See the shark?
The shark embodies nature. It’s vicious, deadly, and unconcerned with anything other than its own wellbeing.
Nature is about survival of the fittest … generally by killing both prey and competitors. So how did “natural” come to mean “safe” and “gentle”?
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Anti-vaxxers who prefer “natural immunity” are unwitting dupes to the advertising industry, as are those who purchase “natural remedies” or organic food.[/pullquote]
It hasn’t happened by accident. It reflects a highly successful effort on the part of the advertising industry to trick us and we’ve fallen for it.
In Packaging as a Vehicle for Mythologizing the Brand in the journal Consumption, Markets and Culture, Knaizeva and Belk identify “Myths of the World in the Past” that influence the “stories” found on packaging.
By examining stories printed on the food packages that make use of a popular claim of naturalness, we offer a conceptual framework showing how corporations attempt to graft new myths onto old archetypes. We propose that by revisiting traditional mythology, contemporary commercial storytellers collectively create a grand postmodern marketplace myth—that of an empowered and ennobled consumer. We treat packaging narratives as cultural productions and explore them as vehicles for mythologizing the brand. Our findings reveal mythical themes exploited by companies in their packaging stories and messages they convey.
What did they find?
Packaging narratives depict the modern world as a deeply distorted reflection of what it originally was – the garden before agro-chemical technology. While the values of the past include family, tradition, authenticity, peace, and simplicity, the current era is associated with broken family ties that need to be restored, scientific “advances” that pose threats, constant pressure on the well-being of humans, and unnecessary complexity in everyday life.
The authors pay particular attention to the concept of “naturalness”:
Naturalness appears as a rich emotional construct that connects with positive contemporary images of nature… People do not want to remember that nature can also be destructive as in deadly hurricanes and poisonous mushrooms … In a natural health context, Thompson also finds nature to be a positively framed powerful mythic construction; and his informants attribute magical, regenerative powers to nature. They firmly believe that aligning with what nature has to offer for one’s health lets them assert control over their lives and bodies versus losing control by being complicit in a scientized medical system.
Something unfortunate happens when we hear the word “natural.” It’s almost as if the very word disarms our innate skepticism. The irony is that while natural has come to mean “gentle” and “safe’, nature itself if neither.
In other words, advertisers have appealed to our vanity by conditioning us to believe that we are empowered and ennobled consumers. They’ve rewritten history to depict pre-technological Garden of Eden, where nature had magical regenerative properties. And like lemmings, many of us have followed advertisers off an entirely natural cliff.
Natural immunity? We had that for most of human existence and the average lifespan was 35 years.
Natural childbirth? Among the most deadly events in a woman’s life and the deadliest event in a baby’s life.
Natural remedies? If natural remedies actually worked, our lifespan in nature would have been 70 years, not 35 years.
None of that would be surprising if we recognized the shark as an embodiment of nature. Like the shark, nature doesn’t care if you get smallpox and die. It doesn’t care if half (or more) of your children die in childbirth. It doesn’t care to provide us with natural remedies.
Yes, nature provides some plants and animals with natural poisons used to kill competitors or predators. Penicillin existed to provide protection for a species of mold. We hijacked it to protect ourselves. But no one should imagine that nature created penicillin for us.
Anti-vaxxers who prefer “natural immunity” are unwitting dupes to the advertising industry, as are those who purchase “natural remedies” or organic food. They’ve been deliberately tricked into imagining themselves as empowered and ennobled by their choices when, in reality, they’ve been reduced to compliant sheep who can be manipulated into buying food, books and other products that are worthless or worth far less than the premium being charged for them.
Nature is the shark — conscienceless, vicious, and deadly. We should acknowledge the brilliance of the advertising industry in creating a group of consumers who’d rather believe in the fantasy of safe and gentle nature created by advertisers who are flattering them than the evidence of their own eyes.
It’s great for business, but terrible for health.
