Eric Schlosser, "Global Realization"

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:  

1. Eric Schlosser begins "Global Realization" with a visit to Plauen, which he writes, "has been alternately punished, rewarded, devastated, and transformed by the great unifying systems of the twentieth century. . . .Plauen has been a battlefield for these competing ideologies, with their proudly displayed and archetypal symbols: the smokestack, the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the golden arches." What are the "competing ideologies" to which Schlosser refers? What do the "archetypal symbols" he mentions represent?  

2. Toward the middle of "Global Realization," Schlosser describes an experience he had during a trip to Las Vegas that "revealed the strange power of fast food in the new world order." What is the "new world order," and what role does the fast-food industry have to play in it?  

3. Schlosser's essay ends with a description of a bar in Plauen called "The Ranch," where he says "the old dream lives on, the dream of freedom without limits, self-reliance, and a wide-open frontier." Is the "old dream" preferable to the "illusion" that Las Vegas sells? If globalization is "the new dream," what are the goals of this dream? How does the new dream differ from the old dream?  

Questions for Writing:  

1. Schlosser argues that fast food "threatens a fundamental aspect of national identity: how, where, and what people choose to eat." Why are foreign nations threatened by the spread of fast food? Will nations continue to exist if the project of globalization is realized?  

2. Schlosser insists that Las Vegas sells "the most brilliant illusion of all, a loss that feels like winning." McDonald's, presumably, is selling a similar illusion. What is lost when the fast-food industry succeeds? Is there anything that the consumer can do to combat this "loss that feels like winning"?  

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. For most of its history, McDonald's has placed a much higher premium on affordability, speed of service, and taste than on nutrition or culinary virtuosity. After half a century, however, Americans are now in a position to see that the McDonald's innovation-the industrial mass production of cooked food-has had a number of unforeseen negative consequences. How would Edward Tenner look at McDonald's, and how might his perspective on the subject differ from Schlosser's? Would you say that Americans have become more discerning and sophisticated in their eating habits than they were back in the days when restaurant fare meant burgers, fries, and milkshakes? Would you say that Americans are eating more healthily? Is the industrial mass production of cooked food inherently unhealthy? Drawing on examples from Tenner's piece, consider the adjustments that might help to make fast food into healthy food as well.  

2. Any business venture involves, of necessity, both a prediction about what the future holds and an effort to create that future. As Schlosser shows, the process of globalization represents the effort to create a future where the needs and desires of the entire planet are coordinated, organized, and satisfied. With Jon Gertner's essay, "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness," in mind, one might well ask what role happiness plays in the effort to create this future. What might be the emotional consequences of pursuing the "McDonald's" version of the future? Is the effort to realize the dream of globalization driven by reason or affective miscalculation? Is it inevitable that the result of globalization will be global disappointment?

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