Chapter 8 Living With X-ray Vision
Small fans hanging down from old wooded rafters hovering 30 feet above the ground spin lazily. The old warehouse converted into a restaurant is filled to the gills with customers. Conversations rise up and blend into a hushed roar reminiscent of an opera house a few minutes before the rise of the curtain. The pinging sounds of silverware hitting platters, and glasses meeting tables cut through the voices like sharp icicles.
The monotony of the flat warehouse floor is broken up with sections of tables on platforms rising a few feet above the others. Waiters and waitresses in black, white and red uniforms dart through the aisles like mice through a maze adding to the hum of relaxed commotion. Quiet and smooth enough to eat by, but busy enough to have it’s clientele feel they are well attended to at a very popular and refined eatery.
The tables are arranged allowing one to feel part of a vast, but cozy ocean of diners, while at the same time sensing their own conversation private and intimate. Waves of aromas comprised of various herbs and cheeses almost seemed to be delivered directly from the kitchen to one’s table through the air system.
This seductive and warm environment formed the backdrop of Claudia’s evening with her friend Kendra. Over the last number of months Claudia had begun to deem Kendra as one of her best friends. Kendra was an intelligent, confident and relatively happy woman in her forties who while freely giving her opinion also always listened attentively.
Kendra was an analyst whose parents came to this country from Haiti when she was ten years old. Claudia loved Kendra’s melodious island accent which seemed to take the edge off any criticism she may offer. At times Claudia felt herself envious of Kendra’s exotic looks and earthy coloring. Her even skin tone and coloring made Kendra look both healthy and vibrant. Just to be around Kendra usually lifted Claudia’s spirits.
“Don’t you find it hard to talk to people without analyzing them?”, asked Claudia leisurely drinking her iced tea after they had finished dinner.
“Oh honey, don’t get paranoid on me now,” joked Kendra. “When I talk to friends I seldom look for hidden meanings.”
“So, you can turn it on and off,” Claudia said sounding both serious and intrigued. “So, do you block it, or does it not even cross your mind?”
“I don’t know. I guess I kind of block it,” Kendra said with an air of pensiveness. “Yet, I’ll have to admit I often analyze the conversations later.”
Nodding as if she were agreeing with herself, Kendra added, “Especially if the conversation caused me concern, or something about it struck me as strange”.
“Does that happen often?”
Kendra smiled broadly before replying, “Girl, you really are starting to worry me.”
“It’s just that I find I can’t accept anything I read or hear without feeling suspicious,” admitted Claudia. With her eyes and voice slumping downward she added, “because of my knowledge of the world of mass media, I feel like I have to figure out everyone’s agenda”.
Instead of saying anything, Kendra leaned in closer to Claudia tacitly inviting her to speak on. Claudia, lifting her head up, took a deep breath before she spoke any more. She looked at Kendra a long moment to see if Kendra really understood the importance of what she was about to disclose. Seeing that Kendra’s eyes reflected back the concern and care she needed, she decided to unload her troubles.
Over the next ten minutes she outlined the history of her growing cynicism. She talked of how naive she was when she met Austin and the evolution of her social awareness over the ten years she spent with him. She talked about how her “search for the truth” led her into reading Austin’s vast home library on the history of public relations and how it now motivated her to read countless magazines and books written by and for the PR industry.
All of Claudia’s other friends would have interrupted her discourse to either defend or attack Austin. They would take advantage of every opportunity offered to consul her either to divorce or get back together with Austin. Kendra, on the other hand, let Claudia tell her story.
Kendra was the only friend she could think of who had never offered an opinion on whether she should return to Austin. Claudia realized that in her profession she must see the good and bad in everybody, and therefore, be less judgmental. Yet, even if Kendra was a cashier at a grocery store Claudia was sure she would maintain a balanced view of people.
Claudia tried to impart the profound effect it had on her to learn that way back in 1909 there were letters written to corporations from national magazines promising favorable press in return for advertising dollars. She talked of how the newly formed information bureaus at corporations learned how to manipulate public opinion from the very investigative books and articles exposing their exploitative practices.
When she found herself relating at length the early successes and failures of the publicity departments of AT&T and Standard Oil at improving their image she realized she was beginning to stray off course. What she wanted was for Kendra to understand how intrusive and pervasive were the workings of public relations in all forms of the media. Then, after Kendra grasped the enormity of it all, she wanted her advice on what she should do to not feel so invaded and overwhelmed.
Claudia did feel her efforts succeeded when Kendra reached across the table and holding her hand admitted she was still relatively naive about the workings of the media, and that what she was learning sounded very scary indeed. Yet, when it came to advice Kendra said she needed to think more about this before she could respond.
Claudia said she understood and that she respected Kendra’s caution. In fact, Claudia noted with an air of relief, her silence only reaffirmed this was a difficult and serious issue. A difficult situation totally worthy of the attention she was giving it.
The waitress who had appeared with the check returned with Claudia’s credit card and receipt. Claudia studied it for a brief moment and then informed Kendra there was one other matter on which she wanted Kendra’s input.
She quickly informed Kendra of the whole Todd Platt affair. After fully explaining the proposition and its possible ramifications she asked, “So, do you think I should tell him anything more?”
“That’s a tough call,” Kendra admitted. “On one level talking the whole thing out might be very therapeutic for you. On the other hand, you never know how he’ll interpret what you say, and how he’ll print it or include it in his movie…Just what does your gut say about this guy?”
“I didn’t trust him much,” Claudia said trying to process her feelings, “but that could be because the whole movie thing caught me off guard. I guess if I were him I would have asked the same questions, just in a different way.”
“I would say trust your gut,” Kendra said supportively. “Next time he calls feel him out a little bit, and then follow your heart.”
Claudia thanked Kendra for joining her for dinner and apologized for dominating most of the dinner conversation with her issues. Kendra brushed off Claudia’s apology by stating it was just Claudia’s turn and pointed out how many times Claudia had been there for her.
Claudia declined Kendra’s offer to drive her home and instead opted to take a cab. Once in the cab, Claudia’s mind drifted over the evening’s events as she let the passing street lights hypnotize her. Before she realized a moment had passed she found herself at her door step.
Her time with Kendra had truly helped. She felt refreshed and confident in her ability to deal with not only Todd Platt, but her general mistrust of the world around her.
Her eyes grew tired after reading a mystery novel for over an hour. Turning on the TV her serenity ended quickly when a commercial rekindled her concerns regarding the marketing world. The commercial depicted a man with the look of utter contentment on his face driving around on his rider mower, while his envious neighbor struggled and sweated with his puny push mower. This immediately reminded her of a series of commercials Austin had showed demonstrating the vital role waste and inefficiency played in generating profit.
In the most memorable one a man struggling to paint his house by hand, watches as a neighbor paints his house in a fraction of the time with a handheld power painter. When the frustrated man asks his neighbor about the tool, the man tells him it’s great and he should go buy the Wagner Power Painter.
Austin thought it remarkable how only a few out of the millions of people who saw that commercial ever questioned why the neighbor didn’t just borrow his friends paint machine when he was done. “How often,” Austin asked, “does a person paint their house? Why does every person need their own paint machine?”
The answer, of course, is that we don’t all need our own paint machine. Yet, over the years the advertising industry had so succeeded in convincing people that borrowing was either bad, or demonstrated a personal weakness. Through numerous ad campaigns the American public did not only avoid sharing expensive products because of concepts such as convenience, social status, personal worth, etc., but did not even consider it a possibility.
In one memorable conversation Austin made a list of some of the more popular ways in which corporate America goads the public into buying far more than they need. This list included fashion, technological advancement, standard of living, expression of basic rights as a consumer, convenience, increase in the quality of life and the pure joy of shopping. Thinking back, Claudia felt they probably should have added fostering addiction as another means used to get people to over-purchase.
This whole discussion was a reaction to Claudia revealing she hoped and believed corporate America would have to become more efficient. Claudia had never been a very political person, but when it came to the environment she was very cause oriented.
She believed that polluting less was not only the right thing to do, but the best thing for corporations to do economically. Claudia declared that waste only took away from profits and tomorrow’s companies needed to become more efficient in order to survive.
In response to this, Austin took out a piece of paper and wrote across the top of it the following:
Profit = Surplus = Excess = Waste
This was one of Austin’s favorite “logic chains”. Logic chains were a device he often used to show how society works, or the natural progression of a specific social practice. He had logic chains for everything from predicting elections to the evolution of religious beliefs.
Using the above logic chain Austin argued that waste was a vital and necessary aspect of a free enterprise system. After letting Claudia study the chain for a few seconds he explained, “Profit is a form of surplus. If a product was sold at what it cost to make it, there would be no profit. Not only that, but the maker of the product would not be rewarded for the time he put into making the product. In order for the standard of living to improve, a person must continue to make a greater profit for his work. This, therefore, is a surplus.”
Seeing that Claudia had no argument so far he continued, “A surplus is, by definition, more than one needs. If the amount of something exceeds our need, we say we have an excess of it. We refer to that excess amount as waste. Profit that isn’t immediately spent is what we refer to as wealth, and for wealth to exist there must be waste.”
“But,” Claudia eagerly countered, “if the surplus is recycled or reused, then it really isn’t waste is it?”
“Yet, if everything were constantly in use,” Austin countered, “then we would never have a profit. Someone is only considered wealthy if a good portion of their money is stored somewhere. It is this potential of use, this excess, which makes up our definition of wealth. A company that reinvests all of its earnings is not wealthy, for it has no profits for investors to create additional capital.”
Unconvinced by this last argument, Claudia defiantly pushed on, “But money not currently used isn’t waste, it’s a resource. That’s like saying since Lake Michigan is full, all that water is waste.”
“Let’s look at it from a different perspective,” Austin continued fervently trying to have his point understood. “Every company selling goods such as appliances, cars or books wants to increase their market share. Every year each company projects the percentage of market share they will enjoy, and therefore, manufacture that many more cars or washing machines than the previous year. These estimates are usually high due to optimism and the fear of stores running out of their product, thereby missing potential sales and alienating customers who can’t find their product.”
“Since every company can’t increase market share, the majority of companies will produce tons of products never to be sold. These unsold goods are waste. The desire to never run out of a product forces even the fastest growing companies to over- produce, kind of like the waiter who never lets your water glass get half empty. Those over-produced products, like the water at the end of your meal, will be treated as waste and discarded.”
“Why couldn’t most of those products be recycled?”, inquired Claudia sounding much less defiant.
“Some will be recycled, but the recycling process isn’t magical. There is a great amount of energy and resources used when recycling. In many instances the pollution resulting from the use of the toxic substances involved in the recycling process can be higher than the pollution generated when making the original product.”
“Not only this,” Austin continued, “but, it’s cheaper for many industries to destroy the product or put it in land fills, than it is to recycle. Also, it’s important to remember that the recycling business is an industry just as dependent on making a profit as any other.”
“What do you mean by that?” Claudia intoned in a weak voice showing she was worried she really didn’t want to hear the answer.
“The recycling industry makes money off of waste. The industry’s commodity is waste, therefore, the more waste available the more profit potential. An expanding recycling industry depends on increasing amounts of waste. The moment our society became more efficient and less polluting, would be the moment the recycling industry began to vanish. If we were to become less wasteful the recycling industries would all be gone way before the environmentalists would be content.”
Lying on the couch, Claudia remembers how devastated she felt at that point in the conversation. Looking about at all the objects that filled her apartment, she feels that same devastation. She can’t bear the thought that every possession she owns would soon be landfill.
She thinks of everything in her closet, and how fashion dictates she buy more than she needs. She thinks of all the appliances she could share with her neighbors, how much better it would be for the environment to pool resources. She thinks of all the disposable diapers on all the babies and aged people in the world forming mountains of garbage each and every day. She thinks of all of this and more, until she can bear the pain no more.
Nothing she does abates this pain. Tears come and go, but the pain stays. She tries rocking herself, softly singing a favorite song, even picturing her favorite places and people. Yet, nothing works, the pain and devastation don’t go away.
At this moment she hates Austin. She hadn’t minded learning about the business world no matter how much it sometimes tarnished her most treasured views of human nature. She knows the world isn’t a perfect place, but what she can’t handle is Austin taking away her sense of hope.
How could such a wonderful man be so cold? How could Austin be so loving while at the same time proclaiming that man will continue to destroy the planet? No matter what mistakes mankind has made, there always was a future. Yet, Claudia can not, and does not want to conceive of a world without blue skies, trees and oceans.
“Everywhere I look,” she says to herself, “I see the games people play. It isn’t just that everyone is trying to promote themselves and sell you something you don’t need, but it’s where it’s all heading. Sometimes I can handle being lied to and manipulated, but I can’t handle accepting a dying planet with no future.”
Austin always enjoyed the games people play, and had succeeded in having Claudia enjoy identifying them. She enjoys being a detective, of outsmarting the makers of public opinion. She enjoys the look behind the scenes Austin afforded her. She enjoys understanding how the movie was made. She likes taking away the magic, by learning the magicians tricks.
Yet, what she can’t handle is an unhappy ending. Austin, of course, didn’t see this as an unhappy ending, in fact, he always viewed the future with effervescent enthusiasm. Yet, for her the prospect of a dying planet takes all the joy out of the game. Each solved mystery only reminds her of the tragedy unfolding, of the progress of the disease.
Unable to muster the strength to get up and go to bed, Claudia remains on the couch. In a feverish sweat Claudia fades in and out of consciousness. When conscious, she continues to ask herself one question over and over. This question becomes the mantra which finally over-shadows her pain and lets sleep find her.
Throughout the night she asks herself, “How does one live with x-ray vision?