Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Thanks as always for tuning in. This week
Speaker 1: Are Powell noll Is out for a bit so Max
Speaker 1: and I wanted to share a classic episode. Max. This
Speaker 1: one is an oldie, but a goodie, and I believe
Speaker 1: it's from Uh it's from before you started classing up
Speaker 1: our show. Yeah, it's about a three years beforehand. This
Speaker 1: episode was about five years old actually enough wow, and
Speaker 1: from originally the end of ten. So yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bit before I started with this show. Wow. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, honestly how long we've been doing this?
Speaker 1: The time The time flies, right, So this this is
Speaker 1: gonna be really interesting Max, to you and any of
Speaker 1: our fellow ridiculous historians who haven't heard it because years back.
Speaker 1: Got five years back, I guess now. I noticed something
Speaker 1: really weird in a lot of the reading I do
Speaker 1: for another show called Stuff They Don't Want You to Know,
Speaker 1: And it was this over time the you know, back
Speaker 1: in the day in previous eras, you would read political
Speaker 1: statements or you read stuff from the government or Congress
Speaker 1: about almost anything, and they would most often describe people
Speaker 1: as citizens, right, which makes sense. You know, if you
Speaker 1: work in Congress, then your employers are citizens. But something
Speaker 1: funny happened along the way. The phrase citizens started being
Speaker 1: used less and less often and started becoming replaced by
Speaker 1: the word consumers, not just in uh not, you know,
Speaker 1: not just in congressional statements, but in the news in
Speaker 1: all sorts of reporting. Is this something that you ever
Speaker 1: noticed or you ever clocked? Max? Okay, you gotta remember
Speaker 1: I have a marketing degree. I studied all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, I mean, we're all just objects
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, aren't we. Now we're not.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it feels like that way when you're looking
Speaker 1: at reports or just some reason it's like seven percent
Speaker 1: of consumers feel this way. It's like, oh, that doesn't
Speaker 1: feel very personal at all, right, right, because those consumers
Speaker 1: are in fact people, human beings. So without further ado,
Speaker 1: in this classic episode, we are diving into what that
Speaker 1: change is, how it occurred, and what it might mean
Speaker 1: going forward. We hope you enjoy it. As always, we
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear from you, and we'll be back
Speaker 1: very soon with some brand new Ridiculous History. Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ben. My
Speaker 1: name is Noel. Citizen knowl that is citizen Noal, not
Speaker 1: a consumer. Well, you know, I do consume quite a
Speaker 1: bit of things, but I like to think of myself
Speaker 1: more as a conscientious citizen of these here United States.
Speaker 1: Noel and I just for peek behind the curtain. We
Speaker 1: have been in the studio for a while today working
Speaker 1: on working on a couple of different projects. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have another show called Stuff They Don't Want You
Speaker 1: to Know, and we just spent an hour and a
Speaker 1: half talking about John F. Kennedy. So we're both a
Speaker 1: little punchy, but hopefully that will translate into an entertaining
Speaker 1: episode of ridiculous history. That's right, that's our show. There
Speaker 1: we are. So we've had a crazy time, you know,
Speaker 1: starting this show and looking at not just single historical
Speaker 1: episodes in isolation, we've been exploring the context in which
Speaker 1: these events occur. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. And one
Speaker 1: thing that I think fascinates both of us is how
Speaker 1: stuff that would seem on the surface really small has
Speaker 1: these universal, ubiquitous and important, uh implications. Absolutely, and that
Speaker 1: is absolutely the case today with our topic of when
Speaker 1: and why did America start calling its citizens consumers, which
Speaker 1: is such a good question. And before he brought this
Speaker 1: to me, I had never thought about this, Like I
Speaker 1: it just slid by my mind, and I was reading
Speaker 1: so many different stories, you know, news stories, essays, creative
Speaker 1: nonfiction where people pundits, experts, authors use these phrases interchangeably,
Speaker 1: which is kind of weird when you think of about it,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh So, there was a recent opinion piece
Speaker 1: that was published in a political newspaper called The Hill.
Speaker 1: And in this piece, which is titled how Trump's immigration
Speaker 1: plans hurt American Citizens Pocketbooks, the author Maurice Goldman criticized
Speaker 1: the Trump administration's plans for crackdown on immigration by pointing
Speaker 1: to the cost of building the infamous border wall, the
Speaker 1: cost of hiring enforcement agents, the cost of reducing legal
Speaker 1: immigration channels, but of particular interest for our purposes today.
Speaker 1: Goldman used the phrase consumer in in the body of
Speaker 1: the text in the title it's citizen, but he notes
Speaker 1: you the consumer will pay for you know, the the plans,
Speaker 1: the political plans if this wall and stuff goes to
Speaker 1: and like you just said, I mean, is this an
Speaker 1: issue of semantics or was this intentional? Um? And The
Speaker 1: answer to that is pretty interesting. Um, it's hard to
Speaker 1: say quite when this took place, but in the last
Speaker 1: handful of years there has been an increasing tendency to
Speaker 1: use the term consumer interchangeably with citizen. And that's even
Speaker 1: when the conversation has to do with the economy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again it's it seems like on the surface a
Speaker 1: small thing, but political experts, growing numbers of political experts
Speaker 1: are concerned with this, and they're arguing that the choice
Speaker 1: of words signals a shift in how we uh see
Speaker 1: ourselves as individuals participating in the United States, right, and
Speaker 1: what our role is in American society. So the people
Speaker 1: who are concerned are saying that this is moving the
Speaker 1: individual will away from this idea of citizenship working with
Speaker 1: others in collaboration towards some common, greater good right, and
Speaker 1: toward something else. Yes, I mean that's much more selfish
Speaker 1: and an individualistic and based on the acquisition of things
Speaker 1: that can also be turned around applied to ideas or
Speaker 1: the way our vote is almost equivalent to the way
Speaker 1: we spend money exactly. And there's a professor named Jathan Sadowski.
Speaker 1: Jathan Jathan j developed a list but just now no
Speaker 1: Jathan like Nathan, but with a j. I know, I've
Speaker 1: never seen that one before. I know that's a new one. Uh.
Speaker 1: He argues that using the term consumer interchangeably with the
Speaker 1: term citizen has quote become part of our default discourse,
Speaker 1: the normal way we view society and people, And he says,
Speaker 1: just look at the recent presidential election. The consumer versus
Speaker 1: citizen language is often used with analysts and pundits talk
Speaker 1: about elections, and this goes to the point that that
Speaker 1: Noel highlighted voters are just consumers with preferences, and the
Speaker 1: election is a marketplace of products to choose from. To
Speaker 1: continue to quote, in the store, we vote with our dollar.
Speaker 1: We are told that elections are functionally the same thing.
Speaker 1: You just use a ballot instead of a buck to
Speaker 1: cast your vote. This understanding of democratic processes as a
Speaker 1: marketplace is just one more place where the citizen is
Speaker 1: overtaken by the consumer. End quote. And both of these
Speaker 1: words have been around for centuries and centuries right. The
Speaker 1: word citizen dates back to the thirteen hundreds. Originally it
Speaker 1: meant the inhabitants of a city. Yeah. The entry in
Speaker 1: the Online Etymology Dictionary for citizen um says from site
Speaker 1: citizen of the world translates in Greek to cosmopolites. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's cool, that's a good one. On the other side,
Speaker 1: the the evolution of citizen to mean what we take
Speaker 1: it to mean today, a person who has both rights
Speaker 1: in a society and responsibilities to that society. That didn't
Speaker 1: come around until around sixteen ten. The term consumer arose
Speaker 1: shortly after the original version of the term citizen. I
Speaker 1: love the entry for that one in the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Speaker 1: It says, quote one who squanders or wastes um agent
Speaker 1: nown from consume in economic sense, one who uses up
Speaker 1: goods or articles opposite of producer, and that dates back
Speaker 1: to uh. Then it also says consumer goods is attested
Speaker 1: from eighteen ninety um in consumers for a representative basket
Speaker 1: of goods and services. And that actually is from the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yeah, so that's these are These
Speaker 1: are legit sources, and no one is saying that these
Speaker 1: words just suddenly emerged like in nineteen seventy or whatever.
Speaker 1: The Like many words in English, this is an evolving language, right,
Speaker 1: It's a living language. So like many other terms, the
Speaker 1: term citizen and consumer have undergone evolution over the years,
Speaker 1: and the question is what what these mean today? Right?
Speaker 1: According to Michael Munger, who is the director of the Philosophy,
Speaker 1: Politics and Economics Program at Duke University's Political Science Department,
Speaker 1: the word consumer, although it existed, as we had said,
Speaker 1: for centuries, it didn't really appear in print until nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1: And have you ever used done in a Google Ingram search?
Speaker 1: I I only started because of this. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So you can actually like search for a combination of
Speaker 1: words compared to words, and it will get ald track
Speaker 1: it over time as it appears in uh this you know,
Speaker 1: vast online collection of books that Google has digitized. And
Speaker 1: starting in eighteen hundred and going to the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: this in gram search tracks the use of citizen versus consumer,
Speaker 1: and this is in fractions of so starting in eighteen hundred,
Speaker 1: citizen is a clear winner, with consumer very very low,
Speaker 1: just like a tiny fleck above zero percent. And then
Speaker 1: as time goes on, starting in around nineteen ten to
Speaker 1: be precise, there is a significant spike in citizen um
Speaker 1: and then and as this is going on, consumer is
Speaker 1: kind of rising. Then there's a crossover point in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, at which point consumer goes through the roof
Speaker 1: UM and ending in two thousand. Consumer well above citizen
Speaker 1: in terms of its use in literature. Right. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to see this in laid out in an
Speaker 1: infographic form because Duel is absolutely correct. You can see
Speaker 1: the the direct correlation. You can see the switch point
Speaker 1: at which people from writers, authors at least started preferring
Speaker 1: the term consumer to the term citizens, and now it's
Speaker 1: used about three times as often. Uh. Monger theorizes that
Speaker 1: this happened this, this change in the usage had largely
Speaker 1: to do with the rise of progressive politics in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. And here's a quote from Monger quote. The
Speaker 1: progressives primarily saw citizens as being helpless, trapped by large forces,
Speaker 1: especially corporations, that citizens couldn't deal with. UM And he
Speaker 1: attributes Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal social programs that came about
Speaker 1: in the thirties, as well as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society
Speaker 1: Effort in the sixties UM as reinforcing the idea that
Speaker 1: participation in politics was mostly a way to just get
Speaker 1: your share of the pie, you know, get a piece.
Speaker 1: So it's it's less of a civic duty, it's less
Speaker 1: of a what can I do for my country and
Speaker 1: more of a what can my country do for me? Exactly?
Speaker 1: And this increasing use of the term consumer doesn't just
Speaker 1: apply to people who are writing about politics. It applies
Speaker 1: to politicians themselves. And when we're talking about President Johnson's
Speaker 1: Great society stuff in the nineties sixties, we are also
Speaker 1: examining the rise of some things that would surprise the
Speaker 1: average voter. Marketing, right, marketing, Yes, marketing, which means that
Speaker 1: we are going to take a little bit of a
Speaker 1: side trail into a man named Edward Burns and Edward
Speaker 1: Berdz as know is a is a guy that you
Speaker 1: and I have spent a lot of time on in
Speaker 1: the past. Yeah, he's sort of the big grand Pappy
Speaker 1: of marketing. And this idea of selling things to a
Speaker 1: mass audience, including various methods from billboards, magazine articles to
Speaker 1: later television think mad Men, you know the television show, Um,
Speaker 1: the whole world that's depicted in that the Madison Avenue,
Speaker 1: UM kind of ad agency universe, um. And it was
Speaker 1: for sellers of products like breakfast cereals and cars and
Speaker 1: anti perch prints all of these and modern things that
Speaker 1: everyone just had to have. Um. And today you know,
Speaker 1: we can micro target people's preferences, you know, using these
Speaker 1: campaigns in this massive amounts of data that can be
Speaker 1: analyzed much much, much more quickly than in the past. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now it looks at individual voters attitudes and their
Speaker 1: corresponding behavior, um and can kind of figure out why
Speaker 1: might be the best way to actually reach them in
Speaker 1: the same way as you know, appealing to somebody about
Speaker 1: a particular type of microwave meal. Right, And that that
Speaker 1: in itself, this is important for us to note that
Speaker 1: in itself is not inherently a bad thing. However, it
Speaker 1: is an important thing, and it is crucial that people
Speaker 1: be aware of what is happening. To tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit about Berne's Oh man, I'm so glad, you asked. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Edward Berness, get this nephew of Sigmund Freud true story.
Speaker 1: Can't be a coincidence? Be a coincidence? Right? Uh? Edward
Speaker 1: Edward Bernese took a lot of psychological concepts and said, well,
Speaker 1: how can we hesitate to use the word weaponize, but
Speaker 1: maybe maybe apply is a better word. He said, how
Speaker 1: How can we apply these concepts about how the workings
Speaker 1: of the human mind and translate them into quantifiable, predictable,
Speaker 1: real world results. How can we push people not only
Speaker 1: to make the decision we want them to make, but
Speaker 1: to make them feel that it is their decision, that
Speaker 1: they have agency in this choice. He has done so
Speaker 1: much stuff, So I really appreciate that you mentioned the
Speaker 1: concept of breakfast, right, so before Edward Burnet's the typical
Speaker 1: breakfast in the in the United States would be something
Speaker 1: like a cup of coffee and maybe a croissant or
Speaker 1: a cross, yes, yes, or a you know, a bagel,
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces of toast, maybe some butter. A
Speaker 1: bagel and toast. That's a lot of carbs, dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you put the toast. It's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: toast sandwich. So you get the bagel and put the
Speaker 1: toast in between. That doesn't sound very healthy, And that's
Speaker 1: actually kind of the point, because what ended up being
Speaker 1: foisted upon the American consumer was this idea of bacon
Speaker 1: for breakfast, right, Yes, yeah, Edward Bernese, make no bones
Speaker 1: about it. Is the reason that bacon became part of
Speaker 1: the American breakfast because without getting too deep into it,
Speaker 1: here's what happened. In the nineteen twenties, Edward Bernese was
Speaker 1: approached by a company called the beach Nut Packing Company.
Speaker 1: They're the people who made beach nut gum at the time, right,
Speaker 1: But they did a lot of other stuff, and they
Speaker 1: had a lot of other concerns, and one of the
Speaker 1: big concerns was pork. Edward, they asked the guy, we
Speaker 1: need to increase demands. We have all this trash meat
Speaker 1: laying around. You know, how do we uh again foisted
Speaker 1: on the American public, right, exactly just so? And he thought, well,
Speaker 1: we could do the typical sort of advertisement at the time,
Speaker 1: where we could just have somebody be like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: cool and where suit and get a nice die and
Speaker 1: like bacon you should too, And that was, you know,
Speaker 1: that was the approach that advertising used. But he did
Speaker 1: something very different and he said, well, let me let
Speaker 1: me conduct a quote unquote poll of doctors medical experts,
Speaker 1: and let me let me twist the questions in such
Speaker 1: a way that they will all end up agreeing or
Speaker 1: appearing to agree that bacon is not only good for you,
Speaker 1: but should be eaten by any person with half a
Speaker 1: concern about their health early in the morning and give
Speaker 1: them energy and its substantial And that's the thing. It worked.
Speaker 1: It not only did it work, but it continues to
Speaker 1: work today. Edward Bernese, who could be the subject of
Speaker 1: his own show, right, he went on to uh tie
Speaker 1: smoking tobacco with women's suffrage. He went on to help
Speaker 1: support propaganda pushing the American public, citizens or consumers, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call them, into supporting a coup in
Speaker 1: South America. And he continues to influence things today. This
Speaker 1: is one of the correlations, one of the one of
Speaker 1: the points at which people stopped thinking about the average
Speaker 1: voter as a citizen and started thinking about them as consumers. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the way, you know, politicians have to essentially market
Speaker 1: themselves uh and and and dress up their platforms in
Speaker 1: such a way that appeals to different voting bases. Uh
Speaker 1: and A lot of it is based on entirely based
Speaker 1: on rhetoric, which you could, you know, kind of equate
Speaker 1: to something like ad copy where it's like, sure, it's
Speaker 1: technically true, and it's it's backed up by science or like,
Speaker 1: you know, facts, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's this like packaged curated version of the truth, and
Speaker 1: that is the way things are today, and the government itself,
Speaker 1: in fact, is is actually judged as if it were
Speaker 1: a business, a consumer business. The American Customer Satisfaction Index
Speaker 1: actually rates the federal government on how people feel about
Speaker 1: their interactions with how how they feel you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So there's Bernet's at work right now, and
Speaker 1: it actually got a sixty eight percent positive rating in
Speaker 1: twenty which was up from sixty the previous year. So um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have be interested to know how how that
Speaker 1: ranks today, Yeah, and the methodology behind it. People who
Speaker 1: have a problem with this interchangeable use of citizen and consumer, uh,
Speaker 1: They argue that there are fundamental differences between the two
Speaker 1: roles in society and that they should not be confused.
Speaker 1: So how about this. I want to outline some of
Speaker 1: these proposed differences and see what you think. Sure, okay,
Speaker 1: So is are an issue of morality. You know, earlier
Speaker 1: we mentioned the concept of doing stuff for other people
Speaker 1: for the greater good versus doing something for one's self.
Speaker 1: So one of the proposed differences would be that the
Speaker 1: job of any consumer is to always choose what works
Speaker 1: best for them in the marketplace, regardless of any other considerations. Totally, right,
Speaker 1: that's what I do. I think that's that's also the
Speaker 1: human condition, though, isn't it. You know? Yeah, But that
Speaker 1: that there in lies the issue with this whole notion
Speaker 1: of like being pulled away from the idea of being
Speaker 1: part of a whole or being a member of a
Speaker 1: team and going to a much more self serving attitude
Speaker 1: that's kind of codified and bolstered by the use of
Speaker 1: these these these words and the distinctions that they sort
Speaker 1: of imply. I guess, right. Yeah, So then if a
Speaker 1: by by this understanding, if this difference is true, then
Speaker 1: by virtue of voting, a consumer is saying what will
Speaker 1: make me better directly now, whereas the citizen would be saying,
Speaker 1: what can I do to improve the world conditions for
Speaker 1: everyone from my neighbors? Yeah, yeah, like a rising tide
Speaker 1: carries all vestal, and a good citizen then would be,
Speaker 1: in their own way kind of kind of heroic or
Speaker 1: very moral, that's what it sounds like, right, And a
Speaker 1: good consumer would be getting the best deal. There's another difference,
Speaker 1: which is that citizens are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: I'm doing my best to help the group, the community
Speaker 1: of the nation, et cetera. I'm not sure how it's
Speaker 1: gonna work out, but I know my intentions are what
Speaker 1: I believe to be good. Whereas a consumer says, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm if I'm paying for this service, whether that's
Speaker 1: through time, whether that's through money, whether that's through exchange
Speaker 1: of materials, then I need to be certain that this
Speaker 1: transaction occurs, you know. So with with this idea, um,
Speaker 1: there's the simplication that a citizen knows that society has
Speaker 1: uh what HR departments around the world called areas of opportunity. God,
Speaker 1: do you remember that one? Do you know how much
Speaker 1: I love these corporate terms? Yes? Yes, synergy synergy is
Speaker 1: their synergy and uh and cadences that's a new one,
Speaker 1: making the rounds. Well, you know, the ideal holds up though,
Speaker 1: because the concept then would be that you and I
Speaker 1: and everyone who has a vote understands that we can
Speaker 1: play a part in improving society and whatever way we
Speaker 1: think it should be improved, right, and that these problems
Speaker 1: will not be fixed themselves. And then the on the
Speaker 1: other side, the concept of a consumer would be that
Speaker 1: someone expects to purchase essentially a product or a service,
Speaker 1: and that the people providing that product or service it's
Speaker 1: on them to fix stuff. Right, So I voted for
Speaker 1: you just do the thing, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And uh, we we know that this is a very
Speaker 1: very contentious thing. Well, let's go through a little business.
Speaker 1: This is a ridiculous history. Um, let's just talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the history of the idea of humans
Speaker 1: as consumers. There's a fantastic article by Frank Trentman in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic that has a couple of great quotes from
Speaker 1: the famous American thinker Adam Smith, one of which is
Speaker 1: consumption is the soul, end and purpose of all production,
Speaker 1: which was from his treatise I guess you could call
Speaker 1: it The Wealth of Nations from seventeen seventy six. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty famous quote. A lesser known quote from him
Speaker 1: that really sums up this whole idea comes from seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, The Theory of Morals Sentiments Um, where he
Speaker 1: kind of really hones in on the as Trentman puts it,
Speaker 1: the social and psychological impulses that cause us to want
Speaker 1: to get a bunch of stuff, little knickknacks, Patty Wax gadgets. Um.
Speaker 1: And this quote again from Smith does a really good
Speaker 1: job of summing all that up. He observed that people
Speaker 1: wanted to quote stuff their pockets with little conveniences and
Speaker 1: then buying coats with more pockets to carry even more
Speaker 1: by themselves. Tweezer cases, elaborate snuff boxes, and other bobbles
Speaker 1: might not have much use, but Smith pointed out what
Speaker 1: mattered was that people looked at them as means of happiness. Um.
Speaker 1: And he goes on to say that it was in
Speaker 1: people's imaginations that these objects became part of a harmonious
Speaker 1: system and made the pleasures of wealth grand and beautiful
Speaker 1: and noble. And even you know, ancient Greek thinkers philosophers
Speaker 1: from you know, Plato to St. Augustine Um, they kind
Speaker 1: of condemned the pursuit of of stuff as as being
Speaker 1: inherently wicked and self serving. Um. So there is this
Speaker 1: history of the idea of being a citizen as being
Speaker 1: much more important, and if it feels like throughout history,
Speaker 1: obviously there there is that selfish impulse. But as a whole,
Speaker 1: civilization and societies have largely maintained because of this notion
Speaker 1: of you know, the whole is more important than the
Speaker 1: individual parts, and that we're all banding together to make
Speaker 1: a better life for everyone. Yeah. Right, and this leads
Speaker 1: us to something a pretty interesting theory, uh that you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of, which is the tragedy of the commons.
Speaker 1: And the tragedy of the commons is this economic theory
Speaker 1: that says, Uh, if you're in a shared resource system, right, so,
Speaker 1: you're in a community where everybody has like a common
Speaker 1: good it's called water, air, nine LPs. Who knows, just
Speaker 1: like it's something for the people the way that you
Speaker 1: and I typically order friess. Yeah. Um. The idea is
Speaker 1: that when individual users are acting independently according to their
Speaker 1: own self interests, they will tend to behave in ways
Speaker 1: that deplete or spoil those common resources because everybody, everybody
Speaker 1: wants their piece of the pie and would prefer not
Speaker 1: to have to help create the pie. Right. And obviously,
Speaker 1: so many people have argued uh, complex ideological questions based
Speaker 1: on how to address this dilemma of individual wills trying
Speaker 1: to improve society, to take a line from the Simpsons
Speaker 1: to embigen society or two improve themselves, even if such
Speaker 1: a thing might have dangerous consequences, right, or unforeseen consequences
Speaker 1: down the road. And it might sound might sound, folks,
Speaker 1: as if Noel and I are dwelling non semantics, but
Speaker 1: we are not, because it turns out that science backs
Speaker 1: this up. In a two thousand twelve study in the
Speaker 1: journal Psychological Science UH, they found that choice of words
Speaker 1: can exert a subtle influence upon how we see ourselves,
Speaker 1: which then you know, naturally influences how we behave. So
Speaker 1: in one part of the study, people who answered a
Speaker 1: quote consumer response survey tended to express more materialistic, self
Speaker 1: centered values. People who did a survey that was called
Speaker 1: a citizen survey tended to behave in a more a
Speaker 1: less selfish way. And another part of the same survey,
Speaker 1: the researchers looked at subjects with gave them a hypothetical
Speaker 1: situation where people um had to join together and share
Speaker 1: water from a well, and they were labeled as either
Speaker 1: consumers or citizens. And the members of the study that
Speaker 1: got the consumer label tended to be completely distrustful of
Speaker 1: their cohorts and just didn't want to share the water.
Speaker 1: They just were a little crotchety about it, and they
Speaker 1: did not feel as though they were on a team
Speaker 1: or in partnership with the other subjects and just felt
Speaker 1: overall less tied to or responsible for the experience, and
Speaker 1: you know, well being honestly of their compatriots, as opposed
Speaker 1: to those who were labeled citizens, who felt just the opposite. Right, right,
Speaker 1: And now we we if we are called a name
Speaker 1: or another, it tends to affect our behavior. Now we
Speaker 1: see this article by Maurice Goldman becomes even more important.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say insidious, but I do want
Speaker 1: to say important, because you know, on some level it
Speaker 1: might feel I don't know, condescending or diminutive to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you are not so smart, right, you are easily influenced,
Speaker 1: right if somebody, if somebody calls me a name, that
Speaker 1: shouldn't influence my behavior already, but apparently it does. Apparently
Speaker 1: we are a little bit easier to steer than we
Speaker 1: would like to think. And this goes back to the
Speaker 1: Bernese thing, right, the idea of a of a citizen
Speaker 1: versus a consumer in terms of active versus passive roles.
Speaker 1: Did you know that the I'm sure you've heard the
Speaker 1: use of the term consumption um to refer to tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: you know, so, I mean it was definitely had very
Speaker 1: very negative connotations of going back to the Atlantic article
Speaker 1: from Frank Trentmany as a section where he talks about
Speaker 1: some of the history of the term consumption uh and
Speaker 1: the as he calls it, the heavy burden that it carried.
Speaker 1: And it was originally from the term the Latin term consumer,
Speaker 1: which first presented itself in French in the twelfth century
Speaker 1: and then into English and other European languages later. And
Speaker 1: of course it meant as I said, with the etymological
Speaker 1: um origins earlier, using up wasting kind of implied of
Speaker 1: food or any other um consumable, I guess, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better term um. But like I said, the
Speaker 1: idea of tuberculosis or wasting disease being called consumption because
Speaker 1: it had this inherently like it just eats you up.
Speaker 1: And that was very much a sign of being irresponsible
Speaker 1: and not looking out for the greater good of your
Speaker 1: community or family, what have you, not being a good citizen.
Speaker 1: And we would be remiss if we didn't just mention
Speaker 1: for a second everyone's favorite fictional consumptive, which is Val
Speaker 1: Kilmer playing Doc Holiday in Tombstone Bloody Rack. Yeah, oh man,
Speaker 1: what does he say, who's who Huckleberry, I'm your Huckleberty,
Speaker 1: I'm your h You're my Huckleberry romance, romance for the
Speaker 1: ages and history for the pages, which rhymes but doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense if you think about it. So. Josh
Speaker 1: Passek is an assistant professor of Communications studies at the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan, and he he draws some conclusions based
Speaker 1: on this shift. He says, it seems to underscore a
Speaker 1: shift away from viewing Americans is having responsibility on our
Speaker 1: political system and toward a more individualist view of what
Speaker 1: it means to be a marry again. So, in his mind,
Speaker 1: the role of a citizen is more active and the
Speaker 1: role of a consumer is more passive. And in his mind,
Speaker 1: these are two different things, right, They're not synonyms. He says,
Speaker 1: your job as an American citizen requires that you fulfill
Speaker 1: key democratic norms such as being informed, deliberating about political issues,
Speaker 1: and participating in civic and political life. As an American consumer,
Speaker 1: he says, your actions are relevant only to the extent
Speaker 1: that they respond to economic incentives. The responsibility to be
Speaker 1: engaged and participatory is not your own, but instead depends
Speaker 1: upon a system that is oriented to bring you in
Speaker 1: unpack that for us. Ben Okay, sure, I would love
Speaker 1: to uh so again. The idea, the idea of citizenship
Speaker 1: as a responsibility, right, like, I don't if you're a citizen,
Speaker 1: you're not just supposed to show up and vote. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to put some research time into it, right and
Speaker 1: be be aware. And you know, let's I mean not
Speaker 1: for nothing, It's true that most people don't know their
Speaker 1: congressional district. Yeah, I mean, if I'm being honest, I
Speaker 1: voted the other day and there were a whole lot
Speaker 1: of names on the ballot that I was not familiar with.
Speaker 1: There were some races that I had followed very closely,
Speaker 1: and I knew what I was signing up for. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's very difficult to be completely informed about
Speaker 1: every aspect of the political process. But I guess what
Speaker 1: the takeaway here is is that you know, just you
Speaker 1: got to try to do your homework and then consider
Speaker 1: beyond just you know, your personal stake, what might be
Speaker 1: good for your entire community. Because you know, with names
Speaker 1: that didn recognize on the ballot, if I had voted
Speaker 1: for somebody just out of sheer, you know, randomness, what
Speaker 1: what if I accidentally voted for a monster or voted
Speaker 1: to keep an incumbent in power that had done bad
Speaker 1: things for the community and then needed to be replaced.
Speaker 1: You know. So, uh, if if I had gone in
Speaker 1: with that consumer mentality about what's good for me, you know,
Speaker 1: and and maybe I'm guilty of that, in a certain sense,
Speaker 1: I would only know what directly impacted me, whereas if
Speaker 1: I had gone in with much more of a you know, citizen,
Speaker 1: good citizen attitude than maybe I would have thought about
Speaker 1: more what would affect areas that don't even affect me directly.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's a it's a dilemma, and we
Speaker 1: are we are talking about the influence of behavior. Want
Speaker 1: to be very clear that we're not We're not a
Speaker 1: show that's going to like lecture people about politics. Yeah
Speaker 1: for us, this is for us. This is a dilemma though.
Speaker 1: It's a dilemma, and it's kind of a thought experiment. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to say it, because the question
Speaker 1: then becomes, you know, is one uh somehow better than
Speaker 1: the other or they just different. I would say that
Speaker 1: they're different. I would say that everybody has played the
Speaker 1: part of a citizen. Everybody's played the part of a
Speaker 1: consumer at the same time. You know, you're not going
Speaker 1: into uh rbs for instance, who is not a sponsor
Speaker 1: of the show of just thinking like different is good
Speaker 1: that he's still around. Yeah, they're still getting funny commercials.
Speaker 1: But like, you know, nobody's walking into Arby's and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, at the at the soda fountain or at
Speaker 1: the little ketchup stand, no one's saying, like, what can
Speaker 1: I do to make this ketchup stand better for everyone
Speaker 1: who comes after me? Yeah? And you know, speaking to
Speaker 1: uh past ex quote about you know, as an American consumer,
Speaker 1: your actions are relevant only to the extent they respond
Speaker 1: to economic incentives, meaning and sometimes those incentives are just
Speaker 1: personal fulfillment and you know pleasure. Uh and your jobs
Speaker 1: not to read state you already said, Ben, but your
Speaker 1: job as an American citizen requires you fulfill key democratic
Speaker 1: norms just being informed and deliberating about political issues. So
Speaker 1: the idea that uh, there is this gray area or
Speaker 1: this kind of like fusion between the notion of a
Speaker 1: citizen and a consumer is potentially problematic for people making
Speaker 1: choices in in elections that actually help others or that
Speaker 1: if that affect the greater good, everyone's just voting for
Speaker 1: you know what, we'll do good for themselves. And that
Speaker 1: also plays into how politicians market themselves, you know, right right,
Speaker 1: the same the same techniques that Edward Bernese pioneered are
Speaker 1: now present not only in advertising, but are present in
Speaker 1: a very real way in the political sphere. I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, man, did you ever did you did you
Speaker 1: ever watch c SPAN? I mean, if if there's something
Speaker 1: really crucial on, um, But no, I have not not
Speaker 1: just watch it like my grandpapa used to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to. I used to. Um. I used to
Speaker 1: watch c SPAN with my grandmother as well. Um, when
Speaker 1: Golden Girls wasn't on. She loved Golden Girls. Hehaw and
Speaker 1: c SPAN beautiful woman. You know it seems like a
Speaker 1: good mix. And uh and uh. One of the things
Speaker 1: that got me was years ago we were watching c
Speaker 1: SPAN at her house and uh, a congress person was
Speaker 1: referring to a a bill they were trying to pass
Speaker 1: as a product. And then they said, we're going to
Speaker 1: get this product out at the end of this time frame,
Speaker 1: and this product is going to you know, be great
Speaker 1: for companies, all interested parties. Stakeholders, and I didn't understand
Speaker 1: the term, because why would you call something like that
Speaker 1: a product. You're selling it, You're selling it to your constituents.
Speaker 1: And this guy, Frank Tripman, who wrote the article from
Speaker 1: The Atlantic that I was talking about a little bit
Speaker 1: um is a professor of history at the University of London,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a fantastic book called Empire of Things
Speaker 1: How he became a world of consumers from the fifteenth
Speaker 1: century to the twenty one um and he thinks that
Speaker 1: the blurred distinction between these two cohorts, which ultimately have
Speaker 1: become kind of the same thing, consumer and citizen, make
Speaker 1: it really hard for people to come together to solve problems,
Speaker 1: which is a sin. Actually, what I was trying to
Speaker 1: get out, we're both trying to get at ben Uh
Speaker 1: And this quote, I think really sums it all up nicely. Quote.
Speaker 1: Not all consumers see the world in the same way,
Speaker 1: and hence concerted action is very difficult. That's what I
Speaker 1: was trying to get at. Where you know, when you
Speaker 1: have a politician that's marketing themselves to a particular voter base,
Speaker 1: and the um the desires of that voter base are
Speaker 1: kind of a conflagration of like different, uh sort of
Speaker 1: self serving desires. So it's very difficult to like pick
Speaker 1: out a platform or a thing or like to appeal
Speaker 1: to all of these different you know angles and get
Speaker 1: elected kind of requires some weird backwards logic and convoluted thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when so many of those interests might
Speaker 1: be contradictory. Exactly right here we are, here, we here,
Speaker 1: we are. But history doesn't stop here. I have to
Speaker 1: wonder what future historians will make of this shift, which
Speaker 1: again occurred without my knowledge at all. Like I did
Speaker 1: not notice other than my spider sense tingling when I
Speaker 1: hurt things laws referred to as products. It's totally washooshed
Speaker 1: over my head. Man, I don't know. It's a little
Speaker 1: insidious though, right, It kind of happens. It just sort
Speaker 1: of kind of creeps in, you know, without you even realize. Again,
Speaker 1: so are we citizens? Are we consumers? I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's a choice we have to make. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously we're consumers when it comes to like, you know,
Speaker 1: I like buying stuff. I like, you know, nice clothes
Speaker 1: and things like that. But when you start integrating that
Speaker 1: into the political process and how you vote as though
Speaker 1: it we're spending money and as though you're being marketed to.
Speaker 1: That's problematic, I think. And it's an interesting shift in history,
Speaker 1: and it's more than a little ridiculous. It is, it
Speaker 1: is more than a bit ridiculous. We hope that you
Speaker 1: find this dilemma, lend this this interesting differentiation as fascinating
Speaker 1: as we do. And we'd like to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 1: So please write into us and let us know if
Speaker 1: you think this is a a big deal, if you
Speaker 1: think this is just relative, relatively small matter of semantics. Uh,
Speaker 1: And most importantly, let us know if you have found
Speaker 1: other linguistic shifts in your own experience, and let us
Speaker 1: know what you think the implications of those might be.
Speaker 1: You can write to Noel and I at Ridiculous at
Speaker 1: I heart meat dot com. But that's all. You can
Speaker 1: find us on the internet to. Yeah, we're on the
Speaker 1: social media. We've got a Facebook page Ridiculous History. Just
Speaker 1: google that and and give us a like. And also,
Speaker 1: if you dig the show, please check us out on
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Speaker 1: of boost the show and the algorithm and on that
Speaker 1: and hopefully more people can discover it. Yeah, because we like,
Speaker 1: you know, we like doing the show and we'd like
Speaker 1: to continue doing it. So thanks for joining us for
Speaker 1: this episode, and we hope to see you next time
Speaker 1: on Ridiculous History. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
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