You don’t have to be crazy to get offended around here, but it helps!!
Nor am I claiming that. I am merely passing on what has been brought to my attention by many, many people. I apologize for dismissing the gravity of your relationship, which I’m sure you learned much from. I don’t pretend to be on the moral high ground, but I am close to the issue and deal directly with stigma.
And my work is not “answering phones”-- I work in media, as you must know, so guess how much I might happen to know about a media issue. I’ve mentioned my diagnosed depression on the boards before but I’m not going to talk about it with you. It doesn’t give me clinical knowledge–I lack a Ph.D in psychiatry–but I think I know something about this issue.
But what about the TRUCK!!???
I can not read the title to this thread without thinking “Brian Fellowes” from Saturday Night Live.
Someone, please, tell me they know what I’m talking about.
Man, that bear got devil eyes.
I’m Brian Fellowes.
It’s Brian FELLOW, no “s.” Although Tracey Morgan frequently forgets that his own self.
You don’t have to have $70 to buy this bear.
But it couldn’t hurt.
Whenever I see a problem like this I can’t quite wrap my head around, I wonder how this affects me as a nigger. Then all becomes clear.
Because while I obstensively agree with Miller’s statement…
… I realize the marketplace is a bit more complicated than that; in a world of public relations, concerning a product whose schtick is obstensively humorous, you’re always going to have to worry about whether some group feels offended by it. Recall, as I now do, the flap over Ghettopoly and how this situation is a somewhat less heated version than that.
Opposing groups seem to have taken appropriate measured steps to remove said item from the mainstream marketplace. Someday, it may succeed in getting eBay to stop listing auctions for it, too, they way eBay stops auctions for KKK robes and Nazi memorabilia (doubtful, but it’s an option.). Conversely, someone else with thicker skin may see those $300 auctions selling and decide to manufacture another bear for $150 to replace the bear that originally retailed for $70 even though it should probably only sell for maybe $35 and probably was manufactered for less than $10 – by which time we’ll have come full circle.
You can’t really stop anybody bound and determined to from marketing anything as long as the product has a demand for it. (‘Safe’ and ‘works as advertised’ have nothing to do with it: you’ve heard of marijuana?) You can, however, sometimes with relatively little effort, exert a coordinated campaign to either influence or sometimes coerce manufacturing companies, retailers, advertising venues and distributers to make sure said product disappears from the mainstream and is regulated to the fringe, where it may or may not survive at all. That’s the other aspect of the free market. Sucks to be the consumer who wants the product, but hey, the same mechanisms that protects them from dangerous products work here, too.
Kimstu has a more realistic take on the situation, and manhattan offered a sane view of other options.
I also think YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE OFFENDED t-shirts would totally rock.
Really? So I don’t have the right to refuse to buy Nestle products? I won’t purchase from the company as a result of what I see as inhumane actions in the developing world, including long-standing efforts to discourage breastfeeding and encourage use of Carnation formula. You have zero respect for me based on that? I find that surprising.
I must say, Miller, i find your position in this thread somewhat puzzling. I don’t see why you can’t accept attempts at organized boycotts as nothing more than the flipside of advertising—that is, an organized attempt to convince a group of people that they should not purchase a particular product or patronize a particular service.
If i say to you, “Please don’t buy those t-shirts made in China, because they are the product of sweatshop labor,” how is that any different, in philosophical terms, than saying, “Please buy this product, because it’s made in America and keeps Americans in jobs”?
The individual freedom you fall back on in your earlier post is one that, in ideal circumstances, thrives precisely on allowing you to make this decision in an atmosphere of complete information. If you were also philosophically opposed to advertising, on the grounds that it also undermines your freedom to make your decision, then at least your position would have the virtue of consistency. As it is, though, you seem to happy to countenance one type of persuasion, but not the other, which strikes me as rather odd.
Yes! God damn those NAACP bastards and the contempt they showed for the individual freedom to maintain segregated lunch counters and busses.
:rolleyes:
Actually, lunchcounter sit-ins were more of a Southern Christian Leadership Conference / Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee thing, but your point is tken.
I think Miller got the point. buttonjockey308 seems to have, too.
I dont mean to speak for Miller, but I’d say his point is not that an organised boycott is wrong, but it is wrong to force people to remove the item for sale to a public that obviously wanted to purchase it.
IE: MHendo, your boycott of Nestle is fine, if you wanted to organise a public boycott of the product it is fine if you were then to organise a boycott which forced Nestle to stop selling Carnation products to willing consumers there would be a problem.
You have the same problem as Miller, though. You fail to appreciate that none of these organised boycotts have any power to force any company to remove any product from the market (unless, of course, they copnvince governments or government agencies to actually legislate against or ban the product).
It wasn’t me that brought up Nestle, but i’m happy to use it as an example. The only way my boycott can “force” Nestle to stop selling any of their products is if they believe that the negative publicity that i generate is sufficiently influential to cause people to stop buying their products. They will then make a market-based decision, deciding that the sales they lose from dropping the product will be greater than the sales they lose from keeping that product in their line.
A boycott and its attendant publicity are, as i said before, nothing more than the flip side of advertising—rather than attempting to persuade people of a company and its products’ benefits (which advertising does), a boycott attempts to persuade people of a company and its products’ drawbacks. If advertising is successful, more people buy the product and the company keeps the product on the market. If a boycott and its attendant publicity are successful, fewer people buy the product and the company might have to withdraw the product from the market.
See, I kinda agree. But I think **Miller ** ideologically opposes bans on items like pornography, government curbs on exotic animals as pets and maybe even certain anti-drug laws and things like that – y’know, “safe” and “works as advertised” – and equates boycotting with banning when the two are not quite the same thing. You still have legal marketing venues and avenues available to you when you when an otherwise legal product is boycotted only because it offends many people’s sensibilities. The stigma reduces demand for the object, leaving it only for those who really want it and seek it out. (Which jacks up the price.) Items made illegal because they guv’mint says they’re not good for you still have a huge demand in the black market, the fringe. The stigma here actually helps increase demand to buy and sell because of the seductive lure of owning something forbidden and the hugely artificially inflated prices, pushing it all underground where’s its still available to everyone and anyone who knows how to get it. Grassroots boycotting largely works, state and federal prohibition largely doesn’t. It’s bad for the consumer that prices get raised so high, but HEY. The prices is no higher than what the market will bear.
mhendo’s right. Boycotting can only persuade businesses to comply with a consumer demand. Other tactics have to be used to coerce businesses to comply or face ruin. But those other tactics are not the same as boycotting.
Excalibre raises a fair point. I should have included an exception for boycotts aimed at correcting dangerous or inhumane business practices. But I think that’s materially different than what the OP complains about, which is nothing more than an attempt to censor a harmless (if offensive) product on purely ideological grounds. That’s something that I have a huge problem with, even when I’m sympathetic to the offended ideology.
Miller: I should have included an exception for boycotts aimed at correcting dangerous or inhumane business practices. But I think that’s materially different than what the OP complains about, which is nothing more than an attempt to censor a harmless (if offensive) product on purely ideological grounds. That’s something that I have a huge problem with, even when I’m sympathetic to the offended ideology.
But your distinction isn’t logically sound. There is no clear division among different kinds of objectionable business practices. They don’t all group neatly into clearly distinct categories like “dangerous” versus “offensive”. (For example, there are plenty of people, even in Third World countries, for whom bottle-feeding rather than breast-feeding is harmless and even necessary. Why should folks like Excalibre try to “force” companies like Nestle to deny those people what they want? After all, if other people don’t want to use baby formula, they can simply avoid buying it, right?)
Nor is there a clear division between individuals protesting a product on ethical grounds (e.g., my example of a complaint from a CEO’s spouse, which you were apparently fine with) and an “organized boycott”. How many complaining individuals does it take before you consider it an “organized boycott”? Why not one more, or one fewer?
There’s no way you can make a logically coherent overall rejection of boycotts on the grounds of defending freedom. I do see the point you’re trying to get at: minding one’s own business is a good thing, and if people never mind their own business then things do become too intrusive. Very true. However, minding one’s own business has to be balanced against working to improve the world you live in, which is also a good thing. There are always tradeoffs when ethical principles are involved.
The way you’re trying to set it up, though, there’s an absurd inconsistency in what you consider ethical market behavior:
- choosing to purchase something is not “anti-freedom”;
- choosing not to purchase something is not “anti-freedom”;
- choosing to market something is not “anti-freedom”;
- choosing not to market something is not “anti-freedom”;
- trying to persuade somebody else to purchase something is not “anti-freedom”;
- trying to persuade somebody else to market something is not “anti-freedom”;
… but trying to persuade somebody else not to purchase, or market, something is “anti-freedom”, according to you.
WTF?? Why on earth should we consider it “pro-freedom” to discourage other people from expressing and publicizing their opinion about a product, just because the opinion happens to be negative? That certainly doesn’t sound “pro-freedom” to me. After all, we’re not talking about busybodies interfering with other people’s strictly private behavior here: we’re talking about publicly marketed and advertised products that companies do their best to force on everybody’s attention, even people who find them repugnant. I think being able to complain publicly about something you find repugnant is a pretty important freedom.
The final paradox in your position is in your claim that you reject people’s “imposing their morality on others”. Well, the only argument you have against boycotts is itself a moral one: you consider that it disrespects freedom (although as has been noted, that’s not a very logical conclusion). By condemning boycotts just because you find them ethically offensive, you are yourself trying to impose your own moral views on others.
It is natural to get all irritated about oversensitive people making a huge stink to spoil other people’s harmless fun. Nobody likes a party-pooper. However, there is really no way to condemn such practices wholesale without tying yourself up in logical knots. Face it, the use of negative pressure from consumers is a natural and integrated part of market activity in general. It is not “pro-freedom” to condemn it.
Well, I’m not familiar enough with the basis of the Nestle boycott to effectively argue it. From what I understand, Nestle’s marketing of their formula in some third world areas is killing a lot of kids. That’s a pretty clear distinction to me from something that’s simply “offensive.” Too, the ultimate goal of the boycott is not to remove the formula from the market entirely, but to force Nestle to market it more responsibly. If the boycott is successul, the product will still be available to anyone who wants it and can afford it.
What’s so hard to understand about the division between “one” and “more than one”? Seems pretty clear to me.
I agree. And I think I covered this in my last post. If there’s a product/business practice that is killing or physically harming people, I don’t object to the boycott. If someone wants to organize a boycott becuase they just don’t like a product, well, they should grow the fuck up and recognize that there are things in the world that don’t appeal to them, but do appeal to other people, and to let those other people enjoy the things they enjoy.
There’s a difference, to me, between saying “That bear is really stupid,” and participating in a letter writing campaign aimed at convincing the company to pull the bear off the market. I object to that shit because 90% of it is aimed at removing products that I use and enjoy from the marketplace. Thank God, they’re usually unsuccesful, at least where I live, but almost every single thing I do recreationally is being targetted by a lobby determined to make sure I cannot enjoy my hobbies. From the music I listen to, to the books I read, to the games I play, to the person I sleep with, there’s always some loud-mouthed busybody who’s convinced that these things are satanic, or immoral, or traitorous, and that I should not have the choice to enjoy these things if I want to. Where does that end? There’s nothing in this world that isn’t offensive to someone, somewhere. God knows, 90% of the stuff I see on network TV offends me to some degree, but I can just turn the damned channel. I don’t have to run out and scream at NBC until they stop broadcasting Fear Factor. And I don’t want to do that, because a lot of people enjoy the damned thing, and their enjoyment of the show doesn’t hurt me in any way. So let them enjoy their entertainment, and I’ll enjoy mine, and we can both be happy. To me, that’s the basis for a functioning, multi-cultural democracy. And the degree to which this attitude seems to be eroding in American society genuinely scares me.
Yeah, well, my morals are better than theirs.
Seriously, though, you are correct. But then again, that’s the nature of human society. I’m against murder, and support laws outlawing it. That, too, is “imposing my moral views on others.” That’s simply unavoidable in any sort of human society. The question we have here is, to what extent do we allow this imposition of moral views to erode personal freedom? I draw that line pretty far back. I’m arguing from the principle that anything that neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket is no concern of mine. I believe in this principle because I think it assures everyone the most amount of personal freedom possible. If someone participates in a boycott aimed at removing a product for no other reason than personal offense, then they have no basis to complain when something they find enjoyable or important is attacked because someone else finds if offensive. And, as I said above, I’m pretty much on the bottom of the cultural heap when it comes to this sort of pile-on. My opposition to boycotts is as much out of self-defense as any moral or ethical principle.
Miller: Too, the ultimate goal of the boycott is not to remove the formula from the market entirely, but to force Nestle to market it more responsibly.
I could just as well say that the goal of the bear campaign is not to force the company to stop selling teddy bears, just to get them marketed more responsibly (i.e., without mental-illness ad gags). Again, there really is not a “bright line” when it comes to evaluating ad campaigns or protests against them.
Miller: What’s so hard to understand about the division between “one” and “more than one”? Seems pretty clear to me.
Hmmm. So if one individual complains to a company about its product, that’s okay, but if two individuals do, that’s “anti-freedom”? Or is it okay as long as the two individuals don’t talk to each other about it? I honestly don’t see how you can make a useful dividing line here between allowable individual protests and group protests.
Miller: * So let them enjoy their entertainment, and I’ll enjoy mine, and we can both be happy. To me, that’s the basis for a functioning, multi-cultural democracy. And the degree to which this attitude seems to be eroding in American society genuinely scares me.*
I can see your point, and even agree with it to a large extent. But I don’t think it helps the situation to slap sweeping, arbitrary generalizations like “Boycotts Bad” on top of it. IMO it just encourages the spread of “what you do is bad and I think it should be stopped” attitudes. Tolerance begins at home, and I think we should set the example by tolerating stupid and oversensitive attempts at boycotts. Doesn’t mean we can’t oppose or criticize them, but I don’t think we should denounce the whole enterprise as fundamentally illegitimate.
Miller: * I’m arguing from the principle that anything that neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket is no concern of mine.*
Then I can’t see how you could support a boycott of a company on account of its baby-formula marketing strategies in the Third World. In the first place, it isn’t breaking your leg or picking your pocket. In the second place, why should the company suffer for the fact that some people use its product incorrectly, with dirty water? The company’s not advocating that they use it with dirty water. Similarly, how could you support an anti-segregation boycott, if you’re not black? Discriminating against black people doesn’t break your leg or pick your pocket.
See what I mean? As you quite rightly point out, we always have to balance between promoting our own moral views and respecting others’ freedom. But it just doesn’t work to try to establish an arbitrary dividing line between different kinds of legal activities and complain that everybody who draws the line in a different place from you is “anti-freedom”.
Miller: And, as I said above, I’m pretty much on the bottom of the cultural heap when it comes to this sort of pile-on. My opposition to boycotts is as much out of self-defense as any moral or ethical principle.
Well, I sympathize on a personal level, but it does kind of let the air out of your earlier passionate denunciations of boycotters “showing absolute contempt for the principles of individual freedom which are the foundation of this country.” Translation: “they might persuade manufacturers not to sell me stuff I want”.
*You know, if one person, just one person complains about it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t listen to him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t listen to either of them. And if three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
complainin’ about Crazy Bears and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in complainin’ about Crazy Bears and walking out. Friends they may think it’s a movement.
And that’s what it is, the Anti-Crazy Bear Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the
guitar.*
With apologies to Arlo