Collateral Damage
There's a great scene in "Fast Food Nation", (a movie that was actually a lot better than you may have heard). It takes place in a hotel lobby.
I'm paraphrasing here, but it goes like this: Greg Kinnar is checking out of a hotel, when the Stepford-like clerk, all apple-cheeked and face a-shining, asks him cheerfully, "And how was your stay, Mr. Anderson?" Kinnar, who has just had about the worst day of his life, takes a pregnant pause and then replies, "Actually it was absolutely dreadful. Nothing went right, the service was awful, the noise was intolerable and the experience was horrendous". Not missing a beat as she swipes the credit card, the clerk smiles sweetly and- with eyes unclouded by thought- says, "Well that's great! Thank you for staying with us, and I hope you'll come back again!".
Which reminds me of the recorded voice, dripping with sincerity, which assures me that my call is valuable to Time-Warner as I enter my 76th minute of being on hold.
But I digress.
That scene in the movie illustrates one of the casualties of modern life that's a direct by-product of the Fast Food Nation-- consciousness. The hotel clerk in that scene was no more present or conscious than the customers at "Mickey's" restaurant that consume their supersized whoppers while gulping down a big shake and running to get back to work all in the space of 11 minutes. Consciousness is the collateral damage of the Fast Food Nation.
Consciousness and thought.
I was thinking about this today when I went to my local Whole Foods, a store that for all it's granola image of social responsibility is remarkably unconscious. The cashiers there have been trained to ask, by rote, "Is this for here or to go?" since there is an in-store eating area and they have to charge tax for food consumed on premises. Fine. No problem. Except I was buying 20 cans of dog food. When I pointed out the ludicrousness of this question to the clerk cheerfully asking me if my Natural Balance kibble was "for here or to go?" she looked at me blankly as if this had never occurred to her before (I'm sure it hadn't) and explained that they "had" to ask this. Evidentially that was a sufficient explanation for her, and she never gave a moment's thought to the purpose or reasoning behind it.
Actually interacting with me would have been way too much trouble. Far better to simple parrot a sound byte.
The diminishing of thought, reasoning powers and consciousness is one of those things that creeps up on us one degree at a time so that we're like frogs in the proverbial pan of water slowly reaching a boil- it's so insidious you hardly notice it until it's too late. But it's cost on our quality of life is substantial. And tragic. Reasoning has been replaced slogans. Thoughtful exposition by sound bytes. Real food has been replaced by food products.
The thing about fast food is that it's easy, quick and disposable. One thing it's not is nourishing, satisfying or real. Neither is it's mental counterpart. It may be quick and easy to believe that "cholesterol causes heart disease", or that "low-fat is healthy", or that "natural" actually means something on a label. Hey this is a country where a disturbingly high double digit percentage of the population thinks that Iraq attacked us on 9/11. Quick and easy fast food gets you disconnected from your body. Quick and easy "thinking" gets you disconnected from your soul.
If you haven't seen "Fast Food Nation", rent it. The book is way better, but the movie shows you something visually and viscerally, about life in America today and about something valuable that's being lost.
There's a great old Woody Allen stand up routine where he talks about how he took a speed reading class. "I read War and Peace in 23 minutes", he tells the audience. Pause. "It's about war".
That's where we're headed.
Only this time it's not so funny.
I'm paraphrasing here, but it goes like this: Greg Kinnar is checking out of a hotel, when the Stepford-like clerk, all apple-cheeked and face a-shining, asks him cheerfully, "And how was your stay, Mr. Anderson?" Kinnar, who has just had about the worst day of his life, takes a pregnant pause and then replies, "Actually it was absolutely dreadful. Nothing went right, the service was awful, the noise was intolerable and the experience was horrendous". Not missing a beat as she swipes the credit card, the clerk smiles sweetly and- with eyes unclouded by thought- says, "Well that's great! Thank you for staying with us, and I hope you'll come back again!".
Which reminds me of the recorded voice, dripping with sincerity, which assures me that my call is valuable to Time-Warner as I enter my 76th minute of being on hold.
But I digress.
That scene in the movie illustrates one of the casualties of modern life that's a direct by-product of the Fast Food Nation-- consciousness. The hotel clerk in that scene was no more present or conscious than the customers at "Mickey's" restaurant that consume their supersized whoppers while gulping down a big shake and running to get back to work all in the space of 11 minutes. Consciousness is the collateral damage of the Fast Food Nation.
Consciousness and thought.
I was thinking about this today when I went to my local Whole Foods, a store that for all it's granola image of social responsibility is remarkably unconscious. The cashiers there have been trained to ask, by rote, "Is this for here or to go?" since there is an in-store eating area and they have to charge tax for food consumed on premises. Fine. No problem. Except I was buying 20 cans of dog food. When I pointed out the ludicrousness of this question to the clerk cheerfully asking me if my Natural Balance kibble was "for here or to go?" she looked at me blankly as if this had never occurred to her before (I'm sure it hadn't) and explained that they "had" to ask this. Evidentially that was a sufficient explanation for her, and she never gave a moment's thought to the purpose or reasoning behind it.
Actually interacting with me would have been way too much trouble. Far better to simple parrot a sound byte.
The diminishing of thought, reasoning powers and consciousness is one of those things that creeps up on us one degree at a time so that we're like frogs in the proverbial pan of water slowly reaching a boil- it's so insidious you hardly notice it until it's too late. But it's cost on our quality of life is substantial. And tragic. Reasoning has been replaced slogans. Thoughtful exposition by sound bytes. Real food has been replaced by food products.
The thing about fast food is that it's easy, quick and disposable. One thing it's not is nourishing, satisfying or real. Neither is it's mental counterpart. It may be quick and easy to believe that "cholesterol causes heart disease", or that "low-fat is healthy", or that "natural" actually means something on a label. Hey this is a country where a disturbingly high double digit percentage of the population thinks that Iraq attacked us on 9/11. Quick and easy fast food gets you disconnected from your body. Quick and easy "thinking" gets you disconnected from your soul.
If you haven't seen "Fast Food Nation", rent it. The book is way better, but the movie shows you something visually and viscerally, about life in America today and about something valuable that's being lost.
There's a great old Woody Allen stand up routine where he talks about how he took a speed reading class. "I read War and Peace in 23 minutes", he tells the audience. Pause. "It's about war".
That's where we're headed.
Only this time it's not so funny.
1 Comments:
Hi Johnny,
Do you have any idea what might cause a hairy chin and slightly thinning hair on a 27 year old female? PCOS has been ruled out and stress levels aren't all that high so any ideas you might have would be great to hear.
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