The bells of change are ringing at one of America’s icons. After the passing of MacDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo, and the subsequent appointment of Charlie Bell to the helm, the franchise giant is now attempting to align its image closer to its increasingly more health-conscious and environmentally aware market. In the US, measures have been taken to reduce the fat content of its hamburgers, following a damning research project undertaken by an individual, who gained at least ten pounds after having three MacDonald’s meals a day for a month. Labels indicating nutritional content are now printed onto its paper packaging. It was within the last decade that Styrofoam packaging was phased out in MacDonald’s outlets in Singapore. In Sydney, restaurants offer salads as a so-called healthier alternative, even though these come in, yes, plastic packaging.
While MacDonald’s efforts to protect the environment are much to be desired, it can certainly be held accountable for not stemming the prevalence of the ‘throw-away’ mentality that has plagued the world for the better part of the last century, if not actively promoting economic and social waste. Each day, millions of burgers are disposed of as trash in the name of commercial enterprise, while millions of children face the spectre of death by starvation in Africa. As quickly as burgers are consumed, trees in the rainforests (if we may still use this term) are decapitated, often at rates unsustainable for the continued well-being of the local and global ecosystems. The massacre of species continues unabated, systematically eliminating biodiversity from this planet.
The use of paper packaging by pizza parlours has been a tradition that has endured for decades. Most pizza restaurants and takeaways in Sydney (and Singapore) offer a wide variety of toppings, and more recently, crusts. The myriad of selections from mozzarella, beef, chicken, ham, mushrooms and even anchovies, testifies to the importance that variety plays in this market. While consumers may not necessarily want to be utterly spoilt for choice (and fall victim to decision paralysis), allowing for a certain degree of customisation is generally regarded as having some intrinsic value.
Undoubtedly, it was a wise person who remarked that it is better not to bite off more than one could chew. Personal experience has led me to believe that overeating at buffets more often than not leads to a bloated abdomen, and perhaps indigestion as well. In slightly more severe cases, antibiotics may be called upon to aid the body in ridding itself of the toxins that have been built up through the gorging of food. While these are generally beneficial to human health, continued indulgence in eating habits has been linked to the onset of cancer. The sterilisation effects from chemotherapy frequently result in the effectively elimination of malignant cells; it just as often takes out the ‘good’ defence mechanisms of patients in the process.
Society’s persistent emphasis on temporal culture and wonton waste extends far beyond the realm of biology and environmental science. The very nature of employment is transforming at a non-evolutionary pace: jobs are replaced by new forms of work, with or without the use of human labour. Life-long employment remains the myth that the century past had done so well to perpetuate. A sense of ordered purpose guides those who would grasp opportunities when these present themselves; those who remain in the school of ‘tuna’ thought remain confident the dragnet that is commercial enterprise would somehow spare them the agony of reality: dispensable and disposable is the loyal employee.
The interconnectedness of society can easily fuse itself onto a single banner if people allow it thus. Such is ideology that impinges on the freedoms of another, be it in terms of culture, language, or religion. Perhaps the most deceptive are ideologies that espouse freedom. Liberators from Britain forcibly eliminated the rights of indigenous people in Australia through the arcane concept of terra nullus – no man’s land, this thereby extended to ‘This is my land’, meaning, the white man’s land. Plunging airplanes into buildings under the guise of a war of liberation is perhaps as hypocritical as torturing prisoners in the name of one who professes to eliminate terrorism. Whither imperialism?
Faced with scenarios of potential conflict, it is understandable that some who are in power choose to tacitly (or perhaps actively?) adopt a culture of sterilisation. The censorship of ideas, pornographic or merely graphic, is common in the sunny island set in the sea i.e. Singapore. The past two decades have arguably shown the effects of such sterilisation: a ‘pseudo-democracy’, one that has little tolerance for controversy, and perhaps even less evidence of it. Withholding from (or is it withholding of acceptance of) contribution to the stone soup of ideas necessitates the formation of a committee to teach creativity to school-going children.
The denial of the existence of alternative ideas and ideals leads to, at its most extreme, radicalisation and polarisation. Propaganda may be seen to stem from a need to express one’s self-righteousness and, consequently, one’s blindness to the inherent diversity that is life. What are white blood cells without the existence of germs and bacteria? The continued bulimic consumption of junk ideologies necessitates a reaction akin to one undergoing an extreme diet programme. The case for education has never been more urgent, to focus society on what it means to be a nation: from the affirmative sugarcoating politicisation of school visits, to the stark rejection of respect of other through racial abuse. The opportunity is present to return to the fundamentals of tolerance and mutual acceptance, to strive towards the genuine celebration of difference.
