Forget Emerson?
Have we reached a point in our cultural evolution in which we no longer are responsible for our own decisions and actions? Did Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essay on “Self-Reliance” was a centerpiece of my liberal arts education, have it wrong? Do high school curricula even include Emerson any longer? ▪ Our cover story this month raises all these questions for me. In “Tipping the Scale” (p. 24), Senior Editor Betsy Spethmann looks at marketing by both packaged food and restaurants brands. In recent years, food purveyors have been taken to task for the epidemic of overeating in developed countries. While they haven’t acknowledged any direct tie between the problem and their products, many of these companies have found religion and jumped on the health and fitness soapbox. As a result, they’re sending low-fat, low-carb messages along with each sales pitch. ▪ Now, I believe in the power of marketing to educate and influence consumers. In particular, I believe in the power of promotional marketing to motivate sales and build brands. But I also have a gut fear (you’ll pardon the expression) of the implications of such thinking: that consumers have surrendered themselves to the role of sheep, to be led to the trough — or the treadmill. ▪ While Emerson admitted that, “Society is a joint-stock company….[that] loves not realities and creators, but names and customs” (this was even before brand marketing), he also believed that we should be self reliant when making choices. While many factors influencing health are outside our control, isn’t eating one that remains within our autonomy? When was the last time a marketer pushed a doughnut in your face? ▪ Of course, food marketing to children falls outside the scope of my self-reliance rant. Children are still learning how to make healthy choices; they typically don’t control the foods put on their plates; and they are utterly receptive to sales messages. (My six-year, with complete earnestness, tried one morning to convince me that our family’s happiness would be complete if only we had the self-draining pasta pot he had seen advertised during his Saturday cartoons. Some marketer just knew he would commit the script to memory and repeat it back to me.) ▪ I don’t believe healthy living is the responsibility of marketers, but of thinking consumers, acting on behalf of themselves and their children. I worry, however, about the consumers who don’t choose to think, for if adults surrender that responsibility, can they be expected to teach their children to weigh their options, for food or anything else? Tell me what you think.
