Page 167 - Essencials of Sociology

140 CHAPTER 5 Social Groups and Formal Organizations

Down-to-Earth Sociology

The McDonaldization of Society

he significance of the McDonald’s restaurants that dot hitchhiking in Europe and Africa, sleeping on a granite table
the United States—and, increasingly, the world—goes in a nunnery in Italy and in a cornfield in Algeria are not part
Tfar beyond quick hamburgers, milk shakes, and salads. of tour agendas.)
As sociologist George Ritzer (1993, 1998, 2012) says, our For good or bad, our lives are being McDonaldized, and
everyday lives are being “McDonaldized.” Let’s see what he the predictability of packaged settings seems to be our social
means by this. destiny. When education is rationalized, no longer will our
The McDonaldization of society does not refer just to children have to put up with real professors, who insist on dis-
the robotlike assembly of food. This term refers to the stan- cussing ideas endlessly, who never come to decisive answers,
dardization of everyday life, a process that is transforming our and who come saddled with idiosyncrasies. At some point,
lives. Want to do some shopping? Shopping such an approach to education is going to
malls offer one-stop shopping in be, like quill pens and ink wells, a bit of
controlled environments. Plan- quaint history.
ning a trip? Travel agencies offer Our programmed education will
“package” tours. They will trans- eliminate the need for discussion
port middle-class Americans to of social issues—we will have pack-
ten European capitals in fourteen aged solutions to social problems,
days. All visitors experience the definitive answers that satisfy our
same hotels, restaurants, and need for closure and the govern-
other scheduled sites—and no ment’s desire that we not explore
one need fear meeting a “real” its darker side. Computerized
native. Want to keep up with courses will teach the same an-
events? USA Today spews out swers to everyone—“politically
McNews—short, bland, non-ana- correct” ways to think about so-
lytical pieces that can be digested McDonald’s in Tel Aviv, Israel. cial issues. Mass testing will en-
between gulps of the McShake or sure that students regurgitate the
the McBurger. programmed responses. Like carcasses of beef, our courses
Efficiency brings dependability. You can expect your will be stamped “U.S. government approved.”
burger and fries to taste the same whether you buy them Our looming prepackaged society will be efficient. But we
in Minneapolis or Moscow. Although efficiency also lowers will be trapped in the “iron cage” of bureaucracy—just as
prices, it does come at a cost. Predictability washes away Weber warned would happen.
spontaneity. It changes the quality of our lives by producing
sameness—flat, bland versions of what used to be unique
experiences. In my own travels, for example, had I taken For Your Consideration
packaged tours, I never would have had the eye-opening ↑ What do you like and dislike about the standardization of
experiences that have added so much to my apprecia- society? What do you think about the author’s comments on
tion of human diversity. (Bus trips with chickens in Mexico, the future of our educational system?

Did the staff that ran the March of Dimes hold a wild celebration and then quietly
fold up their tents and slip away? Of course not. They had jobs to protect, so they tar-
geted a new enemy—birth defects. But then, in 2001, another ominous threat of success
reared its ugly head. Researchers finished mapping the human genome system, a break-
through that held the possibility of eliminating birth defects—and their jobs. Officials of
the March of Dimes had to come up with something new—and something that would
last. Their new slogan, “Stronger, healthier babies,” is so vague that it should ensure the
organization’s existence forever: We are not likely to ever run out of the need for “stron-
ger, healthier babies.” This goal displacement is illustrated in the photos on the previous
page.
Then there is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), founded during the Cold
War to prevent Russia from invading western Europe. The abrupt, unexpected end of
the Cold War removed the organization’s purpose. But why waste a perfectly good
bureaucracy? As with the March of Dimes, the western powers found a new goal: to
create “rapid response forces” to combat terrorism and “rogue nations” (Tyler 2002).