What it boils down to is this, at least from the dinosaur perspective. In the world lately, we’ve seen a lot of examples of bad business. Companies that seem to exist entirely as rip-offs, companies that seem to have no interest in the indirect results of their actions (i.e., ecological impacts), companies that seem to place profits above humanity (outsourcing of production to countries where the labor pool can be exploited at near slavery levels), companies that disrupt communities by their sheer existence (WalMart), etc. There are plenty of these examples, and you can pick and choose among them to find the ones you like the best. And they raise the question: what, exactly, is it reasonable to expect from corporations? How do we evaluate if a corporation is good or bad? Doing good things or bad things? Multinational corporations add a layer of complexity to the issue that is mind-boggling, but nonetheless which must be engaged. What are the obligations of corporations to society? Needless to say, the fulfillment of those obligations by the corporations is, to all extents and purposes, the measure of a corporation’s so-called morality. It is not hard to envision debate and discussion of this material.
What is hard to envision is the false comparison to the moral responsibilities of individuals. If one is proposing a moral conundrum, it has to actually be a conundrum. While we may sit around wondering what to do about Nike and child labor in developing nations, we do not sit around in any sense, practical or philosophical, comparing that problem to the actions of, say, Mike Bietz. Nike and Bietz are apples and oranges, and our struggle to compare them serves no purpose in our understanding of either of them. The struggle takes us down the paths of advanced moral sophistry rather than simple moral explication. But, unfortunately, the wording of the resolution allows no alternative. And much of the arguing that will be done will be addressing the smoke rather than the fire. And that is how good topic areas turn into bad topics.
Tonight is going to be mostly exercises on the ship of Hud. Mini-debates, more impromptus, some general harassment, all the usual business as we prep up for Lexington. Last year my car froze over at Lex, and we had to crawl in through the hatch and drive around for an hour to warm it up enough to open the doors to get out. This year the weather report looks much improved. It won’t be last weekend’s balmy 70 degrees, but at least I’ll be able to get into and out of my car without having to send for the marines.
And I’m hatching what looks like a very nifty end-of-history approach incorporating one of my favorite subjects, World’s Fairs. I even have a book at home called World’s Fairs and the End of Progress., a concept should sound familiar to the VCA. I see an absolutely straight line from the Crystal Palace to the Unisphere that neatly illuminates the post-historical paradigm, while being sort of interesting on its own purely informative merits. It even gets to mention EPCOT; I was recently watching the whole show that includes Disney’s famous last personal broadcast. It paints a picture of the modernist city that is remarkable, and indeed quintessential. The actual EPCOT is nothing if it isn’t a postmodern commentary on that initial vision. Anyhow, the nice thing about this WF idea is that I can do it as a live lecture (I haven’t done one of those on pomo since the original Caveman a couple of years ago) plus a recording plus a nice illustrated essay, a little something for everybody (or nobody, depending on your point of view).
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