The Observer, February 29, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 19
Rational Response: Americans should not invest interest, money in pseudoscience
In the middle of last semester, I wrote an article on superstition in society. But leave it to McDonald's to come up with a way of taking America's obsession with all things Eastern to a whole new level.
According to a recent MSNBC story, a California McDonald's establishment aims to boost its sales using feng shui. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, feng shui is the ancient Chinese belief that energy fields that promote inner peace and harmony (qi) are somehow affected by rearranging furniture. Gone are the gaudy yellow and red that defined McDonald's trademark cheap interior, replaced by leather seats, wood floors, brushed silver chairs and red accents, which symbolize "fire." The walls are textured to resemble ocean waves, which resemble "life and relaxation." The designer, Brenda Clifford, even hired a feng shui master and positioned the doors of the establishment in such a way to ward off bad spirits while keeping good ones inside. Additionally, Clifford nearly made the "terrible mistake" of placing 44 chairs in the dining area before realizing that the number four was "bad luck." She added an extra chair to make 45.
When will our country learn to stop investing time and money in dawdling in such absurd nonsense? Feng shui is, at best, a more costly, more ridiculous, more arbitrary form of interior design. At worst, it's just total bunk. It certainly says a lot about the world we live in when McDonald's has to attract customers by citing pseudoscience, than simply saying that it wants to look more upscale to attract Starbucks-guzzling yuppies. First Starbucks creates a behemoth coffee giant based on a mythical Italian coffee culture, and now we have McDonald's, king of atherosclerosis, creating hamburgers with watered-down Eastern mysticism? Give me a break. Are people truly fooling themselves into thinking that McDonald's is interested in a customer's prosperity and health, when they make their profits selling burgers, shakes, French fries, and cola?
Whether it's oxygen bars in hotels in Las Vegas or crystal healing or naturopathy, feng shui makes just as much sense as Santa Claus or fairy godmothers, but with probably less evidence behind it. What is truly amusing – though some may call it scary – is that some Americans actually believe that McDonald's somehow cares about their inner Zen over boosting profits by remodeling to resemble Starbucks (complete with a McCafé serving gourmet lattes.)
I am not saying that McDonald's is the problem. They are in the business to make profits by giving the masses what they want. What I am incensed about is the fact that we as a culture have no personal responsibility. We blind ourselves and eat up corporate hogwash about caring for our "qi." We happily swallow superstition and nonsense that masquerade as science along with our Happy Meals.
One McDonald's thousands of miles away is fairly inconsequential, but it does raise some interesting points about our society. Does staggering grout lines (representative of "overcoming obstacles," said Clifford) really make that much of a difference in sales? Probably not. Americans should open their eyes to fact before more powerful forces exploit the naïveté about the scientific method for more than just financial gain.
Tulsi Roy is a second-year biology/HPS major.
