Mackey alienates his main constituency - was it ego, hubris or simply a bad marketing decision?
Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey received some unexpected backlash for an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal which enumerated “Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit”. Before I address some of the points Mackey makes in his piece, I would like to point out that I am the perfect example of Mackey’s biggest customer: a health-conscious, ecologically-minded, post-Boomer consumer who prefers organic and humane farming practices to traditional supermarket offerings; someone who has been touting a “green” lifestyle long before it was de rigeur; and someone who doesn’t mind spending a little more for locally-grown produce or the nice choice of bakery and prepared foods available at Whole Foods.…
Article comments
76 - roger nowosielski
In all fairness, when Baronius spoke of "concern for the country," I don't believe what he meant was to contrast the passage of the Obama care proposal with some other good or goods. What I believe he was saying is that the passage of the present bill, as it stands, would be detrimental and therefore not in the best interests (for the country).
I suppose I can understand some of the reservations about the present bill - so much had been taken out already in the spirit of needless compromise. So the disagreement, insofar as such as Baronius and perhaps Dave Nalle is concerned - has to do with the merits of the bill in question. I've got to give it to them, otherwise I have to accuse them of being disingenuous.
And I think this should be the issue on the table.
One more thing: the debate over some form of universal healthcare (insurance) has been on the table for over 100 years now (since Teddy R), and thus far to no avail. So perhaps, just perhaps, passing this however imperfect bill should be viewed as a first step in the right direction: for once, something is being done (other than talk); and we can think of improvements later.
77 - Dave Nalle
I can't be intimidated or insulted by someone like you, Dave.
My goal is not to intimidate or insult, it is to inform and try to shake you out of your assumptions and complacency. If you opened your eyes just once and saw how things really are you might stop supporting these statist, inhumane autocrats and think of the good of the people instead.
I suggest everyone who reads this comment section click on your name and read your blog.
Why, so do I.
I feel sorry for you. God bless.
No need to feel sorry, or to invoke your delusionary need to evade responsibility for your own actions.
I hope some day you can feel joy and hope and love the world again. Peace.
I love the world. I just don't love those who want to enslave the people who live in it.
Dave
78 - Loretta
I haven't read the bill from the House and I understand the Senate version doesn't even contain a single-payer option; however, if the bills don't contain a single-payer government option, I hope it fails. I would rather have no change than have a compromise that helps no one.
79 - Cindy
"What I believe he was saying is that the passage of the present bill, as it stands, would be detrimental and therefore not in the best interests (for the country)."
Yes, I believe he was saying that. But, in saying what I did about him, I am imagining how he conceives of both "the country" and whose best interests he is considering. If it is in 'the country's' best interest than that means it is beneficial to 'the country'. So, is it beneficial to the old people in the high rise? Is it beneficial to children who live in the projects? To single parents struggling to work and care for their children? When you get down to it, it is beneficial for some but not others. Now, who is it beneficial for and why?
"I've got to give it to them, otherwise I have to accuse them of being disingenuous.
And I think this should be the issue on the table."
I will give them this: I think they are not being disingenuous.
80 - roger nowosielski
The single-payer option - which Dave for some reason endorses - was the heart of the bill, Loretta, or at least ought to have been. But they capitulated before growing political opposition. Business as usual.
81 - roger nowosielski
Then it's about to Baronius, then, to be clear about his objections (to the proposal), how specifically he regards it as being more detrimental (rather than more beneficial), and what specifically does he mean by "the country" - interests of America as a polity, or the well-being of "the people," again, taken as a whole or some specific groups of people?
There is always some trade-off. What may be beneficial to some may be less beneficial to others. So what exactly are we talking about here?
82 - roger nowosielski
Then it is up to Baronius ...
83 - Cindy
75
Baronius,
I am looking at the result of your beliefs. No, and I won't just look at this issue as if it is isolated. You have a pattern of expressed ideas that allows people to reasonably accurately predict which pov you'll take on a topic. That means it's a reliable pattern.
It's very important to know the outcomes of people's choices. Much more important than being able to guess the exact reason for those choices. Whether you believe something or not doesn't make a difference when the result is the same. The result is suffering.
What the real problem is, is believing anything that lets you deny the reality of the suffering of others. Whether it's Jesus, or the free market, or the numerous other beliefs that keep people able to distance themselves from that reality--it doesn't matter exactly what they are--they all have the same effect.
84 - roger nowosielski
Beliefs are important, but outcomes should make a person rethink their position(s) and the belief(s) behind it.
85 - roger nowosielski
There's another thing, Cindy, two conflicting and competing versions of the modern identity, and I quote:
"For the utilitarians, the excellence of the good man does not lie in the quality of his desires; these are the same as those of the bad man; it lies in the rationality and control with which he identifies and carries out the desires. But for Rousseau, the important difference lies precisely in the quality of the motivation. The good man is moved by the pure voice of conscience/nature, which truly comes from him; the bad man by heteronomous passions. The motivations of good and bad are not homogeneous, but qualitatively different.
So living according to nature, version I, means exercising rationality and control to follow the demands of nature, which are themselves of no more than de facto worth. In version II, it is following the voice of nature, a source of pure, higher desire within us, which induces us to act well, Sentiment thus comes into into own."
So the is affirmative of the society (something akin to Max Weber's Prostentatism and the Spirit of Capitalism); the second critical of the society. The first emphasizes instrumental reason and man's dominance and control of nature - from which he derives "spiritual" satisfaction; the second turns on conscience and search of intrinsic values (in nature, humans, and society).
Charles Taylor "Legitimation Crisis?"
86 - roger nowosielski
Should be "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"
87 - Cindy
Roger, I'm looking up some things regarding #85. Meantime, weren't you planning to post some other things in here?
I'll post some pertinent citations tomorrow (you know by whom!)
88 - roger nowosielski
Give me some time. I'll try to install a scanner; if successful, I should be able to transmit larger segments via email.
89 - roger nowosielski
A fairly good account
90 - roger nowosielski
#87: OK, this concerns "the reptilian agenda" (the first video) and it pertains to the modern notions and mechanisms of social control of the populations at large:
"The objectifying and domination of inner nature comes about . . . not just through a change of attitude but through training in an interiorization of certain disciplines. The disciplines whof organized bodily movement, of the employment of time, of ordered dispositions of living/working space; these are the paths by which objectification really takes place, becomes more than a philosopher's dream, or the achievement of a small elite of spiritual explorers, and takes on the dimension of a mass phenomenon.
But the disciplines which build this new way of being are social: they are the disciplines of the barracks, the hospital, the school, the factory. By their very nature they lend themselves to the control of some by others. In these contexts, the inculcation of habits of self-discipline is often the imposition of discipline by some on others. There are the loci where forms of domination become entranched through being interiorized."
Charles Taylor, "Foucault on Freedom and Truth."
It's not the best, Cindy, but it gives an idea of how the doctors and hospitals and clinics have the kind of power and control they have (for the good of the population at large). And so it goes for other institutions, practices, and disciplines which evolved to the point of being able to exercise that kind of control over individuals and the society at large.
91 - Cindy
Roger,
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is available online. Maybe the things you want to scan are too. What are the titles?
92 - roger nowosielski
I doubt it, too esoteric, but I'll look. Anyway, I wouldn't read the whole thing (have done so already) - important though for some key ideas.
See if Charles Taylor's there, Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2 -- the two articles I cited from are worth reading.
93 - Cindy
Roger, you do realize that David Icke really believes that Illuminati and others turn into reptiles, right? He actually made a DVD called The Reptilian Agenda (which I meant, but failed, to link directly to) and believes in shapeshifters. So, I don't really read/view his stuff and I think that he's a crackpot.
94 - roger nowosielski
But it's even more insidious, Cindy, that apart from whether you believe or don't believe in conspiracies, these kinds of controls and modes of surveillance are intact and institutionally grounded - apart from the question of there being a human design or some evil genius.
95 - roger nowosielski
Interesting take by Taylor on Wittgenstein re: the following of rules:
Another one of his essays is on Wittgenstein's analysis of rule-following. In the essay "To follow a rule," Taylor explores why it is that people can fail to follow rules and what kind of knowledge is it that allows a person to successfully follow a rule, such as directions to a party or the arrow on a sign. In the intellectualist tradition we would presuppose that to follow directions to a party that we must have in consciousness a set of propositions and premises about how to follow directions. But how do we know whether or not the directions are adequate, i.e. what prevents skepticism of the arrow on a sign or your friends directions to a party? To an intellectualist, before any rule can be followed, all of these issues must already be resolved.
Taylor argues that Wittgenstein's solution is the articulation of a background of understanding. This background is not more rules or premises, but what Wittgenstein often referred to as "forms of life." More specifically, Wittgenstein says in the Philosophical Investigations that "Obeying a rule is a practice." Since giving reasons for following a rule must end at some point, Taylor locates this in our embodied understandings of the world, that is in the practical mastery we incorporate into our bodies in the form of habits, dispositions, and tendencies. The parallel would be how we learn to drive a car. Driving a car appears to follow rules, but in fact we never need to refer to rules when speeding down the highway. Rather our attention is elsewhere and we seem to rely on the skills we have embodied to constantly adjust and respond to events that we encounter. Taylor says, "Our understanding itself is embodied. That is, our bodily know-how and the way we act and move can encode components of our understanding of self and world."
Taylor's point is to say that we don't need to posit the human being primarily as the subject of representations in order to understand rule-following behavior or something like driving down the highway. Following Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, and of course Wittgenstein, Taylor argues that it is mistaken to presuppose that we are inherently cut off from the world and that our understanding of it is essentially mediated by representations. When we act, for example, we act with our bodies, whether linguistically or through grasping with the hand. But little of what is involved in our action, whether the goals of action or the rule specifying movement, is consciously articulated. In fact, he argues, it is only against an unarticulated background that representations can make sense to us at all.
The notion of background helps us approach how it is that we understand in our everyday mode of being. That is, when we walk we have a bodily understanding of where to place the foot, but normally we do not need rules to do this. Rather our ability to walk is a bodily knowledge. Instead, Taylor argues, our ability to follow rules is founded in the relationship between a background of practices and bodily habits. On occasion we do follow rules but Taylor wants us to consider that the rules do not contain the principles of their own applications. As such we need to understand the more complicated relationship between our bodily know-how and the social and historical "forms of life" which explain our actions and of which rules often only supply an after-the-fact explanation and description.
96 - roger nowosielski
Cindy,
I found the following synopsis/notes re: the two articles in question - not quite the same, but you might look at it:
Notes.
97 - roger nowosielski
Might want to add this to your musical collection:
"To Kill a Mockingbird".
98 - Cindy
Thanks for all the stuff, Roger. We should chat on the phone again, if you don't mind. I can't be sure I understand exactly, without asking questions.
99 - roger nowosielski
What I want to do first, Cindy, is to finish a few pieces and I'll try to delineate a number of concepts which figure in the current debate, as well as identify the issues which seem to be at stake. So actually, I'm kind of less than prepared at this time to have a definitive take. Give a few days so as to be able to consolidate my understanding of what's of critical importance. You do have my phone number, I believe, so you can call of course any time - except mornings where I do my readings at Starbucks till about 1 PM. But if you can hold on for two or three days, that would be more productive, because at this point I'm still in a state of flux. Meanwhile, read the article in the Eco's collection on Foucault and make some notes. That could be the starting point.
100 - Cindy
Sounds good. (But the book hasn't arrived yet. Maybe mid-week.) Thanks!
101 - roger nowosielski
If I get my scanner working, I'll transmit it tomorrow.
Look up, meanwhile, on the concept of "narrative" as a way of legitimizing social practices, whether in the political area (such as the capitalist system of production) or the practices of hard sciences. One way to describe the present crisis is that "narratives" are no longer believable. The Project Enlightenment, which is supposed to bring liberation to human kind and the triumph of reason is regarded by many as having been a great disappointment. The validity of human reason itself has come under question. And that's one main issue, from which different strands of modern thought follow.
Alasdair MacIntyre should be a good lead; besides, the notion of narrative should have separate entries online.
102 - Baronius
Cindy, I've been thinking about your comment #79. I don't know how to answer it, because the whole premise seems wrong.
No man is an island. What helps you helps me. At some point in our lives, we're all in the high rise and in the projects. That's literally true for a lot of us. For the rest of us, we should expect it anyway.
I don't think it's true to view people as competing interests, classes, races, whatever. It doesn't provide any insight to think that way. Additionally, such thinking damages the soul (or psyche if you prefer). That's not to say that our commonality is a fact simply because thinking otherwise makes us less than human, but such thinking does have that effect.
I think that's why we don't communicate well. It's not that we don't see the same suffering. It's something else.
---
A man walks into a dentist's office. He says, "Doctor, help me, I think I'm a moth." The dentist says, "I'm a dentist, not a psychiatrist. Why did you come in here?" The man says, "the light was on."
---
You say that there is suffering, so we should tear down the predatorial power structure. When I disagree, it's not that I don't see suffering. It's not that I don't care about suffering. It's that I don't agree with your analysis of the problem.
103 - roger nowosielski
The following can get you started.
104 - Dave Nalle
The single-payer option - which Dave for some reason endorses
I endorse the concept of having a single entity like the government collect money and disburse it to individuals to spend exclusively on health care. This is not what any version of the bill has included. The version of single-payer in the now-dead Conyers bill would have left government making all of the health choices for the patient and shut out any role for private insurance or individual choice.
Dave
105 - Cindy
Roger,
I have to look at what 'narrative' means in philosophy. In my own thinking, narrative plays a very large part of how socialization and indoctrination take place. So, when I have said the 'voice' of the dominant or marginalized culture, that's what I mean, it's narrative--the story it tells to explain the world, sell itself, etc.
So, it's this narrative (whether it's explaining what is beautiful or desirable and what people should look like with a Calvin Klein ad, or imbuing the military and war with positive attributes and associations, etc.) that consistently dominates the media, the educational system, and all of the institutions associated with the culture.
106 - roger nowosielski
OK, Cindy, here it is:
"Science has always been in conflict with narratives. Judged by the yardstick of science, the majority of them prove to be fables. But to the extent that science does not restrict itself to stating useful regularities and seeks the truth, it is obliged to legitimate the rules of its own game. It then produces a discourse of legitimation with respect to its own status, a discourse called philosophy. I will use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth. For example, the rule of consensus between the sender and addressee or a statement with truth-value is deemed acceptable if it is cast in terms of a possible unanimity between rational minds: the is the Enlightenment narrative, in which the hero of knowledge works toward a good ethico-political end --universal peace. As can be seen from this example, if a metanarrative implying a philosophy of history is used to legitimate knowledge, questions are raised concerning the validity of the institutions governing the social bond: there must be legitimated as well. Thus justice is consigned to the grand narrative in the same way as truth.
"Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives."
Jean-Francois Lyotard The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
This is a useful usage because it ties neatly to the modern perception that Project Enlightenment (spoken of earlier) has been a failure.
107 - Silas Kain
Is it at all possible, Roger, that the great "thinkers" of yore have to be interpreted in the context of their environment at their particular time? Perhaps all these parables, philosophies and such are mere breadcrumbs on a trail guiding us to the ultimate knowledge which will be revealed when we are ready to accept it. Does that make sense?
108 - roger nowosielski
You've got something there, and Foucault, for example, would argue that no two periods of history (along with the set of social practices and mores) are really comparable; there is something to be said for that. But again, Silas, I'm less interested in personal odysseys - because they're less problematic and offer no theoretical challenge - than in the progress of the society at large.
109 - roger nowosielski
To analogize, you're getting there, Silas, insofar as your own understanding is concerned, so no, I'm not worrying about you. But just because you're about to figure out what's right for yourself and your fellow men, it doesn't follow that you're any closer to solving the problem on the macro level. Unless you want to beat those who don't go along with your program, enlightened and right-headed as it may be, into submission.
110 - Silas Kain
I'm getting there, Roger. Like America, I take a long time to figure things out for myself and I'm with you about beating others into submission. It dawns on me this week that my views are not the final arbiter of things but an enhancement. So I need to learn to back off imposing my views in favor of listening to other views to see if mine should be amended. I'm like the Constitution -- I'm ever evolving and occasionally I require a Constitutional Convention.
111 - roger nowosielski
Now you're flagellating yourself, Silas, and this response was not at all what I intended. The point really is - even if you had the wisdom of God Almighty - you'd still be hard put to set the society aright. It's not enlightened individuals that we lack but enlightened society.