Chapter 7 One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison
“So, let me get this straight,” says a young man to a grizzly weather-worn old man, “you want us to chop down those trees, cut them into fire wood, paint the barn, and mend that fence. And for doing all that work you’re going to give us that there six pack.”While the youngster is talking the camera pans about the terrain showing the tasks as they are named. Each task in itself would take hours to complete.
“Yep,” says the old timer squinting, the camera angle meant to look like you’re seeing the old man through the young man’s eyes. The young man looks over at his buddy, they smirk, and the young man turns back to the old timer and says, “So, what’s the catch?”The camera switches back to the old timer whose eyes widen in surprise and confusion, before the camera quickly cuts away to some flattering and hopefully thirst enticing footage of the product.
The next commercial again shows a pair of young men pushing their beat-up old car towards a gas station in what appears to be the middle of a desert. The camera cuts to various shots of the boys, the terrain, people and workers at the gas station all showing the incredible heat of the day. After the boys succeed at pushing the car all the way up to the pump, they pool their money together to see how much gas they can purchase. After emptying their pockets it is easy to see that they only have a few dollars. While they’re looking at their money they notice a sign in the window showing a six pack of beer and how much it costs.
The man at the pump asks, “So, what will it be boys?” as he lifts the nozzle and awaits their instruction. The boys look at each other, their handful of money, the window advertising the beer and the man at the pump. They look quizzically at each other, then smile.
In the final scene, you first see the six pack in the front seat of the car. As the camera pans out you see the boys strain as they push their car down the open desert road.
Though she did find a couple of the beer commercials they had seen funny, Claudia obviously did not enjoy them half as much as Austin. The last few she found particularly annoying, if not down right offensive. Unable to control herself any longer she hissed, “How can they get away with that?”
“Get away with what?” Austin responded, the laugh in his voice showed he was playfully baiting Claudia.
“First of all the kids in the last few commercials don’t even look old enough to drink. Then the majority of the other commercials show beer guzzling men as gross and disgusting pigs who value drinking beer over everything else in life.”
“They’re just trying to show how loyal their customers are, and do it with self-effacing humor. The message is, life’s tough, after you worked hard you need to reward yourself with a brew. Best yet, it’s something you can share with all your buddies.”
“Get off it, Austin. You know darn well they’re just parading how addictive their product is.”
“The beer companies would be quick to point out that most adults drink some form of liquor and only a small portion have a drinking problem.”
“That small portion,” Claudia said while her eyes gleamed and nostrils flared, “runs into the millions. Why don’t you explain that distinction to the thousands of people whose loved ones were killed on the highways each year by those so called social drinkers who have no drinking problem.”
“So, what are we suggesting here,” Austin stated in a feeble attempt to try and lighten up the mood, “prohibition?”
“I don’t know,” Claudia admitted in frustration, “I just think they should show more sensitivity.”
“They’re job is not to be sensitive,” Austin pointed out, “it’s to sell their product. Now if everybody reacted the way you did, then their commercials would have been unpopular and would have been pulled. Yet, the sheer number of this style of commercial indicates that sales responded favorably to the ad campaigns.”
“So, you’re defending them,” Claudia shot back controlling her anger enough to carry on a logical conversation.
“I’m just saying that all they’re doing is reflecting the interests of the consumer.” Sensing Claudia was calming down he asked, “Isn’t the responsibility the consumer’s? What would happen if they didn’t like the commercials or the products?”
“But we’re talking about addiction here,” pleaded Claudia, “If a person is an addict then isn’t that person by definition no longer capable of making a free decision?”
“Yet, as I already said,” Austin calmly countered, “the majority of people who like the product aren’t addicted. The ad campaign wouldn’t succeed by just appealing to alcoholics.”
“Even if it’s not defined as an addiction,” maintained Claudia, “most people drink alcohol because they get a buzz from it. It still is taking advantage of people’s weaknesses, of encouraging them to do things to excess.”
“Whoa girl,” Austin laughed, “now we’re heading down a whole different road. If we condemn every salesman for trying to convince people to use what he’s hawking, then we are dismantling the entire free enterprise system.”
Claudia feels no anger recalling this conversation, but remembers quite well the anger she felt that evening. It seems to her that was the first time she expressed such anger to Austin. Yet, the reason the conversation has stayed so fresh in her memory has more to do with what she learned that evening and the way they were able to disagree without getting ugly with each other. No matter how often they debated a topic, or how often Austin appeared to be in the right, he never attacked her character or made her feel stupid. Claudia wondered if any other couples argued with so much respect.
That evening Austin revealed a lot to her about how the world works. He did so patiently and logically. He told her people seldom realize the full ramifications of common sense. In his view there is hardly ever a grand conspiracy, rather it’s just the natural result of people doing business. Instead of great manipulators with grand plans, you find businessmen just trying to survive who stumble upon things.
According to Austin the early distributors of addictive products are usually blind to the addictive qualities of their merchandise. The early marketers of tea, tobacco, alcohol, chocolate and sugar initially only knew their product, like so many others, was pleasant to consume. Only through the success they enjoyed in marketing their products over the years did they begin to realize the customer loyalty to their product might be tainted. Instead of being because they were great salesmen or their product just tasted good or was pleasurable to consume, it might be because their product contained addictive substances.
“If your goal”, Austin contended, “was to make money off the sales of a product, it was only natural you would periodically alter the recipe to improve sales. You wouldn’t boost the levels of cacao in deserts because it contained caffeine, you would increase the amount of cacao because the cookies and cakes sold better with an elevated percentage of cacao.”
“The duty of every businessman is to make his product as attractive as possible to the consumer. The better a food product tastes, looks and smells the more it will sell. Therefore, any successful businessman will be forced to put a large amount of time and energy into designing the most marketable product by improving its visual, tactile, olfactory and gastronomic appeal.”
Claudia found it difficult to argue any of this. She also had to admit it did not only make sense, but seemed to be the normal, if not, necessary evolution of marketing. Yet, this did not excuse the companies who, when they learned of them, took advantage of the addictive qualities of their product. What about the tobacco companies or the distilleries?
Austin explained that makers of products accused of containing addictive substances often feel like victims rather than exploiters. Austin asked Claudia to imagine how she would feel, if after years of success you are informed that the success of your product is dependent on its possibly containing an addictive substance.
He asked her to keep in mind that she had spent the majority of her life experimenting and researching ways to improve the product. And that slowly over the years she had out-foxed her competitors and forged a huge corporate empire. He asked her to keep in mind she owned a massive company which made her and her friends extremely wealthy and the making, distributing and marketing of the product provided the livelihood for thousands of people. So, she not only had colossal overhead, but had many families dependent on her success.
He asked Claudia how she would feel if very few other products were considered addictive, even though their successes were just as remarkable. He asked her how she would feel, and how quickly she would destroy her life’s work. Austin went on to say he knew a lot of wealthy businessmen, and only a few of them were evil. Sure, many were highly competitive over-achievers. Sure, many of them had warped priorities which made a mess of their personal lives. Yet, all in all, they were respectable people who tried to do what they thought was best.
He was quick to add there were numerous people who showed no mercy when taking advantage of the weaknesses of others. Gambling and pornography were, according to Austin, two examples of very successful predatory industries. Two industries, which despite the fact their activities are labeled as addictions and sicknesses, have skyrocketed in popularity.
As it turned out, Austin’s own father had a gambling problem. This was not the first time Austin had told Claudia about his father’s problem. Yet, this time he talked about its effects on their family. How at times his father would come and surprise the family with expensive items and gifts, such as boats and jewelry, only to have them vanish or be repossessed just as suddenly. One of Austin’s examples included a racing bike he received as an early 13th birthday gift which had to be returned the day after his birthday.
Though gambling and sex addiction are recognized as faults, Austin pointed out that their industries continue to thrive. Despite people’s hatred of sex offenders, philanderers, and pedophiles, the number of strip clubs, adult magazines and sex videos continue to climb. The number of outlets for legalized gambling has never been greater, and even churches regularly sponsor bingo and “Vegas” nights. Almost every state has a lottery and off-track betting houses can be found virtually everywhere.
Addiction, Austin admitted, does have a privileged role in free enterprise. Yet, the difference between addiction and pleasure is often very hard to discern. Sure the more addictive a product is, the easier it is to sell. One could pretty much say that an addictive product sells itself. Yet, is everything that tastes, looks and smells good addictive? Is it fair that one product is punished because scientists have isolated an addictive substance while another goes free because the technology or neurophysiological data to identify its addictive properties doesn’t exist yet?
Austin must have spent over an hour that evening talking about the unfairness of punishing businessmen with a definition of addiction which constantly changes. One day a product could be viewed as pleasurable and enticing, and addictive the next.
Claudia remembers Austin declaring, “it is inevitable the more we learn about the chemistry of addiction the more we will find products that contain addictive elements. Every day we spend hours researching every imaginable way to improve the sales of a product. We want it to be attractive on every level, so we alter and improve not only the product’s taste but its look, texture, aroma and packaging.”
According to Austin all of these things could and probably would be found to be addictive. “The aroma of household cleaners has always been important, it is only logical that the best selling aromas are so because they cross the line between pleasure and addiction. Many people sniff and woof cleaning supplies to get a little buzz, and where there’s a buzz there’s the possibility of addiction. Heck, I can imagine the day when a corporate logo will be viewed as fostering an undue loyalty, a visual addiction. Or, the pleasurable feel of a canister will be labeled addictive.”
She remembers Austin’s broad smile as he quipped, “For all we know certain brands of stuffed animals will be banned for being tactilly addictive.”
Claudia breaks away from her thoughts and looks down at the sketch pad on her lap. During her reminiscences she had been drawing the entire time. Claudia had found many of her best drawings occurred when she did not plan her work. Instead, she worked best when absorbed in thought drawing unconsciously. Claudia admires its bright vivid colors and stops herself before she begins critiquing and planning its progress.
Picking up the thread of thought she had dropped, Claudia wonders if all pleasure and beauty were somehow addictive. Maybe, she considers, all human emotion is potentially addictive. Maybe, every experience and feeling releases a small amount of a drug into our nervous system and if we repeat that experience or feeling too often, we will become addicted to it. That could explain how come there are sex addicts, people who are clinically depressed, argue and fight all the time, compulsively lie, or are dare-devils.
She wonders if the popularity of a piece of art might somehow be caused by a form of addiction. Was the great popularity of the Mona Lisa due to a subconsciously addictive aspect of the painting, maybe her smile, maybe a specific blend of colors. Was it like a Rorschach test, where some hidden shape or form contained an irresistible symbol? Was a lot of what we view as beautiful conveyed subliminally? Does the Mona Lisa contain erotic elements that only our subconscious recognizes, and its hidden quality only adds to our appreciation, our addiction?
Looking once again at her lap Claudia smiles, for what she had drawn so far was a sea of colors. Each horizontal wave which extended across the page was a specific color but contained within it a multitude of hues. Standing out surreally against this chaotic and rather sensual backdrop were a few sparse sea birds. “Now if this isn’t subliminal,” she thought to herself, “nothing is.”
Taking a moment she slowly rolls her head in broad circles to relieve the stiffness in her neck which had accumulated from being hunched over a sketch pad for so long. The moment she closes her eyes she instantly begins to relive their discussion on addiction.
“I understand that addiction can be a very grey term,” Claudia conceded, “but what about when we know something is harmful, like tobacco, and there’s a huge public outcry?”
“I’m not sure it’s fair to say there was a huge public outcry”, began Austin sounding pensive. “To me the whole tobacco war was fought between two huge economic titans, and the public was just a pawn in the battle.”
Austin went on to claim that, “the dangers and harms of tobacco were well known years before they were taken to task. Public Health officials and the Medical Community had said the same things regarding tobacco about two decades before any substantial action was taken against the tobacco industry. The government funded much of the industry and made money off tobacco on many levels. Tobacco bought political protection through campaign contributions, while portraying themselves as an innocent victim. They complained they were just honest hard working Americans being harassed through taxes, and unconstitutional governmental interventions. They claimed they were fighting for the rights of Americans to smoke, and that if this right were taken away, then soon the government would take or tax away many of their other rights and privileges. According to big tobacco, the issue wasn’t about health and smoking, the issue was about personal freedom and rights.”
“This debate went nowhere for ages,” asserted Austin, “with both the government and the tobacco companies making sizable profits. Things would never have changed if it weren’t for the eventual involvement of the insurance industry. Advancements in the treatment of varied forms of cancers and lung diseases significantly prolonged the life of many patients suffering from diseases caused by smoking. The cost of medical care for these patients skyrocketed, stripping the wealthy and powerful insurance companies of profits and causing them to raise their rates at a dizzying pace.”
“So, the insurance companies struck back,” interjected Claudia.
“Big time,” Austin shot back energetically. “They pumped millions of dollars into the media, political campaigns and scientific research trying to strip away tobacco’s privileged position while inciting your so-called public outcry.”
“So wealth wins out,” Claudia retorted with an ample air of sarcasm.
“You could say that. The public outcry lasted only as long as the insurance companies fueled it. The battle with big tobacco would end the day someone found a way to restore the profit margin of the insurance companies.” Austin shook his head and with mocking cynicism added, “the whole problem with tobacco began when their product was no longer lethal enough. When people stopped dying so quickly, it became too expensive, and something had to be done.”
When Claudia once again confronted Austin on how he could tolerate and even defend such behavior he wearily responded, “I never said our system is perfect. At times I’m embarrassed and even insulted by some of the actions of my business partners. Yet, more often I feel proud and fortunate to be a part of this incredible epoch we’re in. When I look back at any other time period or any previous civilization, I never feel any jealousy over what they had or how they acquired it.”
“But don’t you feel any anger at how our society exploits people with weaknesses like your father?” Claudia asked hoping not to sound harsh or accusatory.
“Of course I was hurt and disappointed, by both my father and the people who took advantage of him,” Austin offered in a voice more full of emotion than the words he used. “Yet, I found early on that nothing is gained by living in fantasy or being an idealist. If I only loved what was perfect, I would never find anything to love, including myself. Living, working and loving in a real but imperfect world is so much better than complaining about its faults.”
The rest of that evening she remembers talking to Austin about his father’s gambling problem. A problem she was to learn had a great impact on Austin’s view of the world.
Claudia’s mind drifts towards the image of a young Austin waking up to find his bike gone the day after his birthday. She recalls Austin’s description of the tension in the house every time his dad brought home expensive gifts or a wad full of cash. She recalls the fear he described when they left the house that anything from a piece of furniture to the refrigerator might be gone upon their return.
Smiling through her tears she wonders how much of Austin’s current way of life was shaped by his father’s gambling problem. Did Austin avoid surrounding himself with possessions or carrying around cash because of his childhood? Was his unwillingness to criticize the predatory nature of the business world he so embraced just an expression of the anger he had at his father? Was he glad the world punished his father for being weak, or was his business career a form of loyalty to his father?
“Look at me,” Claudia whispers out loud, “I lived with a man for ten years and he’s still a mystery to me. I wanted to know him so much. God, Claudia, who are you kidding? You still want to know this man. No matter how many questions you have asked girl, you still haven’t asked the right ones.”