Yesterday afternoon my wife suggested that we go out to get a pizza, a suggestion which was unusual and at the same time welcome. I like pizza but we are not fast food junkies and we seldom indulge in the modern mania for eating on the run. Susannah normally cooks the family meal and we make a point of eating and praying together in the evening. It was Sunday, however, and Susannah decided that this particular Sabbath would be a day of rest from cooking. I relished the prospect of indulging myself with a good pizza and Susannah suggested that we drive to a family-owned pizza restaurant, which had won awards for the quality of its food. We’d eaten there before and my mouth was watering at the memory and the prospect.

After driving past numerous pizza-chains, we arrived at our destination, only to discover that the small family-owned restaurant had been closed down. The sense of anger and disappointment was exacerbated when we noticed that the small family-run Thai restaurant next door had also closed. We’d eaten at this Thai place and I think it was the best Thai food I’d ever had, though it must be conceded that the service was a little on the slow side.

With Chesterton’s mantra about the modern world’s standardization to a low standard ringing in my ears, I was determined that we would not succumb to a second-rate cardboard pizza from one of the giant chains. With our four-year-old daughter showing definitive signs of hunger-induced impatience, we needed to make a snap decision. “Whole Foods does pizza,” my wife reminded me. I was disconsolate and lamented that we were being forced to go to a chain in the absence of any genuinely small and local alternative.

Arriving at Whole Foods, the family remained in the car while I went in to order the pizza. On being told that the wait would be around 25 minutes due to the fact that the pizza oven was small and could only cook two pizzas at a time, I groaned at the prospect of the wait and then felt immediately guilty at my own fast food mentality. Making a virtue out of necessity, I bought a bottle of St. Therese’s Ale, an excellent English-style pale ale produced at the nearby Highland Brewing Company. The sensation of hops on the tongue soon made the waiting more pleasurable and I was even able to squeeze in a second bottle of ale before the pizza emerged. Feeling much happier and hungrier I returned to the car and placated my daughter with a chunk of pizza crust while we made the return journey home.

The pizza was good but I couldn’t help feeling that our family expedition was indicative of a deep-rooted problem in the American economy and culture. The perverse irony was that the so-called “free” market, manipulated by big business to its own advantage, was taking away my freedom of choice. It was increasingly difficult for small restaurants to survive and, in consequence, was increasingly difficult to get anything except the same bland and generically unhealthy food wherever one went. The problem is not, however, merely one of economics. It’s a cultural problem also. The fact is that modern Americans prefer junk food to good food as they prefer junk culture to good culture. Their “freedom of choice” is manipulated by big business in the same way in which big business manipulates the so-called “free” market. Bombarded with advertising and propaganda (which are the same thing) and seemingly unable to tell the difference between the truth and the lie, they are slaves to the sin of spin. They buy junk food, they are addicted to consumerism, and they vote for Obama. The sobering thought is that the American people will continue to lose their right to choose freely until they learn to value the right to choose freely.