At the heart of the ethnographic enterprise

lies the job of answering questions like, "Why do people continue to order the same unhealthy foods even after being told that they are unhealthy?"

Similarly, I am working on a proposal for research that would look at laundering practices in California households for the California Air Resources Board. This is an area ripe for reduction in electricity and water usage, as well as a source of pollutants in the water table, and heat emissions. Preliminary work done by students in the Master's degree program for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona's Lyle Center suggest that people do know HOW they could reduce their resource use, but that cultural models and beliefs trample these issues completely.

Of course, neither of these is a surprise to the anthropologist. One of the master strokes of social marketing campaigns, like the one that changed our smoking habits forever, is their harnessing of 'the social' to deliver immediate consequences for actions dubbed suddenly 'unacceptable.' It is one thing to have vague intimations of mortality or to reluctantly admit the long term economic consequences of continuing to smoke or overeat....but it is another thing when people begin to snub you. When you are seated in some out of the way spot. When ashtrays disappear, forcing you to ask for one (thus making a direct request, shudder) or to violate a norm by polluting some communal space.

The trouble with food is that it IS necessary for survival. The trouble with laundry is that it is semi-private, conducted within the household space. In one of the student papers, people had a litany of complaints against the laundromat, most of which had to do with the other people there, some of which were quite terrible (racist, ableist). I would not be surprised if the problem is really one of exposure to the social in such an arena. The vulnerability this creates causes intense discomfort.

Like eating inside the fast food joint. I love to walk my students through this scenario at the beginning of the semester:

"Alright, who has ever driven through a drive-thru." Most hands go up, some people still want to lie about this, amazingly, "Let's not start our relationship off on a bad foot by lying to each other," all the hands go up.

"Why do we use drive-thrus?" The answers trickle back, "Speed," "Convenience", "On the Go" and then an occasional, "Laziness."

"Ok, how many of you have spent a ridiculously long time in the drive-thru, say at In-N-Out?" Hands go up. "How many of you have sat in the drive-thru even though you knew it would take longer than going inside?" Hands go up. "So we can dispense with speed."

Bypassing the problems with drive thrus, not getting your order straight, yelling into the microphone, eating in your car seat...all of which undermine the conveinence aspects, "Ok, how many people, seriously, don't lie to me about this, have driven through, gotten your food, and then pulled over and parked in the parking lot and eaten there?" Sheepishly a bunch, if not all, hands go up. "So, what happened to being faster and on the go?"

What drives people is not the labels they attach to the reasons they do things. It is the underlying life of the social. People indulge in this behavior when they are alone. No one wants to walk inside McDonalds and dorkily carry a tray all by themselves to seat, in full view of a bunch of random strangers, bringing back bad memories of high school cafeterias. Especially not in contemporary society, where we are supposedly a cell phone call away from friends. What? You couldn't find someone to eat lunch with? Far better to turn our cars into private dining rooms, and hide our social shame behind a mask of convenience.