Ethics tantrums are on the rise, and they are troublesome. Ethics tantrums are the fits folks throw when they have an ideological bone to pick with an individual, a business, an industry, a state. . . Examples? James Lileks describes one beautifully: An employee at a design company begged his boss to “dump†a pesticide client, a client that the employee deemed to be of dubious ethics because, well, you know, pesticides and oil and all. Petrophobia is a crippling psychological impairment these days. The boss, having that bottom-line thing going on, refused, so the employee fixed them all: He did a “shoddy job†on the pesticide company’s design work. One imagines the cockroaches had the incorrect number of legs in the graphics or some such entomological faux pas. There you have it, right from the revenge is the best ethical tactic when you disagree with someone’s views, product, political leanings, etc.
There are two others from Ariel Kaminer’s New York Times, “The Ethicist.†An employee of a small start-up company supports the Occupy Wall Street movement but has come to realize that his employer’s start-up is financed primarily by one of Wall Street’s biggest companies. He wishes to know if he should resign immediately. By all means, quit your job and begin a search to find a company that has not been touched by a Wall Street company. He might join with the petrophobic to pool resources to see if they can find a company that does not have ties to oil in some way.
Then there was the grandma who did not want to take her granddaughter to a local production of The Nutcracker because she learned that David Koch’s foundation was one of the donors for the production. Mercy, you would not want your grandchildren exposed to culture when you have no idea where the funds used have been. That’s showing those Koch brothers!
Be prepared for the Super Bowl ads because the tantrums have already begun. A greyhound protection group is fixin’ to boycott Skechers because its Super Bowl ad shows a dog walking around a track in four tiny, red Skechers shoes. Are they protesting the indignity of a bulldog being forced to wear shoes? Nay, they are protesting the fact that the dog is walking on a track where greyhounds run and are allegedly mistreated. The Barometer knows that she would have recognized that track instantly and been nauseous at the thought of a company using such a backdrop to sell dog shoes? Skechers?
The mental gymnastics tantrumites go through atop their high horses are a wonder to behold. A recent photo in the Wall Street Journal showed the U.S. Park Police tracing an extension cord in the Washington, D.C. McPherson Square Occupy folks because the police discovered that the crowd had spliced wires Continue reading →
