Tag / choice

by crmayes

Freedom Fries and the “Out-Group”: Consumer Ethnocentrism Part 3

In 2003 the US was attempting to gain an international consensus in support of their planned invasion of Iraq. The French government were not so keen and refused to join the “coalition of the willing”. In a mature act of protest, certain American politicians and media personalities called for a boycott of all things French.

An immediate target was the delicious French Fry. Rather than boycotting the culinary delicacy that keeps America running – especially when the sugar hit of Dunkin’ Donuts wears off – some clever politicians proposed a re-branding. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) the chairman of the Committee on House Administration ordered that the three cafeterias in the House office buildings change their menus from listing french-fries and french-toast, to freedom-fries and freedom-toast. Representative democracy at its finest!

From the oddly hilarious blog "Swayze, Sinise, Selleck: Snacktime"

From the oddly hilarious blog “Swayze, Sinise, Selleck: Snacktime”

According to Ney this was ‘a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France’. A number of private restaurants followed suit and media personalities such as Bill O’Reilly encouraged consumers to boycott French products, particularly wine.

In a study examining the impact of the calls to boycott French wine in the US, Chavis and Leslie estimate that there was a ‘13% [or $112 million] decrease in the volume of French wine sold over the first 6 months after the US war with Iraq’.

These figures suggest that ethnocentric consumers have the potential to significantly reduce sales – at least for a time. As shown through the work of Swaminathan et al. ‘[n]egative information or negative publicity surrounding a brand [or country] can threaten the stability of the consumer-brand relationship and has a higher salience and diagnostic value than positive information’.

The boycott of French products was different to earlier boycotts of Nestlé or Nike, where the boycott directly targets the perpetrator of the perceived wrong. The rejection of French wine served as a proxy for the French government. According to Chavis and Leslie, ‘[f]or consumers supporting the boycott of French wine, the hope was that somehow this may impact the behavior of the French government’.

As absurd as this scenario is it demonstrates the unpredictable political impact of country-of-origin labelling on consumer behavior. French wine and the idea of terroir is ordinarily seen as a mark of quality and something to be marketed, particularly in contrast to the increased interconnection between the food system and global capitalism enables the commercialised food product to be abstracted from the origin and conditions under which it was produced.

The global food systems results in anonymization of food product. The consumer at the point-of-purchase is ignorant of the conditions under which the food came to be in the supermarket. In this situation the consumer is vulnerable to manipulation by marketing and branding that seeks to represent what a consumer expects or imagines are the conditions under which food is produced.

A consumer may expect a food item, whether tinned tomatoes or cream-cheese, to be associated with pastoral scenes of red barns, wandering holstein’s, and perhaps a salt-of-the-earth type farmer leaning on a fence post. However, when the country-of-origin is known, and this knowledge coincides with a specific economic or political climate, this knowledge can have unpredictable effects on a brand, product or market.

Country-of-origin influences consumer purchasing decisions, but in unpredictable ways. Prior to 2003, a “product of France” label would indicate quality and tradition, characteristics beneficial for wine sales. However, for a period after 2003 it became a liability. While empirical research suggests that ‘consumers actually have only modest knowledge of the national origins of brands’, when labelling or political influence emphasise this information, the country-of-origin has the potential to transform a brand or product into a political act.

by crmayes

American Vegemite and the “In-Group”: Consumer Ethnocentrism Part 2

Vegemite is a culinary shibboleth of Australian-ness. Paul Rozin and Michael Siegal write that ‘Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world. That is, if you eat Vegemite, you are almost certainly Australian’.

The cultural significance of Vegemite for Australia is demonstrated by the awkward, yet seemingly obligatory question put to foreign dignitaries – “do you like vegemite?” A quick Internet search reveals that Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama were recently asked for their opinion on the spread, and it formed part of wedding gift to Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

Despite this intimate bond with the Australian national identity, Vegemite has been owned by the US-based Kraft Foods since 1935. Partly in response to its American ownership, Australian entrepreneur, Dick Smith launched Ozemite in 1999 as an Australian-made alternative.

The Dick Smith Foods brand replicates other brands and products considered to be Australian, yet are now foreign owned. In outlining the rationale for this endeavor Smith asserted that ‘Australians are patriotic but at the moment the labelling is so deceptive you don’t know what’s Australian. What I can say to people “if you buy a product with a Dick Smith Foods on it – it’s as Australian as you can get”’. “As Australian as you can get” has become the slogan for the Dick Smith Foods brand.

Over the past 12 years Smith has built his brand on a form of ethnocentric consumerism. By appealing to patriotic sentiment, Smith uses and reinforces an “in” or “we” group to direct consumer behavior away from “them” – foreign owned foods, particularly Vegemite – and towards an identification with Australian made and owned foods. The economic success of Smith’s brand is questionable; it is not close to the size of Kraft and many of the products are more expensive.

Smith claims that he is not interested in making money – ‘I have enough money. I’m not greedy, I have adequate money’. Rather he explains that he is ‘doing all this work so a consumer can go into a shop and if it says Dick Smith, it literally means, it’s as Australian as you can get’. A clear focus of Smith’s initiative is to encourage Australian consumers to buy Australian brands and products for domestic economic security, but there is a strong underlying theme of national identity and pride.

With debates continuing over introduction of country-of-origin labelling in Australia, especially in relation to berries from China, the case of Dick Smith and Vegemite demonstrates that in addition to being a mechanism that protects domestic markets, knowledge of the country of origin (and country of ownership) has a potential to tie national or geographic identity to a brand, such as Vegemite. However, country-of-origin knowledge also provides an opportunity to build a brand and gain market share, as in the case of Dick Smith Foods.

While Dick Smith draws on the “in-group” aspect of consumer ethnocentrism, appealing to nationalism to establish a brand and market share, the example of “freedom fries” demonstrates the use of “out-group” to shape consumer behavior.

Part 1 – here

by crmayes

Ivan Illich and the Idol of Lifestyle

Ivan Illlich, the Austrian philosopher, Catholic priest and iconoclast, was asked to give a lecture to a group of American Lutheran pastors on the topic of life. Rather outlining a philosophy of life, Illich called life an idol.

Illich said the pastors were dismayed by his characterisation. After all Jesus is the ‘bread of life’, ‘the way, the truth and the life’, and promises abundant life.

"Ivan Illich" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg#/media/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg

“Ivan Illich” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg#/media/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg

What could it mean to call life an idol?

For Illich, life is an idol worshiped and used by marketers, theologians, politicians, scientists, journalists, and activist to motivate, reveal and hide all sorts of responses, actions and emotions. Yet, there is never any attempt to provide an adequate definition.

In his acerbic style Illich says ‘when I used the word life today, I could just as well just cough or clear my throat or say “shit”’.

For Illich, life becomes an idol because it is an empty signifier that can be filled with whatever meaning an authoritative and persuasive speaker gives. In his terms, life is an amoeba word. A word that when thrown into a conversation ‘makes waves, but it doesn’t hit anything. It has all these connotations, but it does not designate anything precisely’.

Other amoeba words could be freedom, family, democracy, race, secular, or gender. Illich was not suggesting that the things these words signify or represent are necessarily unimportant or shit. Rather they tend to hide or assume what is at stake.

Amoeba words are imprecise yet produce deep cultural and emotional resonance. Perhaps the more important a topic is the more amoeba words appear.

The use of lifestyle is a case in point. Despite its banal appearance it is a divisive word. It divides lives as “in” and part of “us” from those that are “out” and part of “them”. Sure, lifestyle is used to market insurance or sell funeral packages, but it is also used to identify what is valued and can be disregarded.

The idol of lifestyle is used to justify the careful inclusion of some lives and in the same movement violent exclusion of others.

George H.W. Bush infamously told the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that the American way of life was not negotiable. The rest of the world may burn, but the American lifestyle has such a high value that it will not be compromised.

Tony Abbott’s recent comments about lifestyle choices and remote Aboriginal communities reveal the divisive nature of the term.

“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have”

There are lifestyles that ‘fully participate in the life of our country’ and there are lifestyles that are outside of “our country”. Being “inside” grants security, celebration and flourishing, while being “outside” leads to abandonment and exposure. Of course, to be outside is a choice and therefore removes responsibility for care from the “inside”.

Screenshot 2015-03-11 18.26.22

Like Illich’s observations, the idol of life and amoeba words continue to abound in political and popular discourse. Perhaps coughing or saying shit in their stead may interrupt the pronouncements of false prophets and disrupt the flow of worshiping these false gods.

See – Cayley, David. 1992. Ivan Illich in conversation. Concord, Ontario: House Of Anansi

by crmayes

Bioethics, obesity and the harm principle

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Fat people should pay more to fly, because they weigh more and hence use more fuel.
Fat people can’t make good food choices so they should be coerced and stigmatized into making the right choice.
These and other spurious ideas are permitted to float around opinion pages of leading newspapers and journals because a) we think we have a fat people problem; b) shocking, blunt and simplistic solutions to complex problems are key ingredients to “click-bait”; and c) if we can reduce complex problems to economic calculations then we can pretend moralistic interventions into peoples lives are “neutral” because, hey it’s the raw numbers talking.
Anyway, in the below paper published this week I argue against Peter Singer and Dan Callahan’s attempts to justify direct interventions into the lives of fat people based on a simplistic use of the harm principle and a deep ignorance of empirical and public health research on obesity. Or as H.L. Mencken quipped, “For every human problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”
If you can’t get beyond the paywall send me an email or message.

The Harm of Bioethics: A Critique of Singer and Callahan on Obesity

Abstract

Debate concerning the social impact of obesity has been ongoing since at least the 1980s. Bioethicists, however, have been relatively silent. If obesity is addressed it tends to be in the context of resource allocation or clinical procedures such as bariatric surgery. However, prominent bioethicists Peter Singer and Dan Callahan have recently entered the obesity debate to argue that obesity is not simply a clinical or personal issue but an ethical issue with social and political consequences.

This article critically examines two problematic aspects of Singer and Callahan’s respective approaches. First, there is an uncritical assumption that individuals are autonomous agents responsible for health-related effects associated with food choices. In their view, individuals are obese because they choose certain foods or refrain from physical activity. However, this view alone does not justify intervention. Both Singer and Callahan recognize that individuals are free to make foolish choices so long as they do not harm others. It is at this point that the second problematic aspect arises. To interfere legitimately in the liberty of individuals, they invoke the harm principle. I contend, however, that in making this move both Singer and Callahan rely on superficial readings of public health research to amplify the harm caused by obese individuals and ignore pertinent epidemiological research on the social determinants of obesity. I argue that the mobilization of the harm principle and corresponding focus on individual behaviours without careful consideration of the empirical research is itself a form of harm that needs to be taken seriously.

Keywords: obesity; Peter Singer; Dan Callahan; harm principle; public health

Mayes, C. (2015), The Harm of Bioethics: A Critique of Singer and Callahan on Obesity. Bioethics, 29: 217–221. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12089