Showing posts with label niceness etiquette and sociability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label niceness etiquette and sociability. Show all posts

Jun 7, 2012

Are Organic Foodies Judgemental?

The Atlantic recently ran a provocative -- and in certain ways tellingly misguided piece -- Does Organic Food Make You a Judgmental Jerk? Maybe by one of their health topic bloggers, Brian Fung.  Lest I be categorized too quickly for being "judgmental," however, I have to point out that Fung is just uncritically passing on the results, or rather speculative interpretations, of Kendal Eskine's recent study Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments. The bulk of the evaluations -- whether on-target or off-base,  carefully considered or great imaginative leaps -- stem directly from the study itself.

You can see this pretty clearly by comparing other pieces summarizing (and admittedly spinning a bit further) the same study results.  A decently representative sample of this new (anti?-)moralizing story spans the gamut of news and opinion sources: Psychology TodayTime, Scientific AmericanThe Inquisitor, Jezebel, and even The Times of India. Gluten Free Spinner, who initially evinced a bit of healthy skepticism, quickly bought into the classification and characterization of jerkiness.  Reason.com went so far as to even speak of such people as being "anti-social" -- but then, after yucking it up with now seemingly obligatory references to the Portlandia granola hipster stereotype, at least brought in some dissenting voices.  The question I'd like to ask though is:  Are the critics actually pointing out the real flawed assumptions here?