I learned a lot of things from my Auntie Bert in the kitchen. I learned that the most important part of mixing up cakes is the creaming process (mixing the butter and the sugar). A good creaming makes a good cake! I also learned to be patient while the oven preheated. The oven must at the right temperature when you put the delectables in. But one of the most important lessons that I learned was to have clean hands. I could go into gruesome details about what could happen if one’s hands aren’t clean, but I will not.
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| Photo borrowed from http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/ Health-and-Beauty/Personal-Hygiene/Soap/Soap-46.html |
I read a book called “Do the Right Thing: PR Tips for a Skeptical Public” by James Hoggan. I read an interesting passage about hand washing and manipulation. Hoggan told a story about an anthropologist who worked in Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa. The anthropologist, Dr. Val Curtis, set out on a mission to get the residents to wash their hands. Curtis thought the simple act would help knock out diseases caused by dirty hands, thus saving thousands of lives. Hoggan says her years of public education campaigns flopped, so she turned to companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive. The three companies are master manipulators. They convince us that we need disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, fabric softeners and teeth whiteners on a daily basis. They were the perfect companies to help Curtis.
Through research, the team (comprised of the three companies) found out that the people of Burkina Faso didn’t think going to the bathroom was dirty. The team decided to convince them that it was. The new public health commercials showed moms and their kids walking out of bathrooms with “glowing purple pigment” (p. 33) on their hands. Everything they touched glowed purple, too (to show the act of contamination).
Smart idea, huh?
The point of Hoggan’s story is highlighted on page 33 of his book: “Is it wrong to use manipulative tactics in a good cause?”
I think it’s wrong, but I’ve done it before. Once, when I was helping out at children’s church, a little girl walked out of the bathroom without washing her hands. I prompted her to go back to wash her hands, and told her that her hands were dirty. She looked at them, and insisted that they were not. I bent down, grabbed her hands and held them out. I told her, “You can’t see it, but little buggies are crawling on your hands. The only way to get rid of them is to wash your hands with soap and water. If you don’t the buggies could make you sick.” I had to instill a little bit of fear to get her to “Do the Right Thing.” Is that wrong?
