Awareness?

[waywardcats]

This blog post, the comments it has received and the ensuing FaceBook discussions has me thinking about this whole "awareness" thing.   What is the value of awareness?

I bought some shoes a while back, they had a little tag on them with a pink ribbon, which is for breast cancer awareness. I bought them because they fit, not because of the little tag.  I left the tag on and didn't give it another thought until this came up.  It didn't make me aware of breast cancer, it didn't prompt me to donate to a breast cancer cause, though I usually give something during the course of a year.  I cannot imagine that anyone else saw me wearing those shoes and became aware of breast cancer, certainly no one ever asked me what that pink ribbon was on my shoes.

Please tell me, what am I missing? Are these awareness campaigns making any sort of a difference?

Comments

[wild_irises]

I think they are part of the "make people feel better" trend that's also there in "good politics" consumerism. At the same time, I think that having more people aware (note word choice) that diseases can be political movements, and that there are things people can do can't be bad.