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November 26, 2002
Playing the blame game
Today’s New York Times features an interview with Dr. Barry Schlenker, a University of Florida psychology professor. The Times describes Schlenker’s area of expertise as the study of “people’s attempts to evade or diminish their responsibility for the irresponsible, thoughtless, inadequate, stupid or hurtful things they do -- in other words, the art of making excuses.”
Today’s New York Times features an interview with Dr. Barry Schlenker, a University of Florida psychology professor. The Times describes Schlenker’s area of expertise as the study of “people’s attempts to evade or diminish their responsibility for the irresponsible, thoughtless, inadequate, stupid or hurtful things they do -- in other words, the art of making excuses.”
In light of our recent cultural fascination with overeating -- and with attempts by some unscrupulous trial attorneys to capitalize on their clients’ bad choices – Dr. Schlenker’s insights are telling. Excuse-makers, he says, “undermine crucial aspects of the social contract and suggest that the excuse maker is not a reliable participant in society.”
As the Burger Wars continue to resemble the Tobacco Wars, a cast of high-profile enablers is emerging, eager to help America’s overweight place the blame for their predicament anywhere but on their own shoulders.
First, of course, there’s the trial lawyers, who insist that they’re suing fast-food restaurants because of “serious issues” -- presuming, of course, the existence of a cause more dire than a thin wallet. Tobacco warrior John Banzhaf’s personal reinvention has caused some to suggest that his anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) should be renamed to “Action on Smoking and Snacks.”
Next comes the public health community, eager to blame a few loosening belts on a “fast food culture” that needs to be controlled through warning labels, punitive taxes, and even government restrictions on advertising. Take professor and author Ellen Ruppell Shell as an example. She told National public Radio this month that overeating “is not a character flaw,” preferring to blame the food industry for “working as hard as possible to get us to consume as many… products as possible.”
Finally, of course, a range of nonprofit hucksters, from PETA to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), all play the blame game, focusing their malice alternatively on restaurants, school lunch menu planners, or just about anyone with the temerity to serve beef or milk. CSPI blames “food porn” for Americans’ expanding waistlines, while radical animal rights activists promote the lie that meat and dairy are the sole recipe for obesity.
Dr. Schlenker has valuable advice about these responsibility-deflecting messages. “The short-term gain of self-deception,” he says, is “rarely worth the long-term cost.”
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