"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it"
Upton Sinclair
This line was quoted in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" which I just
saw with my family this weekend. While the most disturbing aspect of
the movie is that the facts presented are something we should all be
aware of and then terrfied by and finally motivated by--the second most
disturbing is that I thought about breastfeeding through the entire
film.
It's exactly the same thing--every powerful truth for us a human
species seems to be first amd foremost debated from an economic
perspective and secondly from a convenience perspective (couched of
course in the concept of protecting innocents from guilt or some other
imagine harm were the truth told) as if that matters in any way at
all!!! As if the truth is dependent, as Gore says, on whether or not it
is convenient to accept it as such. While policy-makers and the media
spend time debating whether or not such issues really matter kids get
addicted to nicotine, women give birth drugged and absent from
themselves and their babies, human infants are artifically-fed and the
planet is decimated. These are all issues upon which there is no
legitimate scientific debate, yet we sit here stunned by blatant
inaction or the undermining of effective action or even outright attack
on those who themselves seek to act or even to tell the truth.
I am really thinking a lot today about the way we think about ourselves
in this world and what it is within us that allows us to be so
intentionally ignorant, even stupid. (Lest anyone think I am beating up
on mothers, BTW--I am primarily referring to policy-makers, and those
in the media who have easy access to accurate information.). I cannot
see how we will affect change in breastfeeding policy and behaviours
unless we literally evolve out ability to think and conceptualize, our
potential to think beyond ourselves and our own immediate desire to
avoid discomfort. In all of these issues, the long-term consequences
(measured in only decades for the most part) are far more uncomfortable
than the truth or even the action required once we accept the truth.
Anthony Robbins teaches that human beings are more motivated to move
away from pain than toward pleasure. If that is the case, then the only
solution to any of these issues is making the pain very obvious.
Personally, I think it will take something more--something akin to a
hundreth monkey response--a tipping point if you will. The thing about
a tipping point is that you can't really see it coming, so I remain
optimistic that raising consciousness is the most effective means to
that end.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
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