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It is not, as the McLuhanites grimly predicted, the mass media that is responsible for the standardization of American speech and values. Nor is the nation's transportation system "The Great Equalizer" of our culture. These, after all, are voluntary decisions based on individual preferences that are heavily influenced by pre-existing regional influences. If the speech of television characters affects viewers' speech, for example, then the affecting television characters will be those on programs chosen by the viewers based on their regional tastes. "Boss Hogg" is more likely to be emulated in Georgia than in Connecticut, etc. A search for the root of the American Norm must begin, logically, with the pinpointing of a mandatory, not voluntary, common ground.
What compulsory influence extends from shore to shore of our nation? We are looking here for something that impacts Americans at an early age, that is identical in every instance and that impacts all Americans. There is only one such item -- The School Lunch.
Jumbo corn dogs, cole slaw, cabbage and pizza burgers are all part of our collective memory. Cajun kids in Ananias, Louisiana, Eskimo tykes in Circle, Alaska and newly-arrived Asians in Port Lavaca, Texas are all attempting to digest these culinary delights even as you read this column, and it is probably the only experience common to all of them. Regardless of cable access, shopping habits, household income or ethnic background, they all know that Salisbury steak, orange Jello and mashed potatoes are supposed to be served at the same temperature and are to be similar in color and flavor.
I submit that The School Lunch is responsible for the trend toward uniformity in late 20th-century American life.
Let us look first at our roadside eateries, the fast food franchises. Did our grandparents make these purveyors of blandness wealthy? No. Only palates inured to shock by 450 servings of alleged creamed corn during 12 years of public education would finance America's Burger Barns, and those palates belong to us, the Baby Boomers. What good, I ask, is public education if it does not teach us to distinguish white sauce from mashed potatoes from Elmer's glue?
On to fashions. We define Beauty based on some nebulous, subliminal similarity between an objet d'art and the fulfillment of one or more of the basic desires, those being Food, Shelter and Sex. As basic desires evolve, so do concepts of Beauty. Furs, for example, were popular with past generations in part because people felt in some way more secure with a fur-bearing beast, provider of many necessities, nearby. Today, however, with our innermost images of food sources being the sneeze shield-and-zinc school cafeteria line rather than the primeval forest, we are attracted to somewhat different clothing. Fashion lines are based on the "Let's All Be Utterly Tasteless In Exactly The Same Way" urge.
That yellow "power" tie? Childhood memories of French's mustard, whereas your parents grew up with homemade and therefore individualized condiments.
Feather boas? They were soothing to even our immediate ancestors because they were reminders of edible fowl. Our children, sadly, will try to cater to this aesthetic urge by dressing up like the chicken nuggets served on Mondays. And what of the fashion implications of Thursday's creamed chipped beef on toast?
The "cafeteriazation of America" may be just something to think about. But it assumes a more malevolent image when one is presented with living proof that it was a planned move, a sordid plot if you will, by government officials who wished to subtly mold us all to the same form. The plot would have succeeded years ago if not for a minority of rugged, redblooded mothers who, by arising early each morning to pack a special bag lunch for the kids, upset the insidious apple cart of applesauce and liver 'n'onions with which the authorities were attempting to standardize our youth.
Highly persuasive evidence of the pervasive spread and influence of mystery meat barbecue and English peas comes from the recognized mastermind behind the "cafeteriazation of America" and author of Some Kind of Good; Some Kind of Meat, Mrs. Parsimony Tastebud Twignet.
PTT: Will it be lima beans or squash today?
RPTR: Thank you, I've already eaten. Mrs. Twignet, today we know that sugar and coffee can turn otherwise docile youngsters into monsters, but what difficulties did you see four decades ago?
PTT: Our educational system was then and is now based on one teacher as "leader" and one classroom of children as "herd." Now a herd can take a multiple-choice test and be satisfied with a choice of "A," "B," "C" and "D." This is working smoothly today but, forty years ago, students wanted more choices. In fact, some of them wanted a different test format altogether, one which would have taken more imagination and labor on the part of instructors and, consequently, more teacher pay to attract and keep more imaginative, harder working educators. Well, my goodness, you can see where a trend like that would have led. I had a graduate degree in nutritional therapy, and my thesis, "Wake Up And Smell The Oatmeal," which was about the positive influence of blandness, had created quite a stir among experts. I knew that one could ladle personality traits directly from a zinc serving pan into human beings, if they could be caught young enough.
RPTR: So, when they say, "You are what you eat," they're right, and you set out to make sure that everyone ate the same things, tailoring the diet to mass produce a certain kind of person?
PTT: Exactly.
RPTR: Who at the federal level provided the description of the person you were to mass produce?
PTT: I can't remember his name. He reminded me of ... looked just like ... dressed similarly to ... I'm sorry, I just can't remember. He was a nondescript sort of fellow. The only thing I can recall is that when I met with him to go over the description, I got the distinct impression that he was trying to make every schoolchild in America look and act just like him.
RPTR: Did that bother you?
PTT: Well, they had to look and act like somebody, didn't they? Would you like to know what went into this pumpkin pie?
RPTR: No, thank you. There are still problems in the schools, though, and some students are still not quite interchangeable with the ones at neighboring desks. What do you think went wrong with cafeteriazation?
PTT: Baggies, thermos bottles and lunch boxes. We never counted on mothers packing lunches just for their own children, and that allowed some children to avoid the "Normative Nutrients," as we called them, that were and are in every school cafeteria meal in America. Why, if they had just taken one bite of those fish cakes we came up with in '53, this would be a different world. Or, should I say, it wouldn't be a different world. Did you ever wonder about how we arrived at that particular color for turkey gravy?