To some extent, I think the corporations themselves are to blame for this state of affairs. To quote from the Gillespie piece:
Now that we’re well past a subsistence economy, we live in a world of largely symbolic exchange, where we don’t simply choose something because we’re hungry or naked but because we want to make a statement about what sort of person we are, what sort of taste we possess and what sort of values we share.
It was they, after all, who embraced the idea of selling us a "lifestyle" and an "identity" back when we were content just to by stuff. Mozilla's response to the Eich affair was so full of pious lectures about the "Mozilla community" and its "values" that it was being at at a megachurch. Apparently, without Mozilla, the world as we know it would end. Honestly, the guy Christians call their saviour didn't have that much of a savioiur complex. And then everyone's shocked and dismayed when some of us say to them, "So this is the guy who best embodies those values? Really?"
Then on top of that, there's Hobby Lobby and its ilk pushing the association between the "values" of a company and the personal beliefs of its management still closer. But I imagine you're as opposed to that whole tendency as I am.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2014-04-29 03:42 pm (UTC)Then on top of that, there's Hobby Lobby and its ilk pushing the association between the "values" of a company and the personal beliefs of its management still closer. But I imagine you're as opposed to that whole tendency as I am.