This generation of kids...

[Story]

The vast majority of country-western singers these days are a freaking joke. They are pop, boy band, N'Sync rejects who throw on a cowboy hat, get an acoustic guitar, a Stetson, and a pickup truck and sing about farms/small towns. To top it off, they have little talent and class. .

There are talented musicians and singers of all genres out there today, who have just as much potential as those you revere. The only problem is that you have to dig for the generally unsigned, free-roaming, non-pasteurized Indies (eg, Ingrid Michaelson)

Support your local Live Music.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

IN GENERAL smaller local businesses are better for society and workers because they can only screw over a limited amount of people, and can only buy so many inspectors and politicians. In practice, if you're living locally with one of the slightly ethical, cheap b@stards who flouts the laws, this is of no comfort.

In general, small towns with small businesses, are run by those businesses. Back home the Mayor runs the carpet and appliance store. The other appliance dealer and electrician is President of the local sports association. The school board is run by old farmers, a few of whom are third generation school board members. Fortunately these guys are ethical, fair, and can't have their reputations soiled or they'd be out of business. Back in the 1970's a building contractor went "bankrupt" for the second time after divorcing his wife and putting everything in her name. He was quietly told to move to a different state, he did. Both he, his family, and my hometown are all much happier.

Later

 

[1961MJS]

"What I'm saying is that the idea that business has some responsibility to the community beyond making a profit for its stockholders has been overridden by the idea that its *only* responsibility is to its stockholders."

Precisely. If it was not so than Walmart would darn near not exist. The second it moves into a small town, several stores go out of business, and than it sucks the life out of the rest that remain 'till their coffers are bone dry.

Hi I agree with your statements, but not the "tone" I guess. The old stores bought through an inefficient de-centralized supplier system with a large number of middlemen. Every middleman has to take his share of the profit. Walmart got rid of the middlemen and negotiated a better price due to volume and later power. Locally grown vegetables, meat, and baked goods are all still available, just not in grocery stores anymore. Many cities have farmer's markets that didn't exist in the 1970's. Many cities have custom butcher shops now. There are more bakeries than when I was growing up.

People always get mad at Walmart, but according to several Walmart workers that I graduated HS with in the early 1980's, Walmart is the best job that they've ever had. The power and volume works with benefits too, both getting them for the employee's inexpensively, and taking them away.

Just another $0.02

 

[sheeplady]

Lizzie- I know that there has been an almost doubling of the ethics training in my college program in the last 5 years or so. I don't know if this will help or not. I've found that only a small portion of students are actually saying to throw ethics to the wind- most are very, very, very critical of corporations.

Corporations do not actually exist outside of people. People do all the stuff- good and bad. I would agree with your assessment, and I do think that some organizations think this way- that the social and political risks of making everyone an enemy on your own turf is not good. One of the companies that we study to this regard is an oil drilling company (not BP, before anyone suggests that) that actually did a huge amount of investment in the communities and countries in which they drilled.

The problem is that our 24-hour news cycle only likes to pick up the bad examples. A company or a person doing good hardly gets press.

 

[Feraud]

Being critical of corporations and doing something about it are two very different things. The impact of ethics training and attitude of students is minimal in the real world.

The Corporate Culture(their term not mine..) of more than a few businesses is completely rotton. I say this from experience. My wife and I have worked in very recognizable name companies for many years. The individual morals and ethics as displayed by management who represent their companies and act under it's aegis from the top on down are incredibly un-ethical.

Is it any wonder Charlie Sheen is on a cocaine and hooker fueled tour of the country and Snookie from The Jersey Shore, who is famous for... going to clubs and getting drunk was paid $32 thousand dollars to "speak"( I use the term loosely..) at Rutgers?

I've often heard LizzieMaine comment, "this is not my culture" and I completely undstand what she means.

 

[John in Covina]

Ethics are discarded because the pressure from corporations are to SELL, SELL, SELL and in particular under the this contracted economy that pressure has never been higher. My personal experience was recent where a company had ethics as one training video but the district gave unclear mixed messages and little warning bells kept going off in my head. The new salesmen that were successful were exagerating and lying through their teeth.

The training series contained a lot of how to sell information and I watched a program on PBS aimed at seniors to help watch out for scam artists - the check list of what to do was about 90% the same as the insurance companies sales training. That made me even more uncomfortable.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Unscrupulous selling tactics, snake oil salesman, con artists- they are nothing new although they have more ways to reach their marks with the internet.

 

[John in Covina]

When it comes to ethics this statement from Senator Roark in the film Sin City rings true:

"Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you've got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I strongly recommend the recent documentary "Inside Job" for a look at where a lot of these values are coming from -- you'll see some very prominent people affiliated with the most prestigious, respected educational institutions in the country look straight into the camera and lie thru their teeth. These aren't fly-by-night Kingfish-like con artists -- these are people at the very top of modern business culture, who are creating the next generation of business leaders. The rot goes very very deep.

 

[John in Covina]

Unscrupulous selling tactics, snake oil salesman, con artists- they are nothing new although they have more ways to reach their marks with the internet.

True about how they have always been with us but this generation is supposed to be the most wonderful, smart, socially conscious generation to have ever walked the earth. You'd think that they would not become part of the unethical crowd. What it seems like to me is they surrender their thought processes and are lead more easily because they are less able to tell the BS from the truth than a lot of generations before them.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I recommend the book I am currently reading: Snakes in Suits. It's about every day psychopathy.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Also, back to kids:

College students today are less likely to "get" the emotions of others than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago, a new review study suggests.

http://www.livescience.com/9918-today-college-students-lack-empathy.html

Very scary. Lacking empathy is the root of all evil. Not money.

 

[R.G. White]

I took the empathy quiz listed on the site and got a 48/70.
I can see where the media comes in. When you have the ability to see someone get blown up at two years old, it toughens you up. It's almost as bad as being there in person.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I took the empathy quiz listed on the site and got a 48/70.
I can see where the media comes in. When you have the ability to see someone get blown up at two years old, it toughens you up. It's almost as bad as being there in person.

I think it makes reality seem like a video game or make-believe. I wouldn't use the term "toughen up" but "desensitize." So I somewhat agree.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

True about how they have always been with us but this generation is supposed to be the most wonderful, smart, socially conscious generation to have ever walked the earth. You'd think that they would not become part of the unethical crowd. What it seems like to me is they surrender their thought processes and are lead more easily because they are less able to tell the BS from the truth than a lot of generations before them.

Yes, critical thinking skills aren't being taught.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Why think when it's easier just to call the other person an idiot?

 

[R.G. White]

I think it makes reality seem like a video game or make-believe. I wouldn't use the term "toughen up" but "desensitize." So I somewhat agree.

Yes, I like "desensitize" better.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

This is so true. I watch the way people act and the awful things they say and do to others and I wonder, "Don't you ever think of what it'd be like if you were in that person's shoes?"

Also, back to kids:

College students today are less likely to "get" the emotions of others than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago, a new review study suggests.

http://www.livescience.com/9918-today-college-students-lack-empathy.html

Very scary. Lacking empathy is the root of all evil. Not money.

 

[Pompidou]

Hmm, I scored a 22/70 on that empathy test. Even the Grinch is more empathetic. Ah well. I am what I am. I probably could've gotten it up to a 35 or 40 with some questions I was unsure of, but I went with my gut.

 

[sheeplady]

I agree about the comments about empathy. One of my colleagues is looking at how to increase empathy through the elementary school curriculum (starting from history and reading primary sources). It does seem like most of this has to come from home, however. I really don't think the media or school is nearly as impactful as the home environment.

Just like a corporate culture can encourage bad behavior, it can encourage good behavior. I've seen quite a few young people go on to start businesses that are quite ethical and have tied ethical behaviors into their reward systems. Quite a few large business do this as well, although not as many as I would like to see. (I've worked with quite a few organizations in my life, so I know well of what I speak. I've seen things so bad I've been physically sick, and I've seen things so giving that I use them as teaching examples to this day.)

The problem is that ethical companies don't get 4 months of daily news coverage because they didn't create a disaster that was preventable. I have personally come to believe that the structures we have in our everyday lives are re-lived through our organizations (for-profit, ngos, non-profit, gov, unions). The problem is that many of the structures in our society are oppressive.