The Jivaroan people were fervent devotees of head shrinking. Indeed, it was an essential practice for warriors, to demonstrate their power. Since then the concept has been extended to all aspects of life, extending even as far as thought. We have to cut travel times, download times, work times, etc. We also have to cut short two-sided debates, avoid boring the people with overly long or overly complex exposés, and boil down the arguments to go directly to the conclusions. Ideas must move quickly, given the increasingly tight window for capturing the audience’s attention. Constant channel-hopping prevents us from going into depth. Of course, our sector in its turn is no exception from this reductionism. René Char observed that “the essential was constantly under threat from the insignificant”. Let’s take the organic sector. True, it is suicidal, in media terms, to question this consumption trend. So I will do my best to avoid being hauled up before the courts for thought crime. Yet nonetheless, for the good of the organic market, would it not be honest and constructive to take an in-depth look? The study that has just been published on the link between health and organic food is the height of half-truths, not to say half-lies. Since while the authors, out of the need for recognition, and the press, out of intellectual laziness, imply a causal link between consumption of organic foods and a reduction in cancer rates, they have nothing to say about the actual composition of the group studied. In fact, as an enlightened tweeter declared: “Organic consumers (ed. the ones surveyed) smoke less, consume 40 calories less per day, 5 g more fibre, 17 g less red meat, have a lower BMI (- 1.5), drink less alcohol, are better off and better educated. So no real surprise that their cancer rates are lower”. Curses! Correlation does not mean causality! And no evaluation is provided, with all other things being equal. Yet what’s the problem, the people have got the message: organic, only organic, and nothing but organic. Even at the risk of seeing the same people turn away from fruits and vegetables when they cannot afford organic. Which would have a particularly devastating knock-on effect in terms of public health. But let’s return to the Jivaroans: they shrank the heads of their enemies to trap the spirit of the dead man inside, and therefore guard against his vengeance, but also to appropriate his strength and qualities. A bit like us the post-modern generation, routinely shrinking our intellect.
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