What's with this 'We', asshole?

I listen to streaming radio alot of the time at work. I was listening to Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, on On Point last week, and he was talking about contemporary food culture. It sounded kind of interesting, and it was a decent enough show, all in all. What bothered me about it was how he kept saying 'we' to indicate, from what I can tell, the entire population of Americans. 'We' don't know how to eat, unlike Europeans. 'We' enjoy fast food. 'We' let half baked ideas like the Atkins diet change our eating habits overnight.

I have a couple of problems with this. One, these aspersions don't apply to me. Two, I am pretty sure they don't apply to Mr. Pollan either. He's using the term 'We' to overgeneralize, stereotype. He's taking cheap shots at people who he feels smugly superior to.

It was noted in the show that Pollan is a professor of Journalism at Berkeley. What do they teach there? 'Generalize like crazy. Give me 3 anecdotes and you should be able to apply this to everyone in a specific group.'

I suppose that approach sells better than, say dumping a bunch of statistics on people. But I don't see why just talking about the specific people and place he knows about is a problem.

Another problem I had was that he sort of set himself up as an activist for 'How to eat'. Are you a journalist or lobbyist for your 'side'?

Whatever. I'm not going to read a book by such a smug twat.