[MD] PC Madness

[Arlo Bensinger]

[WillBlake]
You are right.  We each choose our own PC, we may disagree, but that 
doesn't create right and wrong.

[Arlo]
I must repeat myself before answering your post. "PC" is an empty 
term, in many ways it stands as humorously self-referential, since 
the motive of using the term is to shape other's opinions. We each 
choose what is important to us, I think that is more correct. Moreso 
I want to point out that "language" itself, by its very nature, is a 
shaping force. At times this seems very transparent, at others we 
have the illusion of a neutral language that simply and objectively 
describes the way things are, without passing judgment or influencing 
reason. What we choose as important to us occurs within the shaping 
influence of language.

"Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They 
originate out of society, which originates out of biology which 
originates out of inorganic nature. And, as anthropologists know so 
well, what a mind thinks is as dominated by social patterns as social 
patterns are dominated by biological patterns and as biological 
patterns are dominated by inorganic patterns. There is no direct 
scientific connection between mind and matter. As the atomic 
physicist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended in language." Our 
intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived." (LILA)

I say this because I think there is tendency to buy into the illusion 
that most (or some) of language is neutral, while other language is 
"manipulative", that some language "shapes our thoughts" while other 
language merely expresses the world as it is.

[WillBlake]
What if our eating habits become a target of PC, in the name of 
Healthcare. The next thing you know, this administration will create 
a tax on soft drinks that have sugar.  Or make health PC, and start 
giving my tax money to companies that promote healthy living.  In 
this way what we eat becomes an employment issue.  Do you think this 
could happen?

[Arlo]
This is a multi-faceted and very nuanced thing, I'll give you my 
overall thoughts as concisely as I can.

Let me back up and say I do believe a valid role of government is 
information dissemination. Remember the food pyramid? Encouraging 
healthy eating is, I believe, a legitimate part of, say, public 
education phys-ed programs.

The reason is, and this gets to you point about tax money, that the 
costs of obesity, diet-related diabetes issues, and all the other 
outcomes of unhealthy eating (heart attacks, strokes, etc.) is 
already a burden shared by society. In its most obvious, consider the 
cost of emergency room treatment alone, disability and the like. 
Government can, and should, be involved in promoting preventative 
health (not just as it relates to diet).

Now the question is, how much and in what way. Should the government 
ban soda? (Which is, I argue, the single biggest health item 
effecting our diet, by virtue of the sheer amounts most people 
consume each day). Of course not. "Soda tax"? No. I think singling 
out individual diet choices is problematic and fails to address the 
larger issue.

Now, offering tax breaks or incentives to companies that promote 
healthy behavior (including diet) for their workers is something I 
might support. The company likely realizes that it can minimize both 
its insurance payouts and its downtime by providing an environment 
that fosters a healthy lifestyle; whether is building an on-site gym, 
or offering only healthy foods in their vending machines, I think 
that this is overall not a bad thing. The government is rewarding the 
company for not only securing its own health, but for efforts to 
curtail costs to the public as well.

I think providing a public infrastructure that encourages healthy 
living, for example providing bike paths, are typically expenditures 
I would support.

But this must be placed in a larger context that asks why are so many 
Americans habituated to unhealthy eating? Does this cross over into 
Marsha's concerns about "neuromarketing"?

[WillBlake]
Many of us eat and drink appropriately, some don't.  If healthcare is 
universal, we would have to pay for those who don't.

[Arlo]
I would argue that we are doing that now. We simply push back the 
expense until it is something huge, like an emergency room situation.

[WillBlake]
Because of this an effort may be made to dictate what we can eat. 
This would be very intrusive, in my opinion.

[Arlo]
Any effort made to dictate what you can eat would be immoral (apart 
from cannibalism, to be sure ;-))