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Chocolate elitism
Someone else has covered off the death of consumerism today. This leaves me free to talk about chocolate. I really like chocolate. I do not like big-bar commercial chocolate, so Cadbury’s recent decision to make its chocolate even worse (and even more ethically dubious) by putting palm oil in it will not affect me personally as a consumer.
Cadbury’s stated reason for adulterating its chocolate with palm oil – that its customers have expressed a desire for chocolate that is even more soft and greasy – does, however fill me with dread. The flagship Dairy Milk chocolate contains only 21% cocoa solids in the first place, putting it well on the road to wtf-is-this Hershey Hell anyway. And now they’ve made it even more mucky.
So I do think that Whittaker’s has a point in its attack advertising against Cadbury, even if its marketing director Philip Poole should never be allowed on Close Up again without some media training (Philip: “We believe we have a better product” might be a good marketing line. And stop closing your eyes on television). Whittaker’s is the best of the big-bar chocolate brands, and the Peanut Slab has an undoubted iconic appeal.
But really: when there is the choice of a number of fair-trade brands (including the sub $5 Scarborough Fair range) and in a city where Phillippe’s hand-crafts slim, shiny slabs of 70% cocoa heaven, I don’t understand quite why people prefer the mucky stuff. You can’t even use the “dark chocolate is full of life-giving antioxidants” rationalisation. I suppose this makes me part of the chocolate elite.
In Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists, Iris Murdoch claimed that “[a]rt is far and away the most educational thing we have…” Here she is discussing this notion, among many others, with the philosopher Bryan Magee.
You can also read an interview with Murdoch in the Paris Review. Here’s an excerpt:
INTERVIEWER
Should the novelist also be a moralist and teacher?
MURDOCH
Moralist, yes. Teacher suggests something rather more didactic in tone. A novelist is bound to express values, and I think he should be conscious of the fact that he is, in a sense, a compulsory moralist. Novelists differ, of course, in the extent to which they set out to reflect on morals and to put that reflection into their work. I certainly do reflect and put this reflection into my works, whether or not with success. The question is how to do it. If you can’t do it well, you had better not do it at all. If you have strong moral feelings, you may be in difficulties with your characters because you may want them to be less emphatic than you are yourself. In answer to your question, I think a novelist should be wary of being a teacher in a didactic sense, but should be conscious of himself as a moralist.
Journalists often are stumped for the right words to explain amazing news that comes across their desk. But this time the simple words announcing the news were amazing enough:Hedge Fund Manager Donates 170,000 Acres of Wild Lands in Colorado
"A wealthy hedge fund manager has set a record, donating 170,000 acres of prime wilderness land in Colorado’s pristine Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, making it the largest donation to the agency."
It gets better.
"Avid conservationist Louis Moore Bacon, 56, CEO and founder of Moore Capital Management, which is one of the largest hedge funds in the world, donated to the wildlife agency most of his 81,400-acre Trinchera Ranch Saturday, Sept. 15, adding to a previous 90,000 acre donation from his adjoining Blanca Ranch."
In explaining the motivation for his donation, Bacon said: "We are too quickly losing important landscapes in this country to development—and I worry that if we do not act to protect them now, future generations will grow up in a profoundly different world.”
Oh, if only those politicians suggesting we sell our public lands to pay off debts could understand that.
The whole wonderful story can be read here.A nice reminder that good things can be accomplished by those with the wealth and the will to do them.
Call for Submissions: The Ethical BiologistWinters have heated up in Yellowstone as the controversy over snowmobiling has reached the national stage. Park ranger Mike Yochim offers a summary of the arguments, while two residents of West Yellowstone, opponents on the issue, speak out. Produced by Elliott Kennerson, 2008.
