the hard sell

Last Wednesday some Greenpeace activists were on campus, trying to recruit new members. Since I don't know much about Greenpeace, I stopped to talk to one of the recruiters.

The conversation was something like this:

Recruiter: Do you know much about Greenpeace?

Me: No, actually.

Recruiter, in automaton voice: Greenpeace is a group created in 1971 by a handful of thoughtful, committed citizens who leased a small fishing vessel, called the Phyllis Cormack, and set sail from Vancouver for Amchitka Island in Alaska. Their mission was to protest U.S. nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska with a brave act of defiance: to place themselves in harm's way. Despite being intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard, these daring activists sailed into history by bringing worldwide attention to the dangers of nuclear testing.

That was more than 30 years ago, and in that time, Greenpeace has indeed changed the world. And we continue to make the world a better place. Our committed activists and supporters have come together to ban commercial whaling, convince the world's leaders to stop nuclear testing, protect Antarctica, and so much more.

Today, we have grown from a small group of dedicated activists to an international organization with offices in more than 30 countries. But our spirit and our mission remain the same. Our fight to save the planet has grown more serious – the threat of global warming, destruction of ancient forests, deterioration of our oceans, and the threat of a nuclear disaster loom large. Greenpeace is actively working to address these and other threats.

Me: Are you a robot? Because it sounds like somebody just hit the "play" button located where your brain should be.

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Actually, that's not really what I said. I kinda wish I had, though. I know that Greenpeace has a reputation as a sort of aggressive organization whose approach probably doesn't match my own strategies for creating change, but I also genuinely wished to be more informed about both the issues they oppose and the tactics they use. I mean, I was hoping for an actual conversation about their work. Even if I hadn't gone away feeling convinced to join, I also wouldn't have gone away with the negative feeling that Greenpeace was a cult that merely brainwashed its members into believing the standard party line. Which is exactly what I ended up feeling after talking to the robot.

[Note: my approximation of the robot's speech is taken from greenpeace.org/usa/about. Her actual words were slightly different, but it's close enough that you get the idea: she was parroting some standard version of The Truth without demonstrating much ability/interest to engage in some kind of more sophisticated dialogue about the complexities of things.]

[Another Note: the actual topic that Sarah the Robot "discussed" with me was the problem of palm oil production, which is contributing to deforestation, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia. According to Sarah the Robot, Greenpeace has successfully petitioned Dove Soap's parent organzation (Unilever) to update its policies for acquiring palm oil. Since Unilever is one of the largest buyers of palm oil, this is important. You can read more about it on Unilever's website, on Greenpeace's website, or on the site of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. So: I am thankful for an increased understanding and awareness of this problem; and I also that recognize that merely having more knowledge is not necessarily sufficient for actually effecting change. But it's a start. I just resent the hard sell.]