I get that Palestine is trendy but most of us are super complicit in a much larger abuse.
The key difference as far as I can tell is that one would require us to make individual sacrifices while the other involves complicated geopolitics and requires zero personal effort to feel like we are “helping.” Plus, the latter is trendy whereas admitting and talking about how we are morally culpable in one of the worst human rights abuses ever, well, that’s just a buzzkill.
Don’t forget the forced labor and genocide of the Uyghurs, to produce the copious amounts of Chinese goods we consume, so Bezos can ride a dick to space.
Can you really be considered complicit if you’re forced into it? You can’t force consent, why should someone be able to force me to be complicit? Nearly everything we consume has almost certainly touched a slave or sweatshop worker’s hands at some point, and unfortunately most of it is either impossible (because it doesn’t exist) or extremely impractical (too expensive and can’t afford it) to replace with ethical labor.
If sweatshops had hit the Zeitgeist or social media with half the fervor of Palestine (except for the couple of weeks after another factory collapse/fire) we’d see some change.
This nonsense of “I’m too poor to buy ethical” while non ethical nonsense but stupidly priced shit isn’t just common but is shown as aspirational? It just doesn’t fly.
Which is more conscious of being lambasted on social media, the US government or say, businesses whose entire business model revolves around cool young people?
As one friend put it, “capitalism is still the best way of matching human desires with products, we just don’t give a damn how those products are made.”
http://www.worldvision.ca/stories/child-protection/child-labour-facts-and-how-to-help
I get that Palestine is trendy but most of us are super complicit in a much larger abuse.
The key difference as far as I can tell is that one would require us to make individual sacrifices while the other involves complicated geopolitics and requires zero personal effort to feel like we are “helping.” Plus, the latter is trendy whereas admitting and talking about how we are morally culpable in one of the worst human rights abuses ever, well, that’s just a buzzkill.
Don’t forget the forced labor and genocide of the Uyghurs, to produce the copious amounts of Chinese goods we consume, so Bezos can ride a dick to space.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang
Can you really be considered complicit if you’re forced into it? You can’t force consent, why should someone be able to force me to be complicit? Nearly everything we consume has almost certainly touched a slave or sweatshop worker’s hands at some point, and unfortunately most of it is either impossible (because it doesn’t exist) or extremely impractical (too expensive and can’t afford it) to replace with ethical labor.
Ehhhhhh, I don’t really buy these arguments.
If sweatshops had hit the Zeitgeist or social media with half the fervor of Palestine (except for the couple of weeks after another factory collapse/fire) we’d see some change.
This nonsense of “I’m too poor to buy ethical” while non ethical nonsense but stupidly priced shit isn’t just common but is shown as aspirational? It just doesn’t fly.
Which is more conscious of being lambasted on social media, the US government or say, businesses whose entire business model revolves around cool young people?
As one friend put it, “capitalism is still the best way of matching human desires with products, we just don’t give a damn how those products are made.”