Why is it that at every turn we are lectured these days? For some things I can understand it. Climate change, for example, has to be raised into consciousness as soon as possible, the genocide in Darfur or the apartheid occupation in Palestine – they need to be lectured on. Indeed, as university students we have signed up to and paid for lectures. It is not that kind of lecture I am protesting about. It’s those god-aweful pretentious lectures that we get, usually in the media.
For instance Dr Gillian Mckeith and her program on TV about how to loose weight. Far from recommended that they eat a balanced diet with everything in moderation and increased exercise – she makes them eat what look to be vile concoctions and severely chastises these poor people should they slip up and even look at a chocolate bar!
Another example was a programme I watched recently featuring Hugh Fernley Whittingstall. He was trying to get across in the programme that microwave meals are not the way forward. All very noble and in my view correct, but he seems to think that the only alternative is organic, Fairtrade, locally produced, slaughtered by your own hand food. This coming from someone who was trying to argue that ready meals are more expensive than buying fresh and cooking yourself. From a student perspective this is ridiculous! Much as I would love to buy all Fairtrade, organic, locally produced etc., (and I do where I can) I cannot afford to!
So I am here to tell you all that it is ok if you eat a chocolate bar or drink a pint. And it is ok if you buy one or two ready meals (although I find it more fun and satisfying cooking from scratch). It’s a case of moderation!
Of course this de-sensationalising of situations can go the other way. At every turn there are people telling me over and over that by turning off my bedroom light or turning my washing machine down to 30 degrees instead of 60 or buying a car that runs on hydrogen when going under 0.1 miles per hour will save the planet from climate catastrophe. I know they are only trying to raise awareness and get everyone involved but with the 7 years we have left until the ‘tipping point’ is reached we need actions more akin to not flying, not driving, not using tumble driers than closing the curtains.
I know that some people will find this or indeed me, an avid member of Eco-Uni, Tent State, Palestine Solidarity etc a pretentious lecturer but I need to vent my frustration at these all or nothing people who are either talking sensationalist rubbish or are not being sensational enough (in my view). It drives me barmy when these people go beyond the necessary and emotionally blackmail you into jumping off the cliff rather than just walking along the Cliffside path because they tell you it’s the only way to see the view. Or telling you that buying the postcard is just as good as seeing that view.
Maybe I’m just particularly disillusioned with the media but I firmly believe and recommend to you that you take what you see with a pinch of salt and a large amount of common sense, rather than taking it all to heart. But for now all I have to those people is “I may be at university but you can stop lecturing me.”
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4 comments:
God bless chocolate.
Hey, you need to change some settings so that people with non-google accounts can post comments too.
Else how can your fanbase respond?
Oh, and where did that 7 years till the tipping point figure come from? I haven't read about that one. :D
i read it somewhere. my hangover is preventing me from remembering where. will try and find out. but it was 9 years a couple of years ago. do you not remember? im sure i didnt dream that.
I certainly sit on your soapbox to a degree with regard to evening TV lectures. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the shows you mention are aimed at specific members of society and as such will not appeal to everyone; no programme can boast such a success.
As much as I hate Gillian Mckeith and deplore her programmes, her approach which borders on that of a Victorian schoolteacher is often needed. In my contact with professionals at the NHS, many talk in a jaded fashion at how many patients have little to no idea about proper and balanced diets. A great number have no clue as to what carbohydrates and proteins are and in which foods they can be found, let alone what the body uses such things for. Hence I certainly do not believe that Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall had in his mind the mass of university students when writing his books and TV shows.
Back to Mckeith, her programmes can be seen as necessary in so far as a lot of people lack education on nutrition where a back to basics approach need be taken: "Burgers are bad, celery is good. Now write that on the black board 500 times".
There's also the age old argument that you're free to change the channel at any time, but I feel that today, in 2007, you'd end up flicking to another insipid and bland carbon copy.
So I feel the point is really not so much that the programmes are there - they feed the wants of certain people, after all - but rather the sheer number of them.
Saturation can lead inevitably to a dilution of content. Perhaps in time the demand will dissipate.
Gillian Mckeith can continue sifting through her buckets of excrement, but I certainly don't feel I'll ever be emotionally blackmailed by her, nor compelled by her fetish to jump from a cliff.
(Cor, all of this writing and we've yet to cover the dubious epistemological problems behind ordering people to follow their own constructs of 'common-sense', which could prove even more harmful than letting them watch TV!)
the 7 years thing is based on george monbiot's theories
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