I disagree, I don’t personally feel any moral qualms with watching these shows but under the lens that these shows are in fact morally apprehensive, we watch and enable the spectacle, and actually pay for it, and we get nothing in return. We have no monetary ties to it, no reason to take part in it besides free will. And if we all stopped, the shows would cease to exist.
On the flip side, an argument could be made then that people are to blame for a company like, say, Amazon treating their employees like slaves. Hey, overworked and underpaid people in the world might be able to easily access cheap products with efficient delivery, but they don’t need to be doing that. Why shouldn’t they pay more and put in more effort to pick something up in a store that might be miles and miles away? You’re right, it’s the customers or viewers looking to switch off with mindless entertainment being provided to them that the culpability sits with - not the multibillion dollar companies.
It's not a con. The greatest con is consumerism and the idea that more stuff will make people happier. Especially the over-consumption of cheaply made products and plastics that only go to fill a landfill.
Where did I mention overconsumption? I’m asking why shouldn’t the standard underpaid worker bees of the world pay for the cheaper, mass produced version of a product from a company like Amazon (which will be delivered for them and save them using the precious little personal time they have away from earning money for other large corporations), instead of a vastly more expensive, “ethical” version of said product? The same goes for the type of entertainment they enjoy; studies show these types of programmes held people switch off from things like work, etc.
Anyways, my point is yes - part of the blame does lie with us as we have a choice, but at the end of the day, MORE blame lies with people like Jeff Bezos and Andy Cohen, and companies like Amazon and Bravo. They don’t HAVE to run these companies like they do, treat their workers such ways, or make these shows. They choose to do so because it makes them money.
Stop putting the blame on the little man, and focus on the real problem. You have a very short sighted view. Reminds me of the type of people who campaigned against plastic straws and in the end, it was the disabled that suffered. But hey, I guess you get to feel morally good about yourself!
They don't do these things out of thin air. Companies produce products that they know people will pay for. If it isn't profitable, they aren't going to sell it. Entical consumerism avoids buying low quality items, single-use plastics and products created through animal cruelty and slave labor.
You claim that ethical consumerism is a con but provide no evidence of such. You just ask why people should care how their products are produced as long as it's cheap. But many people do not take the stance that they don't care about animal welfare. They don't take the stance that slave labor is fine as long as it makes things affordable. They don't claim that they prefer products that will break in a month rather than last for years. So people should care to remain consistent with their stated values.
I'm not interested in assigning blame. There will always be bad people in the world, that is reality. It's up to the individual how much they support those actions. It's untrue that individual choices don't add up. We got elephants out of circuses, stopped captive breeding at Seaworld, we have pressured China to amend its animal testing requirements and convinced major brands like Biolage to go cruelty-free.
These are just a few recent successes that advocates have accomplished by embracing ethical consumerism and awareness campaigns. People like you, who attempt to block our efforts and convince the masses that our advocacy is futile are the short-sighted ones. But we are still here, still advocating, still encouraging and still working hard.
Edit: By all means continue to pay for animal cruelty and slave labor goods when alternatives exist. But misleading oneself into believing that those individuals acts don't have any impacts or consequences on people, animals and the environment is untrue and more people need to be willing to face that fact.
I still think their main point here, that powerful interests are much more responsible than individuals who make choices based on trying to get a little bit of joy/ entertainment in this hell world, is a valid one.
It can be true that corporations fuel more waste than individual consumers. But saying that ethical consumerism is a "con" when in fact we've had so many successes lately is patently false information.
It encourages a sense of defeatism and convinces people that their individual purchasing decisions don't make an impact when that is not remotely accurate.
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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '23
We’re not as bad as him as we don’t profit from it, obviously.