The changing expectations of society and the influence thereof on individual and societal decisions regarding foods

Abstract

There is strong evidence that fundamental changes of immense complexity and importance to the future of all are taking place in our society. Many aspects of this new civilization are in conflict, or at least in contradiction, with the traditional industrial society which has characterized the West for the past 300 years, and which had in turn largely absorbed or swept away earlier, simpler civilizations and cultures. This third great transformation of society, termed by Alvin Toffler (198 1) in his provocative book of the same name “The Third Wave,” will almost certainly bring new economic and political systems, altered family styles, and changed patterns of living and employment. It has been called by various authors an electronic age, a technetronic age, postindustrial society, a scientifictechnological revolution, the information society. The indications are that it will be all of these, but much more. Although we see its outlines only as through a glass darkly, one thing seems certain: it will be different from today’s industrial society. That society seems to have carried Western man substantially as far as it can without major change. Whether it be energy supplies and distribution, political institutions, transportation, urban communities, methods of production, or communication, many of our institutions show an increasing obsolescence, a growing inability to cope with the future which rushes toward us. Faced with these realities, we either can try to defend yesterday, a habit dear to the hearts of some politicians, military men, and bureaucrats, or can try to “attune our lives to the rhythms of tomorrow,” as Toffler has so aptly written. And yet, we should not be unduly pessimistic. There are many signs that we may be equal to taking hold of our destiny, of replacing obsolescence with solutions that are clean and bright and novel and humane. To paraphrase Churchill, we have not come this long distance because we are made of sugar candy. It is neither possible, nor indeed appropriate in this presentation, to attempt to outline all of the factors in our emerging new civilization which will have an impact on that miniscule segment of it we label as food safety. Decisions taken in this area will, of course, be profoundly influenced by broader changes in society in general. In part, they will reflect the upheavals, dislocations, and conflicts which characterize any major social revolution, and which we can expect to witness between now and the end of this century. It hardly needs repeating that decisions taken in one part of the giant interconnected web we call society send reverberations throughout the rest of it. All social and political problems are interconnected, and attempts to deal with them in an “orderly” Cartesian way as though they were discrete, self-contained, and in isolation of each other can lead to effects quite different from those desired. A deeper knowledge of and sensitivity to the complexity of society may keep us from repeating past mistakes. We know a great deal about the ecology of pelicans, snail darters, and whales, but human ecology is a science still taking its first faltering steps. Some, but by no means all, of the emerging