The Immediate Concern

In class this week, we watched a documentary titled The Future of Food that explores the corporate take-over of farming and food production and specifically the increasing utilization of genetically modified foods. We also read Ruth Ozeki's novel All Over Creation, which explores the human relationships between corporations, farmers, and activists. Both The Future of Food and All Over Creation draw attention to a food system that dictates for corporate vs. farmer control, profit vs. nutritional sustainability. Both the documentary and novel serve as red flags highlighting a failing food system that lies under the radar of most Americans.


After learning about such issues, I found myself asking why something as pervasive and shared as GMO food production is not a cause for concern for most Americans. One answer I found is that most people are bogged down with distraction which has allowed ourselves to miss the "musts". I call it the immediate concern syndrome.

The immediate concern syndrome afflicts young and old. Its symptoms include the inability to focus on anything that includes the phrase "long term" and instead focus on forefront issues of great immediacy. For example, the current, an apparently national crisis, of Ms. Britney Spears.

Yes, we find ourselves in a time expansive national discourse. What will she do next? Did you see her shave her head? Last night, Dateline NBC devoted an entire hour to celebrity meltdowns. An entire hour. What are we going to do about the current celebrity meltdown crisis?

What we are going to do? Well, what we do successfully of course, ignore the real crisis. A crisis where a nation that is decaying from the inside out. A nation that utilizes its children as GMO science guinea pigs. A nation with no long-term energy plan. A nation who slips lower and lower among the ranks of education, healthcare, and poverty.

Perhaps it is our attempt to stay sane in an over stimulated, information bogged, choice laden world we have lost our true focus. Our dramas, real, imagined, or that we find on TV have created a crisis of distraction. All the while, we have signed the check over to big corporations to dictate our future. It is not just the food we eat, it is our choices that are simply erasing, our critical voices silenced, our future which is...did you hear Scarlett Johansson got engaged today?

Nevermind.