Blanket statement?
Boycotts are a tool. A hammer is a tool.
Neither have any moral legitimacy in and of themselves.
Kimstu was trying to make it seem like a boycott is some kind of supremely moral thing. That was my point.
Try reading for comprehension next time.
YWTF,
Just to clarify.
I do not think that boycotts are “all wrong.”
I am in favor of boycotts that target behavior that I would like to make illegal if I could. Child labour. Apartheid. Support for terrorism.
I am against boycotts that target “ungood” thinking, even if the thinking is “doubleplus ungood”, against boycotts whose target behavior is speech that is not clearly hate speech.
may be a true statement. But one is inherently more sacred in a free society.
Refering to my request to answer my questions and to explain how my “bad boycotts” are any different than this threatened one other than that you agree with its goal
Okay. So a patriotic American should have supported the boycotts of suspected Communist sympathizers as an ethical action.
Hey, if you actually recognized all along that the root of the advertiser-boycott issue is systemic, and needs to be addressed by fundamentally changing the system of media financing rather than just by scolding consumers who participate in boycotts, you could have said so earlier, instead of waiting for me to point it out.
Then people who want to pay for Imus’s product will still have access to it, just like you wanted. So why were you so upset just because a bunch of freeloaders in the no-fee radio system are getting their advertiser-subsidized Imus taken away from them?
I was? Where? I never said that there’s anything “supremely moral” about a boycott. All I said is that there’s nothing intrinsically immoral about a boycott, and that it’s a perfectly legitimate activity in commercial markets, even in commercial markets that buy and sell speech.
Can you cite what I said that you think amounted to “trying to make it seem like a boycott is some kind of supremely moral thing”?
The whole freakin’ post. Reread it. You only wrote the damn thing.
No.
This is my position: I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with boycotting.
Does that mean that I support every boycott? No.
Does that mean I support everyone’s right to boycott? Yes.
I honestly don’t see how you can have it any other way in a free society.
Did you enjoy hearing him call the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos”?
Because AFAICT, what prompted this media firestorm was not that Imus was “un-PC”, or that he made fun of politicians and other celebrities, but simply that he threw an ugly personal insult at an inoffensive bunch of college athletes.
Well, I guess it’s a matter of taste. Those of us who don’t find it funny to hear a radio celebrity call a college women’s sports team “nappy-headed hos” will just have to put up with the likes of you considering us humor-impaired.
According to Fiveyearlurker, sure they will, on satellite radio. The only difference will be that they’ll actually have to pay for the opportunity, instead of freeloading off of sponsor advertising and then whining like kicked puppies if consumers who don’t like the show decide to stop subsidizing their entertainment choices.
Which freakin’ post? I’ve posted several of the damn things in this thread, and in none of them can I see even the faintest suggestion that I was “trying to make it seem like a boycott is some kind of supremely moral thing”.
Well we agree here. I too support everyone’s right to boycott. And we probably should just stop there … on a point of agreement.*
*I just think that people who exercise that right in pursuit of stifling speech or thought are being twits.
I take it that some of you would not have participated in the Boston Tea Party.
Boycotting is part of freedom of expression. It isn’t bullying anymore that freedom of speech.
I consider what Imus said to be “hate speech.” Why shouldn’t I?
I was a regular listener if I stayed up that late or got up that early. His show was politically interesting and generally irreverent. The only thing that made Bernard tolerable was the Cardinal on Fridays. The rest of them didn’t seem to be too bad at all. Imus was cranky. I had never heard him say anything that was bigotted. Most of the things he said against women did not seem to come from any pathological dislike, but just the kinds of digs I see right here at the Dope all the time. It was obvious that he is crazy about his wife.
There were things that were very likeable about him – his concern for children, his interest in autism, the work he did with children with cancer on the ranch, even his boots and choice of music.
I was really disappointed when I read Monstro’s post about what he had said on the air. I knew I wouldn’t watch him anymore. Yes, it’s a deliberate boycott. I see it as a moral issue. I felt like I was back in the 1950s and I felt very weary.
You support free speech. Therefore, you must consider hate speech to be ethical.
Can you spot the fallacy in what I just wrote?
Zoe, well that would be a whole seperate thread: what constitutes hate speech? Probably similar to how to define pornography. All I know is that asking many times in these threads and in real life you are the only one who has responded that “nappy headed ho” is that far up the scale. And it should be clear that no one here would at all object to your decision to stop listening to him or to be disappointed. The issue was over the calls to have him fired and the threat of organized economic action by non-listeners to accomplish that goal.
Miller, no I do not.
I consider speech an ethical means of expressing a POV, whatever your POV is. I object to the hate and that alone, not the tool used.
So speech against Communism I would have had no problem with. Blacklisting those who had Communist beliefs was however coercive and toxic to the environment of a free society. This sort of toxicity is inherent to the tool itself, blacklisting for “crimethink”, regardless of the tools intended use.
I was thinking about your Communist example last night.
I think we both agree that boycotting businesses simply because they might be affiliated with unpopular political views can be ethically problematic. You say that you draw a line between boycotting over “speech” and boycotting because of behaviors that you’d like to see outlawed. The latter is okay with you. You think the former is a disgrace, in so many words.
What about the examples that monstro brought up?
If it came out that Proctor & Gamble sponsors KKK rallies and gives them complimentary bleach with which to whiten their pearly robes, would you have a problem with people boycotting them? Why or why not?
If it came out that ConAgara gives thousands of dollars to anti-Israel interest groups, would an organized boycott against them be unethical to you? Why or why not?
The existence of the KKK should not be illegal. Nor should anti-Israel interest groups. But I wouldn’t want to support any companies that fund these organizations. Can you blame me? Does this make me as bad as the people who boycotted the Commie pinko traitors? I don’t think there’s a way you can make any broad brush assertions about what makes a boycott acceptable or not.
First off allow me to thank you for your trying to understand the differences between our POVs.
As always the most interesting and problematic issues deal with the edge states. Where does speech stop? Where does hate speech begin? Is there a difference between a company that provides forums and funding for many different POVs and one with a particular political agenda?
I’ll take your examples in reverse order.
ConAgra hypothetically donating to anti-Israel interest groups. No question: against an organized boycott with the intent of getting them to stop that funding. I might personally not buy a product from them, but I’d be against an organized effort. (And similarly I do not personally patronize Oberwiess Ice Cream stores or milk products because I find its owners xenophobic political work and senate runs so distasteful. I do not want to be indirectly funding those ads or his political career. But I am not trying to get him to stop running them by buying at our local family run ice cream parlor instead.) OTOH if they were funding Hamas it would be different.
My reaction to your hypothetical P&G example is guided by the same criteria. Since I see the KKK as encouraging terrorism against minorities then my first impulse is that such would be a just use of a boycott. But with great trepidation. OTOH I have no trepidation with saying that I do not want to use their product myself because, again, I do not want to indirectly fund support of the KKK. Different than saying that my intent is to force them to stop funding a forum for a POV that I dislike.
I would also make a distinction between a company which makes a clear political agenda out of its sponsorship choices and one which just advertises where the eyeballs are whatever they are looking at. I wouldn’t object to Starbucks placing ads in GunsNAmmo or in papers with an anti-Israel agenda (no shortage of 'em!) because I know that they would be as willing to place ads in Mother Earth and the Jersulam Post if they thought it was a good buy of likely customer eyeballs per dollar. (I don’t buy Starbucks instead because I have this much better local shop that roasts their own on site.)
Still I recognize that these hypothetical cases get closer to the edge. I admit that even a tool with potentially toxic side effects has its place. But I’d very careful using it.
My questions back: is the case of those companies who advertised on Imus’ show comparable to those cases? Do these companies exercise an agenda to promote racist thinking or do they advertise at least as much in venues that promote POVs that you find acceptable or even desirable? Which circumstance is the Imus dust-up more like: boycotting a company that is actively promoting the KKK or boycotting a company that hires a few Communists along with donating to the Nixon campaign? It is admittedly not exactly like either, that’s always the problem with learning from history, we never know which history applies, but to me it smells more like the latter than the former.
Hate speech is just as constitutionally protected as non-hate speech, so why does it matter?
What if the intent of the organized boycott is not to compell a specific action, but rather is as simple as a whole bunch of people making the conscious decision to steer their purchasing power away from businesses that give money to unsavory causes? I wouldn’t willingly fund anti-Israel groups directly out of my own pocket, so I wouldn’t give money to a company that in turns gives money to these groups. Is that wrong?
An organized effort can be as simple as one person and a 100 of his/her closest friends all making a pact to not buy a product for the same reason. An organized effort can effectively mean a handful of people raising public awareness, so that other people can make an informed decision when shopping (much like Sharpton et. al did, BTW). Why would you be against either one of these? And would you be against them if they favored a business, instead of opposed one?
No, but you know what you just did? You just let the world know something about Oberwiess Ice Cream that they may have not known before. So now I too want to refrain from buying their stuff. And so does a whole new crop of people. So now we’re all going to boycott them. The business may suffer now as a consequence. “Free speech” has taken a hit now.
Do you see what I mean?
I don’t see why the difference in intent matters when the end result is the same. The reason why I don’t want to give money to the KKK is because I don’t support their kind of speech. I support their right to speech, but I don’t want to help them speak. Giving money to P&G indirectly enables the KKK to share its message of prejudice and bigotry to the world. So I want no part of that.
Most if not all boycotts are based on the same principle. You can choose to see it as coercion. You also can see it as people deciding to only support businesses that help the world become a better place, not a worse one. The world is not a better place with the KKK or any hate group. We have no obligation to fund them for “just because” reasons.
A business is always concerned about its bottom line. So even businesses that fund out a clear political agenda are doing so because they believe it helps their profit margin.
Not really, but then again, I don’t think these companies were really concerned about boycotts. I strongly suspect that they dropped Imus in order to look good (just like MSNBC did) and attract more customers. Either that, or it was their way of helping MSNBC make the decision to cut Imus, making the whole scandal go away sooner and return things to the status quo. Most if not all of those advertisers have an international clientel. I seriously doubt that they were worried about being hurt by a boycott.
We have not been talking about constitutional protections here. Hate speech is different than objectionable and offensive speech. I reserve the right to feel differently about speech at that extreme, even if it incurs some slight expense of hypocrisy. Even a pacifist would consider killing off a Hitler given a shot at him.
Oh I see what you mean and I think that your point has some validity. And I think that you see that my objection was to the calls to have him fired under threat of economic consequences beyond those incured by some not watching his show. As to the ways of what advertisers do: before it happened we all knew - they’d do what they felt would help their bottom line the most. Right wrong schmight schlong - its an economic decision. Still the desire to cleanse the airwaves of objectionable speech seems different to me than the desire to not personally fund objectionable speech.
I wouldn’t have reacted the same way to a call to boycotting his show and that alone.
Who said anything about cleansing the airwaves? He’s a shock-jock. There are two ways to tell. One, he called a teenage girl he’d never met a whore. Two, he’s been fired. Shock-jocks get fired. You want to live on the edge, you’re going to fall over sometimes.
For myself , It doesn’t hurt my feelings when I see someone who is acting like a bigoted idiot get helped closer to the threshold just a little bit.
Kimstu, all I have to say is, I believe my posts have been pretty clear, and in them I have just about all but said that I think you’re dumber than a bag of hammers. I haven’t actually come out and said that though.
Now you can cite it, ‘cause I’ve actually said it, in plain English. All you fuckin’ want.
And if you can’t figure out where you came out with this idea that boycotts are a wonderfully moral thing, well, all I can say is you’re just proving why I think that. Denseness, like a lack of humor, is pretty much incurable.
Thanks, DSeid, for your several well-reasoned and thought-provoking posts in this thread. Although I’ve considered the boycott issue before, I had not previously thought it through to the degree that you have shown here.