Even though the pressure’s on, Aaron Steelman pays no attention to the people, sometimes strangers, who tell him to stop trashing his non-deposit orange juice cans.
“I think if there’s a mass movement-that recycling was actually taken seriously by most people-it could make a difference,” says Steelman, a 19-year-old University of Michigan sophomore. “At this point, I don’t think it has. I don’t think one person can make a difference as far as that goes.
“I don’t alter my lifestyle to fit these movements.”
Environmental backlash?
What’s going on is actually bigger than that.
We are in a state of universal backlash.
For every movement, every bit of information, every piece of conventional wisdom, everything we’ve known to be true, there is now an accompanying, immediate backlash. And while it’s true that actions have always sparked reactions (remember high school physics?), we, as a society, seem to be engaged in an unusually high level of rebellion.
“Backlash is a product of unsettled feelings,” says Lee Miringoff, who directs the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “You’re seeing a lot of things up in the air right now.”
We’re on the verge of change, big and little. There’s health-care reform, NAFTA, New Democrats, even the new SAT.
And people are frightened about the economy, about crime, about where public education is going.
As a result, many people are lashing out-and not just against politically correct issues. They’re lashing out against all sorts of things:
– Against politics as usual. Many still support Ross Perot, who shook up last year’s presidential election and who continues to receive attention, so much so that he got a debate with Vice President Al Gore.
– Against corporate dress-for-success guidelines. Think about all those people wearing denim shirts to the office.
– Against gay rights. Commissioners in Williamson County, Texas, recently voted to reject tax breaks for Apple Computer because the company provides benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees.
– Against the anti-fur movement. This year’s ultra-PC presidential inaugural festivities took place amid a sea of people wearing fur coats.
– Against traditional feminism. Consider Katie Roiphe’s much-talked-about new book, “The Morning After,” which says the incidence of rape is being exaggerated by hysterical feminists who are too eager to see themselves-and all women-as victims.
– Against the beef-is-bad campaign. Steakhouses-Morton’s of Chicago, for example-are popping up everywhere. Beef is officially back.
– Against science. For years researchers have been saying there’s a dangerous hole in the ozone. Now people are insisting that if there really is a hole, it’s not such a big deal.
“I’m tired of people dictating things to me, OK?” says Charlene Mitchell, 43, an advertising director who wears her fur coats happily, though she knows others may be repulsed by them.
Decisions are “so personal,” says Mitchell, who lives in West Bloomfield, Mich., and owns several fur coats. “I would never go into a restaurant and ridicule someone else’s plate. I would never go up and tell somebody they shouldn’t have a certain type of haircut or put rings in their nose.
“People are saying: `I’ve had enough. I’m going to eat what I want. Go where I want. Do what I want.’ “
For Watts Wacker, who studies trends for Yankelovich Partners Inc. in Westport, Conn., that means something as mundane and quirky as wearing shorts whenever possible.
“I even wear shorts to church in the dead of winter. If I’m not having to work, I have to be as comfortable as I can be. I don’t care what you think. . . . I’m very comfortable wearing shorts-even on Saturdays when it’s 10 degrees.”
Adding to the universal backlash is a crisis of trust.
Studies show that people no longer trust major forces in their lives such as religious organizations and political groups.
“What the backlash is all about is there is really no sense of central authority,” Wacker says. “Religion, education, the news media are no longer icons.”
Many people feel burned by George Bush’s “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. Many are wary of religion, with all the talk about ministers who bilk their congregations and all the publicity on pedophile priests. Many are still confused about the “NBC Dateline”-exploding-trucks fiasco in which the network apologized for staging the fiery crash of a pickup.
News and entertainment are so blurred that many people don’t trust the media, Wacker says.
The result? “Everyone is going around pretty much making up their own minds.”
It’s “a definite anti-institutional feeling,” says public opinion researcher Lee Miringoff. “That’s part of this everything’s-up-in-the-air kind of feeling.”
Too many movements
But the dizzying feeling of being stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel and watching the world below go by is only part of what’s fueling universal backlash.
Simply put, there are more backlashes now because there are more movements: save the rain forests, save the oceans, save the animals, save the children, stop hunger, stop abortion, stop the ozone depletion, stop people from victimizing us.
And those movements make many people tired.
“There are so many groups and individuals out there making claims on our compassion and our concern that we can become numb and indifferent to all of those claims, even the legitimate ones,” says Charles Sykes, author of the book “A Nation of Victims.”
There are more movements because society has access to more information.
“We are absolutely overwhelmed, ensconced, inundated with reference to the mass media in one form or another,” says Michael Bernacchi, a University of Detroit-Mercy marketing professor who studies trends. “I call it the flash-information syndrome.”
When news happens, we see it minutes later.
Says Miringoff: “If you’re the president of the United States and you do something at 11 o’clock, CNN will have a poll on the noon news.”
Or, closer to home, you watch the morning news and see your hometown is planning to install a huge incinerator in a playground around the corner. By the end of the day, you’ve started a drive to quash the garbage burner. Your neighbor, who thinks the incinerator is a fine idea, learns of your plan that night on the 10 o’clock news. And by the next morning, she has started a backlash to your backlash.
In addition to having access to more information, people have access to greater amounts of specialized information.
“We’ve also gotten increasingly away from broadcasting to narrowcasting,” Miringoff says. “If you have two interests, you may find a TV station appealing to those two interests.”
Other things people do that help fuel universal backlash include logging onto computer bulletin boards, subscribing to specialized newsletters and writing personal ads, because, Miringoff says, “they have a way of fragmenting a society, which a backlash needs in order to take hold.
“Backlash implies disunification. If you have separation, you’re more likely to have backlash.”
Separation anxiety
And more and more, people are separating themselves. The melting pot is becoming a thing of the past.
“America (has) . . . become a fraternity of strangers,” Wacker says. “People are desperate to find other people like themselves. It’s not so much people who live where you live and work where you work. It’s people who think like you.
“In the old days, you wanted to be the only person living in Bloomfield Hills with a certain car of a new type. Now, you want to live where everyone drives the same thing.”
That search for common ties is what led Steelman, the University of Michigan student who doesn’t recycle, to join the staff of the Michigan Review, the campus’ conservative newspaper.
“I thought they’d give a different perspective,” says Steelman, who is now the paper’s publisher. “Several students who are right of center on campus feel a little isolated. That wasn’t the case with me; I wanted to meet other people who shared like views.”
True, many people feel most comfortable when their opinions aren’t challenged. But Wacker says that’s also part of what’s causing the universal backlash phenomenon.
Surrounding ourselves with like-minded people “allows us to get nothing but reinforcement for our feelings, whether they’re right or wrong,” he says.
“If you’ve had your fur coat ruined because someone threw paint on it, instead of listening to anyone’s opinions, you’re only hearing from people who are commiserating with you and telling you you deserve to be compensated because you’re victimized.
“If you’re leaning so hard to hearing only one side, you start becoming bold in your feelings of righteousness.”
For some people, that means believing they’re being victimized by anyone holding an opposing viewpoint. It means being on the defensive, the basis of a backlash.
“You become much more of a vigilante: vindictive, loud, rude, ugly in your face whether you really have a righteous reason for it or not,” Wacker says. “Instead of being circumspect, you demand compensation. It doesn’t matter if you’re a majority or minority opinion.”
People get angry. They start a backlash.
Make that steak rare, pass the aerosol cheese and put some extra hot fudge and high-fat nuts on that sundae.
The backlash is on.
