"I read the news today, oh boy..."
I have, from time to time over the past several weeks, been reading and listening to reports about all of the companies out there who are pitching in and doing various things to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I have been reading and listening to these reports and they have been leaving me somewhat unsettled, and for quite a while I couldn't quite figure out why..
And then I came to realize that the reason they haven't quite sit right with me is inside the oft-quoted press releases from these companies themselves. I've watched various natural disasters and other horrible events pass over the years I've been alive, and I've seen many press releases from companies pledging to help the victims, but something subtle seems to have changed recently. As a matter of course, these sorts of press releases are and have always been a fair bit formulaic, each one sounds more or less like all the others from all the other companies who have said basically the same thing, but the template seems to have changed..
If you take a close look at the press releases, or executive quotes, or similar announcements floating around out there, most of them say, basically, something along the following lines: "We're a big company, and we have lots of employees in the affected area, so we've decided to do suchandsuch to help." It used to be that, perhaps, a company would comment in the second or third paragraph that it has employees in the area and thus can sympathize with what's going on there, but this seems far more significant than that. The implication that comes across each time I read one of these announcements now seems to be that the presence of one's own employees in trouble is the most important thing, perhaps the only important thing. What's even more disturbing is that it seems almost like they're saying it mostly because they feel it's expected of them to say it, as if, were they not to make it perfectly clear, they would be derided for helping people who weren't their own.
Is this where we are now? It's not ok to say "We want to help people because they need help and it's the right thing to do." Now we have to say "We're doing all this great stuff and you should be proud of us, but don't get the wrong idea, we're mainly helping our own, not you." Not only is helping people who need it no longer a valid end in itself, it must be justified, and the only valid justification is some sort of self-interest?
Or is it that we've become so insular in nature that even within our own society everything must be "us" or "not us"? Those who aren't part of our own group are something to be distrusted, not helped? Look but don't touch?
Or perhaps I'm imagining things.. but something still doesn't feel right.
And then I came to realize that the reason they haven't quite sit right with me is inside the oft-quoted press releases from these companies themselves. I've watched various natural disasters and other horrible events pass over the years I've been alive, and I've seen many press releases from companies pledging to help the victims, but something subtle seems to have changed recently. As a matter of course, these sorts of press releases are and have always been a fair bit formulaic, each one sounds more or less like all the others from all the other companies who have said basically the same thing, but the template seems to have changed..
If you take a close look at the press releases, or executive quotes, or similar announcements floating around out there, most of them say, basically, something along the following lines: "We're a big company, and we have lots of employees in the affected area, so we've decided to do suchandsuch to help." It used to be that, perhaps, a company would comment in the second or third paragraph that it has employees in the area and thus can sympathize with what's going on there, but this seems far more significant than that. The implication that comes across each time I read one of these announcements now seems to be that the presence of one's own employees in trouble is the most important thing, perhaps the only important thing. What's even more disturbing is that it seems almost like they're saying it mostly because they feel it's expected of them to say it, as if, were they not to make it perfectly clear, they would be derided for helping people who weren't their own.
Is this where we are now? It's not ok to say "We want to help people because they need help and it's the right thing to do." Now we have to say "We're doing all this great stuff and you should be proud of us, but don't get the wrong idea, we're mainly helping our own, not you." Not only is helping people who need it no longer a valid end in itself, it must be justified, and the only valid justification is some sort of self-interest?
Or is it that we've become so insular in nature that even within our own society everything must be "us" or "not us"? Those who aren't part of our own group are something to be distrusted, not helped? Look but don't touch?
Or perhaps I'm imagining things.. but something still doesn't feel right.