is bad: pushing sugar-, fat- and additive laden junk foods. There is a correlation between kids who watch less tv and kids who eat better.
By the way, do you want to know why junk food is so cheap? The two main ingredients in junk food (high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil) are both subsidized by government subsidies for farmers raising corn and soy beans. Therefore, corn and soy products (some of the worst sugars and fats) are unnaturally cheap while healthy foods like fruit and vegetables remain relatively expensive. Essentially, we're all paying for that trend twice: first, we subsidize unhealthy foods, second, we pay healthcare costs for people with diet-related diseases like type 2 diabetes and hypertension. BUT we do sell a lot of burgers and corn chips...
Dave has removed the TV from his apartment, reads plenty of books to his son (supplied by such luminaries as Mr. and Mrs. Logemann), and networks with other parents at the local playground. This morning we went for the best walk on the beach ever; it was shimmeringly beautiful beneith a perfectly blue sky.
Sarah and I were just talking about how amazingly dumb it is that the government dosen't set up poor families with food from local organic farms. Someday; someday I will see something like this happen.
I know some of the parents you network with...
yes. yes you do.
I enjoyed looking at your mom's paintings, by the way.
Oh, yeah! I forgot they had those. It's the triptych of lilies, right?
yes, I believe so
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