Waking up to stupid
If you give a damn about anything, this is a must-watch: The Age of Stupid. You owe it to yourself, your children and your species.
I saw this at a screening this week put on by the UK High Commission in Singapore and WWF Singapore. It put a lot of things into stark perspective for me.
It is time to sharpen the focus of what I do.
Blatant stupidity is the new enemy. It is all around us, and often invisible to us. We are blinded by the miasma of the cheap perfume of conventional business practice, and its cohorts that is vapid consumerism, blatantly manipulative advertising, wasteful design… We unquestioningly support its agenda, pretending it is the only way forward, even as that leads us to our own smoking demise.
The changes I talk about have just become more urgent:
1. The democratisation of business (where it is not restricted to certain deficient personality types heartless bastards or rear-view-mirror drivers); and
2. the humanisation of business (where business returns to its roots as an inescapably socially aware and responsible activity)
Conventional business practice and attitude are fucking up the world we live in!
I want to see a world where conventional “business” no longer exists. The bad behaviours must stop. Change is afoot.
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Nothing wrong with conventional business Zern.
The computer you use to blog, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the books you read, the movie you saw last week is all a result of conventional business.
What does democratisation of business even mean? Why are business-people heartless bastards? Is it because they want to make money? Because making money is what business is about. All these other “things” are extras but at the end of the day a business MUST make money. Have you been stung by corporations in the past? Because I do sense bitterness here. Or that you take business personally when it’s not meant to be.
There are many aspects of conventional business practice that needs to be reviewed and revised and reinvented.
Not all businesses are evil, not all business people are heartless bastards.
However, if we look at the practice of business as an activity, the accepted beliefs and practices, the very limited and myopic definitions of success … we see the root causes of many of the challenges we face today globally. Rabid consumerism, myopic focus on making money above all else, tolerance of bad and unethical behaviour, acceptance of exploitation on a massive scale.
The stuff we use everyday, the stuff we depend on to live, the salaries we enjoy – they are all tied in to business absolutely. Business is the most powerful force on this planet today. As such, we need to re-imagine a more humane, a kinder way, of doing business; where decisions are made with larger picture views of the greater good.
There is nothing wrong with making money. But when this happens at the expense of others, at the expense of the environment, at the expense of the greater good. Then I have a major problem with it.
This is what I give a damn about.
Rabid consumerism, myopic focus on making money above all else, tolerance of bad and unethical behaviour, acceptance of exploitation on a massive scale.
Let’s take each one in turn:
Rabid consumerism: only represents a certain portion of society. Not ALL people are rabid consumers. Of those that you consider “rabid” consumers, why blame the corporation for their extreme behaviour? If someone has a problem in constantly spending money, why is that a corporation’s fault? The individual is responsible for getting help. Not taking responsibility and passing blame for one’s own behaviour and actions is ridiculous.
Myopic focus on making money above all else: like my first posting – this IS the PURPOSE of business (past, present and future). I think you’re talking more about social enterprises and social initiatives that have different objectives. Business will NEVER consider a socially driven initiative before money and profit because this is not the PURPOSE of a business entity. It must make money first. Everything else follows from there. And if you quote the Body Shop as an example, I can dispute that here and now. As much as Roddick talks about her political causes etc, her entity wouldn’t exist if it weren’t profitable. If the shareholders of a business agree to spend the profits on certain other initiatives that aren’t business related, that’s their choice. That’s why conventional business IS powerful because it provides people with that choice on how they spend their money. If you want people to CARE more about social initiatives then that’s another story and you can’t BLAME business if people are focussed on making money – they just want choices.
Tolerance of bad and unethical behaviour: examples please.
Acceptance of exploitation on a massive scale: examples please.