c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com.)
UNDATED _ We watch the royals, yet we rarely identify with them. But the death of Princess Diana speaks to a reality we all know: being someone else’s prey.
Regardless of whether the voracious paparazzi are convicted of hounding Princess Diana to her death in an auto accident, we know that this accident wouldn’t have occurred if a pack of camera-wielders hadn’t been trying to make money by snapping suggestive photos of Diana and her friend.
We also sense, less comfortably, that the sleaze press only exists because we buy their tabloids or read them in the grocery line. Some people draw their satisfaction from watching age ravage Elizabeth Taylor.
But I think the truth is deeper still. We live in a predatory society, in which many people _ not just sleaze tabs and paparazzi, but millions of people _ make a living by preying on the weaknesses, illnesses and tragedies of other people.
If you fall behind on paying bills, for example, three things will happen. First, your name will be sold. Second, banks will send you more credit cards to encourage even deeper indebtedness. Third, companies with names like”security”and”fidelity”will send ego-boosting applications for home equity loans, to separate you from your one major asset.
The old business axiom”find a need and fill it”has given way to a new axiom: Find their weak spot and exploit it.
Some predators watch for tragedy. Lawyers promise accident victims big payoffs in lawsuits. Funeral parlors turn grief into a compulsion to purchase a gleaming casket. A friend says the first calls she received after her husband’s death were from friends wanting to buy their house. Some prey on life transitions like aging. Companies sell salves and devices that promise to shrink fat, enhance desire, reverse hair loss and stop aging.
The normal anxieties of young girls feed entire industries _ fashion, cosmetics, diet pills _ which promote impossible images of thinness, beauty and sex appeal. Youth come under particular assault, because they are both trusting and vulnerable. The tobacco industry’s predatory attitude toward young teens has gotten too much even for senators who enjoy tobacco’s largesse.
Other industries proceed untouched. Candy is placed at child level in grocery store checkout lanes. Record clubs solicit teen-age buyers with large-print promises and small-print obligations. Product ads clutter home videos.
As a post-war child, I feel as if my entire life has been lived under a predatory marketing microscope, as mega-millions are made by reading not only what products my age cohort might need to buy, like houses and cars, but products we might be cajoled into buying if our anxiety buttons could just be punched.
We know that individuals prey on each other. Grown-ups incest children, rapists lurk in parking lots, home-sellers and car-sellers often cheat buyers.
But now we have institutionalized predatory behavior and painted it as legitimate. We ignore brewers who target inner-city blacks for high-octane beverages, or church leaders who harangue their flocks into tithing so that they can buy luxury cars and $750,000 houses. We make movies about predatory agents who hang around promising athletes, or slick investment bankers who plunder someone else’s hard work. We admire the mansions of doctors who profit by churning Medicare.
And so we have Diana, dying in a tunnel, while cameras click and publishers rush books about her into reprint. She had the misfortune to be marketable.
On the one hand, we make our own decisions. An alcoholic can’t say the bartender forced him to have that next drink. But on the other hand, those who profit from exploitation need to accept some responsibility. Those who write the duplicitous language of sweepstakes campaigns need to look in a mirror. So do those who run talent-searches for bulemic models to sell teen-age beauty products; and burglar-alarm salesmen who make people afraid in order to sell them”security”; and the funeral director who scoffed at a grieving daughter,”Is that casket really good enough for your mother?” We all need to ask,”Do I make a living by preying on someone else’s suffering?”Helping people is one thing, preying on them is another. It may be legal, but it isn’t right.
MJP END EHRICH
