“In this root sense, ignorance is an act of will, a choice that one makes over and over again, especially when information overwhelms and knowledge has become synonymous with impotence.”
The narrative handles subjects of excess consumerism, commercially-fueled content, and information overload. By comparing the Western and Eastern culture through the characters and incidents the novel highlights these subjects with America and Japan as the backdrops. In the assertion, Jane makes a commentary on the public response to facts combined with overhyped commercials. In that when fed with too much knowledge regarding their society, the public makes the conscious choice to ignore as they assume the role of powerlessness.
“If there is one single symbol for the demise of regional American culture, it is this superstore prototype, a huge capitalist boot that stomped the moms and pops, like soft, damp worms, to death.”
As a documentarian, Jane encounters the commercialization and hypermarket culture that has been adopted across America. Her job essentially is to create content on Beef-EX for mass consumption across continents. The mass-produced meat is genetically modified for it to meet the demands of the big market. Therefore, it alludes to how the hypermarkets, in the same manner, have taken over towns putting the small enterprises out of business. The narrative is a makes a commentary on how big businesses are gluttonous in owning the whole market leaving no space for ‘mom and pops’ stores.
“Stocking up is what our robust Americans called it…because profligate abundance automatically evokes its opposite, the unspoken specter of dearth.”
The main characters in the narrative are either ‘conveyers’ or ‘adopters’ of commercially-driven information in boosting sales. Jane and her team devise ways to make their show, aimed at boosting meat consumption in the Japanese markets, viable to the consumers. They are promoting it by demonstrating the American consumerism to introduce it to the Japanese culture. The quotation alludes to how consumerism is an incessant endeavor that feeds its cycle.
