Roundtable: "You Can Lead A Horticulture...
...But you can't make her think." - Dorothy Parker, ORP (Original Roundtable Participant)Yes, that's how Ms. Parker wanted to spell that word. She was asked to come up with a sentence using "horticulture" and...
Wait, this ain't no cultural lesson in events and personae that ran amok during the Flapper era in New York City, this is a plug for the latest Roundtable entry!
Right, so Deni, aka The Left Wing Nut, has soul-whoring on his mind, and he insists that we are all whores for, say, shopping at Walmart when we know their thriftiness is derived from the sweat of Laotian children hired for pennies per day. Here, he has a point, I believe. He also damns Michael Jordan for pimping himself out to McDonald's (for unhealthy eating), Nike (see child labor thing above), and Hane's (who wears tighty-whiteys anymore), and here I agree with him also. But then he gets into the gray area of unknown actors doing commercials for Westinghouse, and here things head into the gray zone...Well, for me, at least, not for Deni.
So, you know, head on over, read the bit, then speak your mind, y'all.
posted by the beige one @ 12:49 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Yeah, this is a thorny issue indeed. As a somewhat former performer, I can only think of one or two occasions where I faced the potential of doing a gig for some company or product that I didn't implicitly trust, like or otherwise approve, but in those few instances it was pretty easy to rationalize. If you didn't take the gig, someone else surely would, someone who perhaps hadn't given as much thought, if any, to the larger social consequences of their latent endorsement. And there's always the money issue, the professional advancement (if not just plain survival) issue, keeping your agent happy, keeping your landlord happy, etc., etc.
The fact is, all of us compromise our ethical ideals every day; sometimes consciously, more often completely unconsciously. Few of us are in a position to live a 100% "examined life", in the sense of always being able to make these kinds of choices always with an eye toward what does the least harm to the most people. The sad reality is that many people around the world have a lot fewer choices in this regard than the average American, and frankly, many of us who DO have choices unfortunately will always gravitate toward the one that best benefits our own bottom-line, regardless of the consequences to others.
But, the options for those of us who have some sort of larger social conscience is to either go live in the woods in a shack made of tree branches, and clothing made from bark or animal pelts (preferably from unendangered species); or, live in society in a continuous state of guilt over every decision we make; or, do the best we can, while having a realistic acknowledgement of our moral/ethical shortcomings.
Nobody can rack up a perfect score when it comes to these sorts of choices; the best we can do is recognize the consequences of not making the most socially-conscious choice, and learn to live our own conscience when we opt for the less difficult, but ultimately more harmful one.
what christopher said.. wiv bells on :)
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