Welcome to McWorld

The conformist is not born. He is made.

Jean Paul Getty

McDonald’s at Dachau? No more than 500 yards from the entrance to the Nazi death camp where tens of thousands of Jews, gypsies, and miscellaneous “undesirables” were systematically exterminated in the maelstrom of the Third Reich, the glow of the Golden Arches beckons tourists and townsfolk alike to “Super Size that.” No kidding! If the truth weren’t so shocking, the irony might be funny. If it hadn’t been for the curator of the Dachau Museum, McDonald’s would still be distributing leaflets in the concentration camp’s parking lot reading “Welcome to Dachau and welcome to McDonald’s.” Did some ill-advised corporate executive really think that the universality of the Big Mac might help bridge the divide between the hideousness of the Holocaust and the hungry tourist?

To many, “America” means freedom, and Americans tout their democratic ways and individualistic spirit as the last line of defense against evil. Yet Americans have become “chained.” Chained to brands, as totems of quality. Chained to “Disney.” Chained to “Nike.”

While the responsible corporate behemoths have taken their act on the road to London and Beijing and, yes, to Dachau, the good ole’ U.S. of A. is where cookie cutter corporate conceptions of our “American Life,” began. Since the McDonald brothers and their Burger Drive-In in San Bernardino California, Americans have taken to the brand name life like a five year-old to a Happy Meal. Whether it is grabbing a “Big Mac.” wearing “Levi’s,” shopping at “The Gap,” or dining at “Planet Hollywood,” be it in Miami or Rome or Cancun, we are a highly diverse people which, oddly, embraces uniformity like mother’s milk. We like that we know exactly what the Big Mac with fries we just ordered will taste like. We don’t care that half a dozen other people at the party are wearing the same jeans.

Yet maybe we embrace the expected sameness even more so now in uncertain times. Maybe that’s not all bad, but we should not fall in line one behind the other like lemmings to the exclusion of those who like different things or hold different views, without asking ourselves why?

Make no mistake, for corporate America, uniformity and regimentation in image and production means big bucks. But for us? “We, the people,” we are supposed to “live free or die,” doing “our own thing,” aren’t we?

For decades, during the Cold War, Americans demonized the bleak conformity of communist regimes as a form of mind control. But it seems that now, sticking one’s neck out of the crowd is becoming less and less tolerated, let alone encouraged.

It is undeniable that we live in a Type A world, with unrelenting demands for mobility, speed, and convenience. But our seemingly increasing level of need for the predictable, the uniform, does pose an interesting question. Does sameness offer us a psychological security blanket in these trying times? Or is it just a short-cut, a cheat sheet of sorts, to enable us to make up our minds without expending too much valuable energy? But can this ever-increasing homogeneity of our information flow be healthy for us personally, and for our democracy?

Aren’t Americans supposed to dare to be different from the masses? Isn’t that why Californian teens of the fifties modified the chassis of production vehicles to make low riders? Why Miles Davis and Bob Dylan turned their backs, literally, on the face of America to forge new music borne of the essence of the American experience? Isn’t the need to be different without fear why the pilgrims piled onto leaky, wooden ships and sailed off into the unknown? Isn’t the right of the individual to be free the reason refugees float on makeshift rafts through tropical storms to land on our beaches? These are people who have learned the hard way that conformity and uniformity facilitate control over our lives, our minds.

In a country of seemingly endless diversity, why are we tempted to succumb to McLife? And what might the possible long-term effects of conformity as our default position be?

In these tumultuous times, we would do well to consider what are the fundamental underpinnings of our national identity? But we would also do well to be tolerant of those whose beliefs differ from our own. After all, today’s majority may well be tomorrow’s minority, and we just might find ourselves on the pointy end of a sharp spear when our views are no longer judged to be mainstream.

One thing is clear, however—we have to co-exist in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect for the survival of our country.

And if that means sharing a Big Mac, then we should all be for it. Just not at Dachau.