First step: Welcome to Carrie's Environmental Sociology blog! I'm so glad you're here.
Next step: Please pick the music that makes you feel the most comfortable. Do you like nonlyrical, classical music, or do you function better while jamming to Miley? The choice is yours! Go ahead and play your choice as you continue through this blog.
I guess I should change the color scheme here if I really want people to get the most out of this blog experience.. Does this bright purple make you feel alert and enthusiastic? Or maybe you'd enjoy a calming light blue? Oh, I know. Green. Now you're calm, but also attentive. And you have suddenly become an environmental activist simply by reading in green! Good for you -- keep up the good work -- you're making a difference!
These variables are all a part of the supermarket science called "atmospherics." Supermarkets have spent decades and millions of dollars trying to figure out exactly what components make people want to spend more time in their stores and buy compulsively. They have determined that your time in a supermarket should not be an unpleasant errand, but rather an experience to be had and enjoyed. Atmospheric sciences involve variables such as the right music, the best colors, and the most inviting smells. When correctly achieved, atmospherics reach a very specific goal: happy customers happily spending their money, thereby creating happy retailers.
Isn't it nice when we're all just so damn happy?
As this chapter in Stuffed and Starved discussed, the level of perfectionism that supermarkets such as Walmart has achieved might not be so perfect. It has created a world full of rats. We scurry around supermarkets looking for a specific item, but often we get distracted by brightly colored signs or alluring baked goods. Yet we remain under the impression that we are the deciders of our purchases. As Patel said on page 226, "shoppers' freedom of choice was born in a cage."
Not only have the supermarkets turned us into rats, they have indeed become the Vipers, predating on us and tracking our every move. Through the use of loyalty cards, they know exactly what we buy, where we buy things, and how often we shop. Considering this enormous invasion of privacy, maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise that Walmart has one of the most powerful computers in the United States, second only to the Pentagon. Coincidence?
The world of supermarkets comes both with good aspects and bad. They kill smaller, local groceries. That's bad. Walmart alone employs 2.1 million people worldwide. That's good. They are big enough that they have undeniable authority within the government and are allowed to bypass rules that inconvenience them. That's bad (really, reeeeeally bad). They provide low prices and convenience to their consumers that cannot be matched by their competitors. Dammit, that's really good.
So the question raised in this chapter is this: does the CONVENIENCE of supermarkets outweigh all of the social inequality, the unethical labor practices, and the sexism that accompanies a supermarket? The United States and many other countries seem to believe so. The choice to shop in them lies in the hands and in the wallets of the consumers, and it is clear that, while we may bitch about the demise of the Mom-and-Pop Groceries, we love pledging our allegiance to Walmart. Other countries, such as France, have decided that they don't need to rely on multi-billion dollar supermarket corporations to survive. If the people of the United States chose to support operations such as farmers' markets and community cooperatives, we would be set free from the shackles that we voluntarily lock on every time we step foot into a supermarket. Believe it or not, such places exist. You might even be able to find them every Saturday morning, just 6 miles down the road... Click here to learn more about this magical place
Thank you for visiting and please come again soon! (But really-- leave.)
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