Tag Archives: protectionism

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Individualism, Freedom, and Food

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A surprisingly superficial podcast episode on what could have been a very deep subject.

Open Source » Blog Archive » The End of Free Will?

start a conversation about manipulation, persuasion and freedom from choice

To summarize the main issue of that episode: is marketing and "upselling" by restaurant chains undermining the individual freedom to choose quality food? Apparently simple a question, but billed as much more than that.

Maybe they refrained from delving deeper into any of those issues because philosophical discussions, perhaps aesthetic ones especially, are off limits in "polite company" in U.S. media. Too bad.

Actually, I’m genuinely disappointed. Not necessarily because restaurant chains are very important an issue for me (in Montreal, they don’t seem to have the exact same type of impact and I love to cook). But because the show’s participants all came very close to saying very important things about individualism, food, and freedom. The first two are too rarely discussed, IMHO, and the third could have been the "hook" to discuss the other two.

Ah, well…

If you want to know more about my thoughts on this podcast episode, check out some of the tags below.

activism, advocacy, amateurs, cluetrain, Cluetrain Manifesto, Communities, community-building, consumption, Creative Commons, creativity, cultural capital, democracy, digital lifestyle, Empowerment, food and society, friendship, geek crowd, globalization, groupthink, hegemony, humanism, innovation, intellectual property, knowledge, leapfrog effect, mindshare, moral enterpreneurs, movies, music scenes, Old Media, online privacy, online publishing, open-source, openness, optimism, participatory culture, popular culture, product and process, social dynamics, social networks, social publishing, specialists, stereotypes, tasting, technology, trusting people, YouTube

Music, Food, Industries, Piracy

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000ady6y (PNG Image, 200×125 pixels)

Noticed it in Steal This Film. A very appropriate message. Process over product. Music is not a commodity. Food does not grow on profits.

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consumerism, groupthink, Nation-States, nationalism, Québec, Radio Open Source, standardization

NYT Mindset, Nationalism, Wars

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On a recent episode of his Radio Open Source podcast, Christopher Lydon admits that the fact that the recent Israeli attack came between issues of the New York Times had an impact on his ability to reflect on the issue.

The episode itself, especially near the end, linked “normalcy” in Israeli society with a culture of consumerism with strong “Western” influences, the notion of a “Free State” (in this case, a free Jewish state), and being too boring for U.S. media. Fascinating. But quite specific. Many people do think through these notions and many of them either read the New York Times themselves or listen intently to those who do.

The notion of sovereignty came regularly in that podcast episode. Israel is a “sovereign state” and is allowed to defend this sovereignty. Interestingly enough, the notion of sovereignty has been a major part of the nationalist discourse in Quebec for a while. In fact, that version of sovereignty is less linked with protecting borders than with building a society on its own terms. Self-determination. Many Quebec sovereignists hope, in fact, for a world without national borders. Hearing comments on Radio Open Source, it seems like many people are still clinging to the existence of “Democratic Nation-States.” Hence the attitude that wars can be won by one of the countries involved.

Ah, well…