A company and the owner are quite separate in this case, though. I believe that boycotting Chik-a-Fil makes sense, given that the company itself was discriminatory, not just the owner. I don't think it is reasonable to try and boycott every company owned by a guy I don't agree with, unless their views are a part of the company's. To me, that means a) a sole proprietorship, and the company is effectively the same as the owner, or b) the company espouses the owner's discriminatory views.
If that's not the case, wouldn't I just be harming all the people between Asshole CEO and my dollar? That's a lot of people in the average big company; someone needs to pay for their salary, and that money comes from consumers.
It just seems daft to me to punish a bunch of people for the actions of their boss, especially if the bosses actions are entirely separate from the company.
This is to some extent true, but since the CEO is the face of the company his or her actions matter. A board keeping him around implies they're willing to ignore an image hit in exchange for...who the hell knows?
It's not like I don't have options. For example, I eat out a LOT. Until everything blew up I would eat at chik fil at least weekly, occasionally more because it was so close and convenient. That's about a thousand bucks of revenue loss over the last couple years from one person, and I assume I'm not alone. Now those dollars just go elsewhere and pay the employee of a different company. If the hit in profit of a large boycott is big enough that it would impact employees then that should be offset by the increase in business/hiring at competitors. Boycotters still gotta eat.
You can't boycott EVERYTHING, but in the end you can decide if something is bad enough to stop shopping there.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Yeah, the whole "think of the poor register clerks/middle managers" line is pretty dumb. The baseline for comparison is not "I will automatically patronize business X" - if it was, you're technically screwing over every employee of every business you don't patronize, for any reason at all. If I eat dinner at Pizza Hut, I'm not taking money out of the mouths of Dominos delivery guys.
It's the business's job to make me want to buy their product. It's not my job to come up with a good enough reason every time I don't buy something. Asshole CEOs and harmful donations means I want to buy their product less. That's the fault of the CEO, not me - if the middle-men have a problem with that (and they probably should), then they look to their boss.
The article Anti linked tackles this issue really well, that it can be incredibly murky who takes the brunt of something like this whole fiasco. It stresses you have to make it known why you're not buying a product, and that if this turns into a boycott and campaign that message has to be made even clearer above the voices involved.
Unfortunately in cases such as ender's game and jelly belly, the boycott most likely doesn't ultimately harm the individual or company entirely responsible for such protest. There is no clear-cut, uncomplicated line where your dollar no longer makes it into their profits, it's not as simple as the chik-fil-a incident. That doesn't make it daft or pointless though to continue to not buy their products, if you state why. You can say it's naive, but the hope is that it sends a message. Companies aren't segregated and isolated from one another, competitors and others within the industry hire people to specifically keep tabs on these things, if they see a massive amount of people are boycotting a product because of someone higher-up in its food chain, even if only tangentially related, then the worst is they take notice and brush it off until they themselves screw up.
The best case scenario is that they see what an effect something like that can have on their company, their employees, their product, their profits, their stock, their image, and then they know better. Perhaps even take positive action, however unlikely that may seem.
A boycott doesn't have to be "stop ____ from getting my penny", it can have other sentiments behind it. It can be a catalyst, an educational way to spur people who would've otherwise sat back and taken the lazy approach, and give them any reason to be more informed about the purchases they make. It's not your obligation to defend the companies who are wholly responsible for what happens to their workers, if they care then they'll make a statement, they'll take action, they'll try to lessen what blowback could occur from a combined effort like a boycott. Jelly belly hasn't done that at all, it's their responsibility, not yours.
The same idea behind "if you're gonna boycott something for ___ reason then boycott them all" rings true when the "think of the workers" line is pulled out. If you were that concerned, that pained by the idea of factory workers, delivery drivers, people in jelly belly accounting suffering because of reasons beyond their control, then do something about it rather than criticise others for expressing some reservation and willpower. Campaign for a higher minimum wage, better working conditions, consider the less-popular competitors of the brand you solely enjoy, buy pepsi and coke, see every single movie even if you think it's bad because you not putting your money into something because you don't like it, and telling others why can ultimately end up having the same effect as this in the grand scheme of things.
A company and the owner are quite separate in this case, though. I believe that boycotting Chik-a-Fil makes sense, given that the company itself was discriminatory, not just the owner. I don't think it is reasonable to try and boycott every company owned by a guy I don't agree with, unless their views are a part of the company's. To me, that means a) a sole proprietorship, and the company is effectively the same as the owner, or b) the company espouses the owner's discriminatory views.
If that's not the case, wouldn't I just be harming all the people between Asshole CEO and my dollar? That's a lot of people in the average big company; someone needs to pay for their salary, and that money comes from consumers.
It just seems daft to me to punish a bunch of people for the actions of their boss, especially if the bosses actions are entirely separate from the company.
This is to some extent true, but since the CEO is the face of the company his or her actions matter. A board keeping him around implies they're willing to ignore an image hit in exchange for...who the hell knows?
It's not like I don't have options. For example, I eat out a LOT. Until everything blew up I would eat at chik fil at least weekly, occasionally more because it was so close and convenient. That's about a thousand bucks of revenue loss over the last couple years from one person, and I assume I'm not alone. Now those dollars just go elsewhere and pay the employee of a different company. If the hit in profit of a large boycott is big enough that it would impact employees then that should be offset by the increase in business/hiring at competitors. Boycotters still gotta eat.
You can't boycott EVERYTHING, but in the end you can decide if something is bad enough to stop shopping there.
I guess I just disagree with the notion that, in the private sector at least, there reaches a point where what someone does with their time outside of the business, or their money, should impact their jobs. If you, or someone you know was fired from your job for views expressed over Facebook or Twitter, you would probably be livid, and rightly so, because you are not your job.
The problem is though that nobody realises how public those sites actually are. It's in even their terms and services agreements, they directly state how unless you manually switch settings your shit can be seen by anyone who knows your name. Hell when the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan no hacking was needed to find what terrible racist shit people said online. Same goes for when the new Miss America was announced. There are websites dedicated to having linked all of your accounts if you used the same name for each one of them, and this make it public information.
Companies have also adapted to this for the most part. I work as part of back-of-house for Topshop, I put security tags on clothes in a warehouse. All of my team and I still had to sign on a piece of paper that we would not post anything online that would jeopardise the image of the brand.
As well as that in this day and age as well when you most likely have added coworkers, maybe even your boss, on Facebook or twitter, you have directly opened yourself up to them but still assume a modicum of privacy. When you say something on those websites it no longer counts as "behind closed doors." It really hasn't been that way for a while. That's a fucked up thing which requires its own protests and action from the public to counter, but it's the truth.
So if someone I know posted terribly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other bigoted remarks on their Facebook or twitter, and they have linked themselves to their job in their respective profiles, I would sadly not be surprised or even that upset if it turned out they were fired for such statements.
And we can rationalise as much as we want regarding people not being their job.
But if you had a coworker, higher up, equal, or lower than your position, who was incredibly efficient, kind on the job, exuberant, hard working, always on time, real employee-of-the-month material
And then you find out they support the KKK in their down time
Even if that has no impact on their job performance, would that not affect even in the slightest your perception of that person? If your company had an all-inclusive policy, which it most likely does to meet standards these days, and your staff was racially diverse do you not think that merits even a little attention? Plenty of people aren't their job, that doesn't change at all the fact that it's still the same human being who clocks in and clocks out though.
And we can rationalise as much as we want regarding people not being their job.
But if you had a coworker, higher up, equal, or lower than your position, who was incredibly efficient, kind on the job, exuberant, hard working, always on time, real employee-of-the-month material
And then you find out they support the KKK in their down time
Even if that has no impact on their job performance, would that not affect even in the slightest your perception of that person? If your company had an all-inclusive policy, which it most likely does to meet standards these days, and your staff was racially diverse do you not think that merits even a little attention? Plenty of people aren't their job, that doesn't change at all the fact that it's still the same human being who clocks in and clocks out though.
If he's not linking himself to his company in any ways - and I mean even on the Facebook level - he should lose his job just because of his personal beliefs? Even though it's not reflected in his work mannerisms at all?
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I get the feeling that this is less of a boycott and more the fact that its a poorly made movie.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
The protests didn't help, but I mean, it's a film staring a relatively new child actor (usually a death sentence although he was good in Hugo) and Harrison Ford, who doesn't really have the draw he used to anymore
Trailers looked like mostly generic sci-fi stuff
Ender's Game isn't nearly as big a property as Universal probably thought, either
I get the feeling that this is less of a boycott and more the fact that its a poorly made movie.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
Oh, I was hoping you would have a specific link to his quotes in context, Ender's Game controversy brings up reactions to the controversy and the movie, but nothing substantial. Everyone else in the thread offers opinions about the controversy and/or tactics appropriate tactics toward the controversy, but I've yet to see anything controversial.
I get the feeling that this is less of a boycott and more the fact that its a poorly made movie.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
Oh, I was hoping you would have a specific link to his quotes in context, Ender's Game controversy brings up reactions to the controversy and the movie, but nothing substantial. Everyone else in the thread offers opinions about the controversy and/or tactics appropriate tactics toward the controversy, but I've yet to see anything controversial.
A company and the owner are quite separate in this case, though. I believe that boycotting Chik-a-Fil makes sense, given that the company itself was discriminatory, not just the owner. I don't think it is reasonable to try and boycott every company owned by a guy I don't agree with, unless their views are a part of the company's. To me, that means a) a sole proprietorship, and the company is effectively the same as the owner, or b) the company espouses the owner's discriminatory views.
If that's not the case, wouldn't I just be harming all the people between Asshole CEO and my dollar? That's a lot of people in the average big company; someone needs to pay for their salary, and that money comes from consumers.
It just seems daft to me to punish a bunch of people for the actions of their boss, especially if the bosses actions are entirely separate from the company.
This is to some extent true, but since the CEO is the face of the company his or her actions matter. A board keeping him around implies they're willing to ignore an image hit in exchange for...who the hell knows?
It's not like I don't have options. For example, I eat out a LOT. Until everything blew up I would eat at chik fil at least weekly, occasionally more because it was so close and convenient. That's about a thousand bucks of revenue loss over the last couple years from one person, and I assume I'm not alone. Now those dollars just go elsewhere and pay the employee of a different company. If the hit in profit of a large boycott is big enough that it would impact employees then that should be offset by the increase in business/hiring at competitors. Boycotters still gotta eat.
You can't boycott EVERYTHING, but in the end you can decide if something is bad enough to stop shopping there.
I guess I just disagree with the notion that, in the private sector at least, there reaches a point where what someone does with their time outside of the business, or their money, should impact their jobs. If you, or someone you know was fired from your job for views expressed over Facebook or Twitter, you would probably be livid, and rightly so, because you are not your job.
Not really a comparison I agree with. For a CEO, or someone who is the creator and thus intimately tied to something, they are always representing their company. Because their compensation is usually so highly dependent on sales and licensing, they are always 'on the job', as it were - Jim the Coca Cola employee is not the public face of Coca Cola. Orson Scott Card is the public face of Ender's Game, and the CEO of Jelly Belly is the face of Jelly Belly.
A better comparison would be 'your friend Jim who works at Coca cola goes on an anti-Semitic rant while surrounded by Coca Cola and ending it with 'btw, drink Coke'.' And, frankly, boycotting a product and firing an employee for their views are very, very different things, because the power dynamic involved is completely different.
I love Jelly Belly. I will not buy them ever again, at least while the same guy is profiting from the company.
We as consumers have the right to spend our money how we wish and if we can make a statement (and encourage others to make the same statement) in support of equal rights and in opposition to bigotry, that's our only real avenue to effect change. You don't have to, but I don't really agree at all with the idea that someone in either a CEO or creator position has the same expectation of separating personal and professional life as the average employee.
And we can rationalise as much as we want regarding people not being their job.
But if you had a coworker, higher up, equal, or lower than your position, who was incredibly efficient, kind on the job, exuberant, hard working, always on time, real employee-of-the-month material
And then you find out they support the KKK in their down time
Even if that has no impact on their job performance, would that not affect even in the slightest your perception of that person? If your company had an all-inclusive policy, which it most likely does to meet standards these days, and your staff was racially diverse do you not think that merits even a little attention? Plenty of people aren't their job, that doesn't change at all the fact that it's still the same human being who clocks in and clocks out though.
If he's not linking himself to his company in any ways - and I mean even on the Facebook level - he should lose his job just because of his personal beliefs? Even though it's not reflected in his work mannerisms at all?
It's a murky issue at best, I don't think anyone can seriously say in a situation like that whether or not someone can or cant lose their job.
But I have rarely ever encountered someone who doesn't let something like that affect them in their professional, school, or otherwise public life. If someone's private life is partially inspired by the desire to infringe on the rights of other human beings, actively, with no regard of consequences then rarely it would never ever become a situation in social circumstances such as work.
I posed the hypothetical as well because how uncomfortable that situation would make you feel, to find out someone whose presence you usually dont mind or even enjoy, is marred by the fact that in their private life they are all for harming the rights and violating any sort of notion of equality of other people, is on the same level as situations like these. It's how disenfranchised people feel, it's how the minority feels, it's how supporters of said-minorities feel.
It's going to be a knee jerk reaction, something emotional, maybe something instinctual. It may make you question motives and personality. It may break you from an otherwise apathetic mindset to a more active thought process. These aren't bad things.
The point I'm trying to illustrate is that personal beliefs aren't something you can simply separate from yourself. And even if they can be to whatever extent, the effect that is had when people find out about them can have real consequences. It's about being informed and educated so you can try your best to prevent these situations, or simply handle them better when issues like this occur.
With the scenario I posed the guy probably shouldn't be fired. But if you have someone like that on staff, who goes so far as to support the KKK in their personal life, is it so wrong to keep suh public information at hand should an issue arise. Maybe head it off and try sending the guy to sensitivity training, maybe reinforce good will and the standards and practices of the company, maybe just take any sort of positive action rather than shrug and say "it's out of my hands."
I get the feeling that this is less of a boycott and more the fact that its a poorly made movie.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
Oh, I was hoping you would have a specific link to his quotes in context, Ender's Game controversy brings up reactions to the controversy and the movie, but nothing substantial. Everyone else in the thread offers opinions about the controversy and/or tactics appropriate tactics toward the controversy, but I've yet to see anything controversial.
I get the feeling that this is less of a boycott and more the fact that its a poorly made movie.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
Oh, I was hoping you would have a specific link to his quotes in context, Ender's Game controversy brings up reactions to the controversy and the movie, but nothing substantial. Everyone else in the thread offers opinions about the controversy and/or tactics appropriate tactics toward the controversy, but I've yet to see anything controversial.
I did learn that for most of them their highest allegiance was to their membership in the community that gave them access to sex
And when I read the statements of those who claim to be both (Latter Day Saints) and homosexual, trying to persuade the former community to cease making their membership contingent upon abandoning the latter, I wonder if they realize that the price of such "tolerance" would be, in the long run, the destruction of the Church.
Are we somehow cruel and overdomineering when we teach young men and young women that their lives will be better and happier if they have no memory of sexual intercourse with others to deal with when they finally are married? On the contrary, we would be heartless and cruel if we did not.
But for the protection of the Saints and the good of the persons themselves, the Church has no room for those who, instead of repenting of homosexuality, wish it to become an acceptable behavior in the society of the Saints. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, preaching meekness while attempting to devour the flock
Within the Church, the young person who experiments with homosexual behavior should be counseled with, not excommunicated. But as the adolescent moves into adulthood and continues to engage in sinful practices far beyond the level of experimentation, then the consequences within the Church must grow more severe and more long-lasting; unfortunately, they may also be more public as well.
The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place
The book is about being an outcast. A guy that nobody understands, but behind all of that he is still a person!
How is this analogy lost on him?
because his religion dictates that the homosexual lifestyle is a sin. he has an entire worldview that is built around homosexuality being either a choice from a depraved individual or a result of psychological damage done as a child. In the same way that he would think that a murderer is the result of the same thing.
Homosexuals are not a minority based on self, they are electing a lifestyle that his God has deemed to be sinful. This is how any conservative Christian views the subject. Religion allows a set of contradictory beliefs precisely because the person holding those views does not bear responsibility for them. They're told by a deity that this is the way things are, and the answer is "OK BOSS"
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
But his book is purposely not about religion. Ender's friend is a Muslim. Everything I see the book to be about isn't represented in his book.
Saying he's an asshole isn't constructive (despite the fact he objectively is) I find it mind boggling how he can't see parallels between his book and what is going on right now.
But his book is purposely not about religion. Ender's friend is a Muslim. Everything I see the book to be about isn't represented in his book.
Saying he's an asshole isn't constructive (despite the fact he objectively is) I find it mind boggling how he can't see parallels between his book and what is going on right now.
But his book is purposely not about religion. Ender's friend is a Muslim. Everything I see the book to be about isn't represented in his book.
Saying he's an asshole isn't constructive (despite the fact he objectively is) I find it mind boggling how he can't see parallels between his book and what is going on right now.
what does the subject matter of his book have to do with his personal beliefs?
He wrote a book about a dude who is oppressed etc. That doesn't automatically mean he's going to see the connection between that and homosexuality, because he specifically believes the opposite about them. He'll never see it.
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ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
I feel that having now seen the movie that I should update my opinion: hasn't really changed, except that I wouldn't recommend the movie to anyone other than 12-16 year olds. I think everyone has already hashed out the reasons, but it was... sub-par. No sign of crazy religious beliefs though, so it wasn't terrible, just... not great.
But his book is purposely not about religion. Ender's friend is a Muslim. Everything I see the book to be about isn't represented in his book.
Saying he's an asshole isn't constructive (despite the fact he objectively is) I find it mind boggling how he can't see parallels between his book and what is going on right now.
The novel repeatedly tells us that Ender is morally spotless; though he ultimately takes on guilt for the extermination of the alien buggers, his assuming this guilt is a gratuitous act. He is presented as a scapegoat for the acts of others. We are given to believe that the destruction Ender causes is not a result of his intentions; only the sacrifice he makes for others is. In this Card argues that the morality of an act is based solely on the intentions of the person acting.
The result is a character who exterminates an entire race and yet remains fundamentally innocent.
...
I think Ender's Game demonstrates how horrifying militarism and abuse are, and it asks us to condemn militarism and to empathize with childrens suffering, but I'm not sure the book exemplifies values of tolerance and compassion that might lead someone to reject bigotry. It's a cautionary tale of the dangers of xenophobia, but it also contains violent revenge fantasy.
When I think of fantasy that promotes compassion, I think of stories like Harry Potter. The Phantom Tollbooth, The Princess Bride, Paranorman, Star Trek, the Muppets, Dr. Seuss.
Superman promotes empathy and kind deeds. A Wrinkle in Time preaches love. Discworld mocks racism, sexism and classism. Terry Brooks' stories argue against suspicion, selfishness, war. Avatar the Last Airbender preaches nonviolence. In Pacific Rim empathy is used as a superpower, which through the plot device of the neural drift enables humans to defeat the aliens.
Series of Unfortunate Events - abused children demand accountability from adults and escape abuse by becoming autonomous and independent. They practice interdependence by maintaining caring sibling relationships with one another.
Ender's Game - abused children become heroes through channeling their pain and rage into violence.
Ender's Game is like a ghoulish nightmare version of Pacific Rim. The army creates soldiers by throwing teens into a pressure cooker, forcing them to bully each other, the strongest one defeats the aliens. I enjoyed the book but I don't think I'd recommend it to a kid, it's really grim.
The strongest warriors in Pacific Rim are those who respect one another and work together in friendship.
The strongest warriors in Ender's Game are those who are merciless.
It's a great portrayal of the madness and destructiveness of paranoid militaristic xenophobia. It's a great portrayal of how violence does deep damage to children. The characters tragically reenact the violence that they've suffered. But, I dunno. The heroes do not learn to solve problems with nonviolence. The characters learn to empathize with the aliens only after the aliens are destroyed. There's no kindness in the book.
:bz: :bz: :bzz:
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ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
The novel repeatedly tells us that Ender is morally spotless; though he ultimately takes on guilt for the extermination of the alien buggers, his assuming this guilt is a gratuitous act. He is presented as a scapegoat for the acts of others. We are given to believe that the destruction Ender causes is not a result of his intentions; only the sacrifice he makes for others is. In this Card argues that the morality of an act is based solely on the intentions of the person acting.
The result is a character who exterminates an entire race and yet remains fundamentally innocent.
...
I think Ender's Game demonstrates how horrifying militarism and abuse are, and it asks us to condemn militarism and to empathize with childrens suffering, but I'm not sure the book exemplifies values of tolerance and compassion that might lead someone to reject bigotry. It's a cautionary tale of the dangers of xenophobia, but it also contains violent revenge fantasy.
When I think of fantasy that promotes compassion, I think of stories like Harry Potter. The Phantom Tollbooth, The Princess Bride, Paranorman, Star Trek, the Muppets, Dr. Seuss.
Superman promotes empathy and kind deeds. A Wrinkle in Time preaches love. Discworld mocks racism, sexism and classism. Terry Brooks' stories argue against suspicion, selfishness, war. Avatar the Last Airbender preaches nonviolence. In Pacific Rim empathy is used as a superpower, which through the plot device of the neural drift enables humans to defeat the aliens.
Series of Unfortunate Events - abused children demand accountability from adults and escape abuse by becoming autonomous and independent. They practice interdependence by maintaining caring sibling relationships with one another.
Ender's Game - abused children become heroes through channeling their pain and rage into violence.
Ender's Game is like a ghoulish nightmare version of Pacific Rim. The army creates soldiers by throwing teens into a pressure cooker, forcing them to bully each other, the strongest one defeats the aliens. I enjoyed the book but I don't think I'd recommend it to a kid, it's really grim.
The strongest warriors in Pacific Rim are those who respect one another and work together in friendship.
The strongest warriors in Ender's Game are those who are merciless.
It's a great portrayal of the madness and destructiveness of paranoid militaristic xenophobia. It's a great portrayal of how violence does deep damage to children. The characters tragically reenact the violence that they've suffered. But, I dunno. The heroes do not learn to solve problems with nonviolence. The characters learn to empathize with the aliens only after the aliens are destroyed. There's no kindness in the book.
The essay says that Pacific Rim used empathy as a super power; it's the same in Ender's Game. Ender wins because he is able to understand anyone (or anything), which lets him destroy them. He says how he doesn't like doing it. Wasn't the whole point of the book to show how bad of an experience Ender and co. went through? The twist at the very end was that the buggers didn't want an all-out war with humanity; humanity was blind to their attempts at diplomacy, just as the buggers were blind to the nature of human individuality (right up until they lost, anyway).
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This is to some extent true, but since the CEO is the face of the company his or her actions matter. A board keeping him around implies they're willing to ignore an image hit in exchange for...who the hell knows?
It's not like I don't have options. For example, I eat out a LOT. Until everything blew up I would eat at chik fil at least weekly, occasionally more because it was so close and convenient. That's about a thousand bucks of revenue loss over the last couple years from one person, and I assume I'm not alone. Now those dollars just go elsewhere and pay the employee of a different company. If the hit in profit of a large boycott is big enough that it would impact employees then that should be offset by the increase in business/hiring at competitors. Boycotters still gotta eat.
You can't boycott EVERYTHING, but in the end you can decide if something is bad enough to stop shopping there.
It's the business's job to make me want to buy their product. It's not my job to come up with a good enough reason every time I don't buy something. Asshole CEOs and harmful donations means I want to buy their product less. That's the fault of the CEO, not me - if the middle-men have a problem with that (and they probably should), then they look to their boss.
Unfortunately in cases such as ender's game and jelly belly, the boycott most likely doesn't ultimately harm the individual or company entirely responsible for such protest. There is no clear-cut, uncomplicated line where your dollar no longer makes it into their profits, it's not as simple as the chik-fil-a incident. That doesn't make it daft or pointless though to continue to not buy their products, if you state why. You can say it's naive, but the hope is that it sends a message. Companies aren't segregated and isolated from one another, competitors and others within the industry hire people to specifically keep tabs on these things, if they see a massive amount of people are boycotting a product because of someone higher-up in its food chain, even if only tangentially related, then the worst is they take notice and brush it off until they themselves screw up.
The best case scenario is that they see what an effect something like that can have on their company, their employees, their product, their profits, their stock, their image, and then they know better. Perhaps even take positive action, however unlikely that may seem.
A boycott doesn't have to be "stop ____ from getting my penny", it can have other sentiments behind it. It can be a catalyst, an educational way to spur people who would've otherwise sat back and taken the lazy approach, and give them any reason to be more informed about the purchases they make. It's not your obligation to defend the companies who are wholly responsible for what happens to their workers, if they care then they'll make a statement, they'll take action, they'll try to lessen what blowback could occur from a combined effort like a boycott. Jelly belly hasn't done that at all, it's their responsibility, not yours.
The same idea behind "if you're gonna boycott something for ___ reason then boycott them all" rings true when the "think of the workers" line is pulled out. If you were that concerned, that pained by the idea of factory workers, delivery drivers, people in jelly belly accounting suffering because of reasons beyond their control, then do something about it rather than criticise others for expressing some reservation and willpower. Campaign for a higher minimum wage, better working conditions, consider the less-popular competitors of the brand you solely enjoy, buy pepsi and coke, see every single movie even if you think it's bad because you not putting your money into something because you don't like it, and telling others why can ultimately end up having the same effect as this in the grand scheme of things.
I guess I just disagree with the notion that, in the private sector at least, there reaches a point where what someone does with their time outside of the business, or their money, should impact their jobs. If you, or someone you know was fired from your job for views expressed over Facebook or Twitter, you would probably be livid, and rightly so, because you are not your job.
Companies have also adapted to this for the most part. I work as part of back-of-house for Topshop, I put security tags on clothes in a warehouse. All of my team and I still had to sign on a piece of paper that we would not post anything online that would jeopardise the image of the brand.
As well as that in this day and age as well when you most likely have added coworkers, maybe even your boss, on Facebook or twitter, you have directly opened yourself up to them but still assume a modicum of privacy. When you say something on those websites it no longer counts as "behind closed doors." It really hasn't been that way for a while. That's a fucked up thing which requires its own protests and action from the public to counter, but it's the truth.
So if someone I know posted terribly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other bigoted remarks on their Facebook or twitter, and they have linked themselves to their job in their respective profiles, I would sadly not be surprised or even that upset if it turned out they were fired for such statements.
But if you had a coworker, higher up, equal, or lower than your position, who was incredibly efficient, kind on the job, exuberant, hard working, always on time, real employee-of-the-month material
And then you find out they support the KKK in their down time
Even if that has no impact on their job performance, would that not affect even in the slightest your perception of that person? If your company had an all-inclusive policy, which it most likely does to meet standards these days, and your staff was racially diverse do you not think that merits even a little attention? Plenty of people aren't their job, that doesn't change at all the fact that it's still the same human being who clocks in and clocks out though.
Why are you boycotting it, again?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
If he's not linking himself to his company in any ways - and I mean even on the Facebook level - he should lose his job just because of his personal beliefs? Even though it's not reflected in his work mannerisms at all?
Google enders game controversy (or read some of this thread) for more nuanced information, but the gist is that Orson Scott Card is an active participant in the movement to deny rights to LGBT people
edit I would hesitate to heavily credit the movie being a flop on any protest related to card
The protests didn't help, but I mean, it's a film staring a relatively new child actor (usually a death sentence although he was good in Hugo) and Harrison Ford, who doesn't really have the draw he used to anymore
Trailers looked like mostly generic sci-fi stuff
Ender's Game isn't nearly as big a property as Universal probably thought, either
(Also Ender's Game is a bad dumb title)
Oh, I was hoping you would have a specific link to his quotes in context, Ender's Game controversy brings up reactions to the controversy and the movie, but nothing substantial. Everyone else in the thread offers opinions about the controversy and/or tactics appropriate tactics toward the controversy, but I've yet to see anything controversial.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I know it's Cracked, but this should get you started on the path:
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-big-reasons-orson-scott-goddamn-lunatic/
Not really a comparison I agree with. For a CEO, or someone who is the creator and thus intimately tied to something, they are always representing their company. Because their compensation is usually so highly dependent on sales and licensing, they are always 'on the job', as it were - Jim the Coca Cola employee is not the public face of Coca Cola. Orson Scott Card is the public face of Ender's Game, and the CEO of Jelly Belly is the face of Jelly Belly.
A better comparison would be 'your friend Jim who works at Coca cola goes on an anti-Semitic rant while surrounded by Coca Cola and ending it with 'btw, drink Coke'.' And, frankly, boycotting a product and firing an employee for their views are very, very different things, because the power dynamic involved is completely different.
I love Jelly Belly. I will not buy them ever again, at least while the same guy is profiting from the company.
We as consumers have the right to spend our money how we wish and if we can make a statement (and encourage others to make the same statement) in support of equal rights and in opposition to bigotry, that's our only real avenue to effect change. You don't have to, but I don't really agree at all with the idea that someone in either a CEO or creator position has the same expectation of separating personal and professional life as the average employee.
It's a murky issue at best, I don't think anyone can seriously say in a situation like that whether or not someone can or cant lose their job.
But I have rarely ever encountered someone who doesn't let something like that affect them in their professional, school, or otherwise public life. If someone's private life is partially inspired by the desire to infringe on the rights of other human beings, actively, with no regard of consequences then rarely it would never ever become a situation in social circumstances such as work.
I posed the hypothetical as well because how uncomfortable that situation would make you feel, to find out someone whose presence you usually dont mind or even enjoy, is marred by the fact that in their private life they are all for harming the rights and violating any sort of notion of equality of other people, is on the same level as situations like these. It's how disenfranchised people feel, it's how the minority feels, it's how supporters of said-minorities feel.
It's going to be a knee jerk reaction, something emotional, maybe something instinctual. It may make you question motives and personality. It may break you from an otherwise apathetic mindset to a more active thought process. These aren't bad things.
The point I'm trying to illustrate is that personal beliefs aren't something you can simply separate from yourself. And even if they can be to whatever extent, the effect that is had when people find out about them can have real consequences. It's about being informed and educated so you can try your best to prevent these situations, or simply handle them better when issues like this occur.
With the scenario I posed the guy probably shouldn't be fired. But if you have someone like that on staff, who goes so far as to support the KKK in their personal life, is it so wrong to keep suh public information at hand should an issue arise. Maybe head it off and try sending the guy to sensitivity training, maybe reinforce good will and the standards and practices of the company, maybe just take any sort of positive action rather than shrug and say "it's out of my hands."
Slightly better, still hyperbolic but at least the quotes were in a reasonable set of contexts without too many "..."'s.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
He is a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, I think that fact alone makes it solid enough case for not supporting his works
Have fun reading
The book is about being an outcast. A guy that nobody understands, but behind all of that he is still a person!
How is this analogy lost on him?
Satans..... hints.....
Because he's an asshole.
because his religion dictates that the homosexual lifestyle is a sin. he has an entire worldview that is built around homosexuality being either a choice from a depraved individual or a result of psychological damage done as a child. In the same way that he would think that a murderer is the result of the same thing.
Homosexuals are not a minority based on self, they are electing a lifestyle that his God has deemed to be sinful. This is how any conservative Christian views the subject. Religion allows a set of contradictory beliefs precisely because the person holding those views does not bear responsibility for them. They're told by a deity that this is the way things are, and the answer is "OK BOSS"
Saying he's an asshole isn't constructive (despite the fact he objectively is) I find it mind boggling how he can't see parallels between his book and what is going on right now.
Satans..... hints.....
He probably sees himself as the oppressed one.
what does the subject matter of his book have to do with his personal beliefs?
He wrote a book about a dude who is oppressed etc. That doesn't automatically mean he's going to see the connection between that and homosexuality, because he specifically believes the opposite about them. He'll never see it.
"You guys should be more accepting of my beliefs, and on an unrelated note please watch Ender's Game, coming to a theater near you November 1st" (I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but still)
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
And this was before I figured out my stuff
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm
I think Ender's Game demonstrates how horrifying militarism and abuse are, and it asks us to condemn militarism and to empathize with childrens suffering, but I'm not sure the book exemplifies values of tolerance and compassion that might lead someone to reject bigotry. It's a cautionary tale of the dangers of xenophobia, but it also contains violent revenge fantasy.
When I think of fantasy that promotes compassion, I think of stories like Harry Potter. The Phantom Tollbooth, The Princess Bride, Paranorman, Star Trek, the Muppets, Dr. Seuss.
Superman promotes empathy and kind deeds. A Wrinkle in Time preaches love. Discworld mocks racism, sexism and classism. Terry Brooks' stories argue against suspicion, selfishness, war. Avatar the Last Airbender preaches nonviolence. In Pacific Rim empathy is used as a superpower, which through the plot device of the neural drift enables humans to defeat the aliens.
Series of Unfortunate Events - abused children demand accountability from adults and escape abuse by becoming autonomous and independent. They practice interdependence by maintaining caring sibling relationships with one another.
Ender's Game - abused children become heroes through channeling their pain and rage into violence.
Ender's Game is like a ghoulish nightmare version of Pacific Rim. The army creates soldiers by throwing teens into a pressure cooker, forcing them to bully each other, the strongest one defeats the aliens. I enjoyed the book but I don't think I'd recommend it to a kid, it's really grim.
The strongest warriors in Pacific Rim are those who respect one another and work together in friendship.
The strongest warriors in Ender's Game are those who are merciless.
It's a great portrayal of the madness and destructiveness of paranoid militaristic xenophobia. It's a great portrayal of how violence does deep damage to children. The characters tragically reenact the violence that they've suffered. But, I dunno. The heroes do not learn to solve problems with nonviolence. The characters learn to empathize with the aliens only after the aliens are destroyed. There's no kindness in the book.
The essay says that Pacific Rim used empathy as a super power; it's the same in Ender's Game. Ender wins because he is able to understand anyone (or anything), which lets him destroy them. He says how he doesn't like doing it. Wasn't the whole point of the book to show how bad of an experience Ender and co. went through? The twist at the very end was that the buggers didn't want an all-out war with humanity; humanity was blind to their attempts at diplomacy, just as the buggers were blind to the nature of human individuality (right up until they lost, anyway).