Rogue Thoughts

Working in a company obsessed with Corporate Social Responsibility and having a green profile, I recently had the good fortune of being exposed to a sparkling soft drink offered without charge at my job. Perhaps out of boredom or natural inquisitiveness, I suddenly felt compelled to study the label. I found that organic fruits had been used, but more disturbingly I found that it contained organic CO2! after recovering from the out of place conjunction of these terms, this situation made me think a bit about why we act “responsibly” and consume products that are organic and CO2 friendly.

Personally I prefer to buy organic food, and have a generally low level of energy consumption etc. But I am becoming increasingly weary of the tone and manner in which these things are communicated.
I don’t like the fact that I am expected by the community to buy a product based on some clean/unclean distinction reminiscent of religious discourse. People who eat food labeled kosher or halal do it because of a religiously constructed demand for such products. A large conglomerate of ‘civil servants’ called priests or imams, have branded their club and have a constitution embedded in a deliberately cryptic piece of literature, called the Quran or Thorah, that is, their canon. In this canon there are prescriptions about a good many things, such as how to behave responsibly and what to eat and not to eat.

These clubs have been very successful in their marketing efforts and brand positioning, because they have been able to include the brand in a narrative. As has been convincingly argued by professor of literature Mark Turner, pychologist Jerome Bruner and philosopher Daniel Dennet, the human mind is a literary mind, in the words of Turner; life is a narrative, in the words of Bruner and the self is a center of narrative gravity in the words Dennet.
The Jewish club has embedded the rules for proper food and conduct (kosher) in the narrative of the Torah, where it plays a part in the future demise of the world as we know it and the ultimate rescue of the individual club members abiding to these rules to a cooler place than here, that is heaven, at some undisclosed point in the future.
The Islamic plot is disappointingly similar: act as prescribed pray to Allah five times a day, go to Mekka plus eat halal and you will transpose your existence into a much cooler place at some undisclosed point in the future.
Religious clubs’ marketing strategy is mimicked by an emerging club of what we could call ‘climate guardians’. This club’s canon is the IPCC’s report on climate change. This canon also has a base narrative about the impending doom, and possible rescue of the members of the club to a literally ‘cooler’ place at some undisclosed point in the future, rather than the hellish prospect offered by the present prognosis (granted, this club is more democratic since it saves everyone, not just the members). In this club you also have to eat properly, that is organic or CO2 friendly, and act responsibly, fore example by turning out the lights, buying small cars etc…

Personally I will continue to buy halal, kosher, organic and CO2 friendly food and turn out the lights, I will just not be coerced into it by narrative hypnotists, such as imams or climate evangelists. I will do it because, or in so far as, there is persuasive evidence that it has beneficial economic or health effects to my family and me, or because it tastes d*** good…

That was not the case for the sparkling soft drink, so I will leave it for a dedicated club member.