[MD] BBC documentary 'the trap'

[John Carl]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:


> . I've often heard the same thing about the popularity of "chain"
> restaurants; you know what you're gonna get, that plate of pasta will be
> exactly identical to the plate of pasta you had at this chain in Orlando or
> Seattle. No confusion. No surprise.
>

We didn't evolve in strange surroundings.  All our social and intellectual
development started out from staying in familiar places and interacting with
familiar faces.  Surely modern  man needs in a deeply existential angsty
way, tv programs to give him the illusion of familiarity and sameness in his
eatery to prevent some mass psychic meltdown.   In other words, its not a
problem fixable by antagonistically zoning Starbucks into oblivion.

Not that you were suggesting such, Arlo.  But I've noticed many decrying
this corporate culturalism and I don't think there are any easy answers.

John the uneasy answerer