Kotsko's Index of Forbidden Words -- Part 4

I continue as follows:

Responsibility -- Once again, I have a chiropractor to thank for this entry. In discussing the lawsuit against fast food restaurants, one of the doctors in the office I am temporarily working for said, "He [the man bringing the lawsuit] is responsible for his own actions. Why is it always someone else's fault?" I agree that the millions of people who eat at fast food restaurants every day are free to act differently if they choose. The strange thing is that "responsibility" only ever applies to the small, virtually powerless individual. No one ever claims that the fast food restaurants need to "take responsibility" for their actions of aggressively marketting their products to children, putting their restaurants on every street corner and now in every gas station, saturating the airwaves with tantalizing images of their "food," refusing to promote anything healthy except as a bizarre kind of "alternative" that is inevitably discontinued -- all of this strikes me as negative behavior that one should not engage in.
In a corporate setting, every single employee gets to say that he's just following orders, until we get to the people with actual power, who get to say, "I'm sorry if my behavior harmed you in some way, but the market made me do it. Please direct all further complaints to the natural order of things." The fat guy who's suing McDonald's has an excuse just as good as "The market made me do it," perhaps even better: "Human nature made me do it. People are susceptible to advertising, they're lazy, and they are genetically predisposed to prefer fatty foods." Since he can't sue the natural order of things, he's going to sue the people who took advantage of the negative aspects of human nature to enrich themselves.
We're predisposed to think that is ridiculous, and I admit that I also find it ridiculous, but that's only because we are constantly taught that responsibility is for the little guy, not for the person who has actual power and influence. If you're just an individual with a probably inadequate education who is forced to work forty hours or more in an unfulfilling job while trying frantically to raise your kids or whatever and simply don't have time to do extensive research into nutrition or to go to the one dinky store in town that actually sells healthy food, then you are absolutely responsible for your actions. If you are a powerful corporate executive who has a vast propaganda system at your disposal with which to shape public opinion and such high wealth that you are effectively insulated from any meaningful financial risk, your hands are tied. Sorry.
Unrealistic -- This follows from the previous entry. I could propose, for example, that McDonald's should remake itself entirely, phasing out the burgers and fries and replacing them instead with healthy food that still tastes good. Then, instead of simply saying that their food is "healthy" (which we immature Americans have come to associate with horrible tasting-food and the grim execution of our duty), they could market it as helping people to feel more energized and generally better, as helping them to live longer to enjoy the company of their families, and whatever other sentimental swill they need to throw out there to get people to eat their food. Since the current success of McDonald's indicates that people can get used to eating anything short of paint chips, people would quickly get used to eating that stuff. Profits would climb, the nation's health costs would plummet, workers would be more productive -- life would be better in virtually every way that is important to us. But what are you all thinking as you read this? "That's unrealistic." People have a lot more power over "the way things are" than they think they do. When people say that plans for extensive positive change in society are unrealistic, they are really just expressing their preference for "the same stupid thing," no matter what the cost.

I don't have any more words to forbid at the moment. I do have a maxim: If you must use a word, use it responsibly. (This brings me to another forbidden word: "irony." For details, see Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Shattering Genius, in the section entitled "Mistakes we knew we were making.")