Who needs a free market? We have free marketing.
Tuesday, 12/1/2009 - 10:14 am by Anat Shenker-Osorio | 6 Comments
How words shape the way we think…and set our course for the future.
Remember opposite day, that inane but vaguely amusing game from elementary school? A game where the sentence, “you’re really pretty — it’s opposite day” blurted out in mixed company was a quick-witted insult worthy of laughter? Well, maybe only till first grade, but still.
It seems, in our America, we’ve instituted opposite century. Only it’s a bit more convoluted and complicated than that old stand-by we played in earlier days.
In our America, we cherish freedom — ask anyone, they’ll tell you so. And so we are free, very free, to pay handsomely for our own education, scrape together funds for our own retirement and pay for our own health insurance that gets us closer to the right to pay for our own health care. Liberating, isn’t it?
Only those among us who have been denied the right to purchase health care for one of a million standard life experiences that we’ve renamed “pre-existing conditions” know that even “your” money, and lots of it, doesn’t purchase you everything in the market we’ve been taught to revere.
We might not have a free market but we do have free-marketing. Just consider this commercial, fear-mongering at its finest brought to you by Bristol Myers Squibb. It features a seemingly healthy woman stalked by a hospital gurney, an ominous indicator of just how precarious life really is. Unless you take Plavix, of course. Assuming you’re free to pay for the right to pay to see a doctor, like the handsome and attentive one featured in this ad.
In our America, drug companies are allowed to market directly to consumers — something barred in other Western states were the right to see a professional who could actually provide these drugs is guaranteed by those same states. Here, the image and desire for the drug can be sold freely; the drug itself — well, that’s a bit more selective. Essentially, we’ve worked out an opposite scheme to that of our European neighbors.
In our America, you need a prescription for the most routine, non-addictive, necessary substances like antibiotics though pharmacists train for almost a decade to earn their degrees. Other countries offer such medicines “behind-the-counter”; this means pharmacists can dispense them along with advice for their proper use. We just offer the right, excuse me — the freedom, to see them on t.v.
Since it’s opposite day all the time, I’m happy to declare I feel free indeed. Someday soon, I hope to be free to inspect restaurants and supermarkets on my own for compliance with health standards — in my abundant free time. Never mind I have no qualifications for this job. When government steps out, we become more free — haven’t you heard?
Once I’ve got health inspection under my belt, I hope to become free to check whether the load-bearing in the ceiling beams of my house and other buildings I enter are considered safe. In the olden days, we would call this “up to code” but when we’re free we won’t have pesky things like rules anymore.
When freedom comes to mean everything it actually means nothing at all. This is true of other words like “moral”, “equal” and “fair.” These complex and malleable topics are basically stand-ins to mean roughly, “something I think is really important and right and believe you should think that too.”
Sadly, they don’t lend any more explanatory power to our rhetoric than they do to that of our ideological opposites — and they’re not all that persuasive either. Because they contort themselves easily to the worldview they are asked to uphold and serve, they do very little by way of actually making or even bolstering real arguments.
It makes me angry when freedom is used to argue for de-regulation and shutting government out of the vital, life-affirming work I feel it exists to do. I feel equally betrayed when concepts like equality are used as justifications for a flat tax or to repeal the already piddling estate taxes currently in place. But I recognize that these are my definitions of “freedom” and “equality” at work and for someone else these vital concepts mean something very different, but equally profound and compelling.
It’s not enough, then, to throw out big important laudable terms. Unless we define them and prove how they operate in service of our aims we aren’t furthering the debate or our own cause. When it’s opposite day long enough, it’s very hard to keep track of what anyone means, even ourselves.
Anat Shenker-Osorio is an Oakland-based communications consultant.
*The name of this series derives from Frank Luntz’s book, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.
People with blood clotting disorders are in need of heparin. China was supplying US hospitals with, regrettably, tainted heparin in 2007. The FDA stepped in and identified the heparin as tainted, then made sure only un-tainted heparin was being administered.
Do you think those poor, sick people ever wished they had the ‘freedom’ from ‘big-government’ necessary to inspect their own heparin from China?
I think you’re right, they wouldn’t. I don’t want the freedom to certify the crash-test safety of my automobile, watch my deposits <$250K disappear in a bank run, or fly on an airplane that may or may not comply with (federal?) aviation standards.
No, I’d rather have some entity, like a not-for-profit organization financed by citizen’s pitching in for the common good, to take care of those concerns for me. Like unemployment insurance, that would be nice too.
Can I also have a small government? No?
Well, I’d rather have the safe heparin, safe airlines, safe cars, safe bank deposits, and safety from temporary unemployment.
Posted by andrew | December 1st, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Andrew,
What a smart and thoughtful comment — I couldn’t have offered a better example of too much “freedom” may liberate you to your death.
My editor Lynn responded to this post with the indelible Janis Joplin line: “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Despite our economic hard times, we still have much left to lose in America and I would like government to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Thanks for finding the time to read and write,
Anat
Posted by Anat Shenker-Osorio | December 2nd, 2009 at 10:54 pm
If only the Republicans understood your argument. It was incredibly well spoken. Well, actually, I’d guess that there are Republicans who DO get your argument, but want to get reinstated. So sad.
My personal perspective? 6 figure income family with 6 members laid off, now earn barely 30K with those same 6 members. Too poor for CHIP, too rich for Medicaid (based on last year’s tax returns). My kids are completely uninsured. The medical assistance office? They don’t answer their phones. Understaffed. During a recession. Yeah, THAT’S a good idea. (you know, opposite day?)
Posted by Meg | February 10th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Meg,
Thanks for adding your thoughts and sharing your story. I’m incredibly sorry for what your family is having to face — it’s all too common and yet that ubiquity just makes it harder.
One bit of advice, for what it’s worth, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to ask for assistance from constituent services from the appropriate legislative office (state senate or assembly or national senate or house.) I’m not sure whether the medical assistance office to which you refer is a state agency or private insurer. If it’s the former, contact your local legislator and if it’s the latter your insurance commissioner’s office. You’d be surprised what they can help get done — they have the secret inside phone lines that actually get answered.
Most people don’t realize that our elected leaders have staff paid to help constituents navigate the institutions of government.
Also, as far as CHIP, in some states (even my own bankrupt one) there’s a special emergency CHIP program that you can get right away by presenting very current income information. This buys you some time to secure something else for your kids and/or become eligible for state insurance when they ask for newer information.
Been there and it sucks,
Anat
Posted by Anat Shenker-Osorio | February 12th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I used to love words–wanted to become a linguist until I learned what they really do. (ala S.I. Hayakawa, Noam Chomsky, etc.) As U explained well in your writing, the high-toned “moral, equality, & freedom” words need extreme defining per one person’s mental meaning. Not exactly conducive to Tweets, eh? I noted how succinct your signoff above comes across. “Been there and it sucks.” Slang and colloquialisms anyone? Really, we’ve been “liberal” and “conservative” constrained for so long– so stereotypical. Will youth of today really care about “words” in the future? Video overcomes reading so much. Ah, Vocabulary, how DO you DO?
Posted by Marilyn | March 4th, 2010 at 2:14 am
Marilyn,
Thanks for your note. Used to love words? I don’t believe it — such a love affair never dies.
I don’t believe we will ever stop caring about words. I’m as baffled by twitter as the next over 16 year old but recognize that it too is a form of communication. It’s just a rehash of something we’ve seen before: code. Kind of like telegrams or morse — it may alter how we send and process information but it’s still using the same medium as always — words.
And videos — those use words too. Speech is just as critical as writing — in fact, it’s older and in some ways more meaningful. It’s words plus tone plus facial expressions plus body language.
–Anat
Posted by Anat Shenker-Osorio | March 4th, 2010 at 2:28 pm