Tag: civilization

Hardcore Culture or the Absence of Western Values??

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

Hardcore Culture, a shift away from company loyalty to a “market based” culture. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Market based: Yeah, based on market forces, that’s okay, right? Or is it?

John Stankey has been making people “return to the office.”

(Quoted directly from the article linked to below.) The increasingly strict return-to-office mandate that AT&T has rolled out in phases over the past year has also resulted in further reductions, multiple employees have told Business Insider, and Stankey signaled in his memo that he’s fine with more people leaving if they’re not on board with the company’s new direction. (End quote.)

The information that we have, that is, the facts, say that working from home and other such flexible work ideas have led to greater employee satisfaction and productivity. So, why would you make people return to the office. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it. It is a return to the dictator style boss, the kick them in the teeth style boss epitomized by the yuppies in the 1980’s.

Apparently the investors are eating this stuff up. They love reduced work forces, corporate mandates and divesting the company from previous endeavors. And none of it has to make any sense, they are like toddlers strapped in a car seat, they enjoy the motion of the vehicle and that is enough. Thinking logically, critically or even trying to protect their money is hard while reacting positively to the supposedly alpha male characteristics of hard charging decisions, commands rather than cooperation, lots and lots of forced resignations and an emphasis on the perceived toughness of the CEO, well, that’s easy.

If you get the impression I don’t think much of the investment community, you would be right. But there is something far more alarming here but first let me quote my article about our star of a CEO.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-ceo-john-stankeys-hard-202422959.html

(Quoted from article above.) As the company moves to sunset most of its copper network in the US by the end of 2029, Stankey has also instituted a broad cultural shift internally. He’s moved away from prioritizing 20th-century corporate values like loyalty and tenure in favor of a tech-style, “more market-based culture,” the AT&T CEO wrote in a sweeping memo last week that was first reported by Business Insider. (End quote.)

So, here’s my concern. Where are Western Values in all of this? A giant corporation like this one is also a political and cultural entity. In this article, there is an almost complete absence of any issue or topic related to Western Values save capitalism and market economics, and then only in its cruelest and simplest form.

What are Western Values? They fall into six categories: (From Wikipedia with my thanks!)

Does AT&T have any stance on obeying the law or participating in democracy or pledging to pay its taxes like a good citizen?

Why is a bald statement celebrating naked power and greed a positive for investors? And at the same time, the absence of any commitment to a better society, a greater nation or an improved civilization, and this absence does not trouble the investors at all. In face, I think they regard the evasion of human and moral values as a positive.

I think every corporation in the United States has a duty to the law and to its fellow citizens. I think we should all be invested with the responsibility of creating and maintaining a civil society and a program for human and cultural development because that is what a great people do and we should above all things strive to be a great people.

James Alan Pilant

Why Isn’t This a Crime??

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/home-depot-pay-2-million-133019838.html

Home Depot is paying a settlement of around two million dollars for “scanner violations.”

Here is a direct quote from the article referenced at the top:

The complaint filed in San Diego Superior Court said that when people at Home Depot brought an item to checkout, they would be charged more money than was written on the shelf tag or on the item itself. Such violations are called “scanner violations,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said in a press release Thursday.

Why isn’t this a crime? These customers were charged more than the listed price. Is there anyone, anywhere who believes this was just a mistake?

And missing from the article is the most important piece of information of all — how much did Home Depot profit from this nefarious scheme? I suspect that the two million dollars penalty is but a tiny fraction of the amount taken from consumers.

Apparently living as we do in the declining and predatory phase of capitalism this is regarded as a success ful business decision. It is also, evil, morally bankrupt, and a profound insult to the duty of honesty and fair dealing. Jack Welch and Milton Friedman would undoubtedly be impressed by the business skills here displayed by Home Depot.

Do we want morality and ethics in our business dealings in the United States? Apparently not very much or hardly at all. A fine which appears to be but a small fraction of the amount stolen by scanner violations is not going to discourage the company from stealing again.

What are we becoming as a nation, as a people and as a civilization where we routinize simple theft as just part of doing business? It is not too much to demand that businesses abide by the listed prices. It is not too much to demand that businesses abstain from theft. It is not too much to expect that businesses treat their customers as guests and assets rather than easy marks.

We do what is right because it is right, not because it is profitable, or that people might like us. We have duties as Americans to our fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. And if I may speak frankly, a duty to Almighty God to live as just human beings.

James Pilant

Not By Bread Alone

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Sometimes reading and watching our various media, you get the impression that economic success is the ultimate determination of a nation’s success. This is the popular view in many circles. But if true at all, it is only partially true. The fact of the matter is – nations have value based not just on economic value but on art, culture and their civic life. It is better to live with a vibrant culture, movies, plays and books, – and better still to live in a society where the citizens can participate in the decisions that effect their lives.

Many participate in art. Some draw, some play an instrument, some participate in little theatre. But once in a while a person rises to the level of director, a professional artist. Successful societies run by the wise, experienced and based on a civilized tradition honor the great artists among us. But primitive and repressive societies do not.

There is no clearer indication of a society in decline than its attempt to destroy a human being for making art.

And here we have just such an example.

James Alan Pilant

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/acclaimed-iranian-filmmaker-flees-europe-210242828.html

Taken directly from the article above:

Rasoulof condemned the Iranian government in an Instagram post on Monday, calling it a tyrannical and oppressive regime, and posting a video that showed him crossing the country’s mountainous border. “If geographical Iran suffers beneath the boots of your religious tyranny, cultural Iran is alive in the common minds of millions of Iranians who were forced to leave Iran due to your brutality and no power can impose its will on it. From today, I am a resident of cultural Iran,” he said.

Reading is Critical to Ethics

On By southwerkIn ethics

This is a quote from an interview with Mary Gordon about her new book, Reading Jesus.

One of the things that I wanted to explore in this project is what kind of reading scripture demands. In one sense, it’s reading, just like reading the instructions for your DVD player, or King Lear, or a graphic novel. But that verb isn’t adequate for all these different experiences. This is a text that you may have thought—as I once did—was the Word of God, literally containing your salvation or damnation. It has a whole overlay of your personal history, your anguish, and the culture of the West. It has your coloring book and it has Bellini. It has the horrible ranting of anti-Semites and of people who hate the body, but it also has Oscar Romero and George Herbert. The Gospels carry so much in them, so the reading can never be simple. It is a uniquely complicated experience.

Simple reading is a simple matter of understanding a sentence and perhaps another sentence. Real reading means that you can understand the parts in terms of the whole and the whole in terms of the parts; that is, you can see how sentences fit into the total concept, i.e., how they develop and cast light on it. The New Testament is a very different document read as a whole. As a collection of sentences virtually any belief can be justified, the prosperity gospel being one bizarre example.

Ethics is almost always bound up with understanding. Poor readers will never have the insight and maturity of those that can understand difficult texts and ideas.

We are in danger of becoming a nation where reading becomes a curiosity. Oh, we’ll be able to read captions under photographs, see how much medicine to take, etc. But the ability to read in the light of our experience, to read in coordination with other reading, other sources, is an art that requires practice and application.

There is today a strange worship of the commonplace, of gut feelings and a casual disdain for the learned. It calls into question the continued development and survival of this civilization.

Of course, if this civilization is nothing more than an acquistive impulse tempered by occasional reservations, reading and thought are of no importance.

But I will continue to believe that there is a civilization here and that it is worth defending.

James Pilant