Wednesday, April 25, 2012

PETA.XXX


People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an organization that prides itself on defending all animals from humans eating them, wearing them, experimenting on them, using them for entertainment, and any other actions that proliferate the abuse or exploitation of animals. PETA’s blind passion has led to several campaigns that are viewed by the general public as outlandish, libelous, misogynistic, sexist, and sexually exploitative. These advertisements --featuring nude women and women performing sexually suggestive acts with vegetables-- have become so infamous and tabooed that PETA is more known for using naked women showering together or posing to advertise a cause and less known for the actual cause they are intending to thrust into the national spotlight through controversy.
These trivial images are just the beginning for PETA’s sexually suggestive and erotic advertisements. PETA spokeswoman, Lindsay Rajt, announced in August 2011 an advertisement campaign sure to deter many supporters and further the abhorrence of negative pundits: Peta.xxx.
Peta.xxx is PETA’s audacious response to Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) authorization of the creation of .xxx domain names.
ICANN is an international non-profit organization and government affiliated agency housed in California. According to ICANN’s website, the organization’s chief purpose is to coordinate IP addresses, organize domain names, and manage other identifiers of internet locations across the world wide web.# As a part of their responsibility to organize domain names, ICANN is strongly encouraging pornographic websites to create .xxx domain names to facilitate internet safety by virtually creating a red light district for the internet.
.XXX domains are not only being used by distributors of the adult industry. Many corporations and schools have created .xxx domain names to prevent their brand from being tarnished from association or confusion with pornography. Another motive for organizations to block .xxx domains similar to their institution or organization’s name is to avoid cyber squatting-- the registration of domain names of well known organizations and brands to eventually resale for profit. Harvard University, for example, purchased Harvard.xxx and has reserved the website from registration. Other universities and organizations, such as Texas Christian University, Ohio State University, Red Cross, and MTV have done the same.#
PETA too bought a .xxx domain name with the appellation of PETA; however, instead of purchasing peta.xxx to block an outside force from using their title, they plan to soon launch a pornographic website to enhance their mission of “get[ting] the animal rights message out to as many people as possible.”#



While spreading their mission, PETA acts in a Machiavellian manner. Niccollo Machiavelli is an Italian writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is Best known for writing The Prince which was published in 1532. In the Prince he write, “Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.” No matter how you go about doing things (people will judge and hate you), thus you have to work to reach your end goals. Your ends will justify your means, so it doesn’t matter if they are good or ethically strong.
This concept--originally created by Machiavelli--has now been adapted in the ethical system consequentialism. This ethical standard basically states that the results/final consequences of an action determines whether or not that action was ethical in the first place. Although they feel that their advertisements get their message across, one has to ask if their means (exploiting women) justifies their ends (promoting the ethical treatment of animals).



Sunday, April 22, 2012

Ethical Elkind?


In honor of the recent visit by Mr. Elkind, I thought is was only appropriate to comment on what I found unethical about Elkind’s critically acclaimed novel The Smartest Guys in the Room. Although Elkind’s book easily captured me as a reader and brought me into both the general business world and the world of Enron with descriptive language and clear translations of business jargon to common English, The Smartest Guys in the Room wasn’t perfect. Elkind’s writing throughout the story showed one large flaw that could not be overseen: extremely poor attribution and sourcing.
First there was a great amount of use of anonymous commentary in the story. As a journalist, this bothered me. As stated in the 2009 AP Stylebook:
Under AP’s rules material from anonymous sources may be used only if: [a] The material is information and is not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the news report. [b] The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source. [c] The source is reliable, and in a position to have accurate information…Explain in the story why the sources requested anonymity. And, when it’s relevant, describe the source’s motive for disclosing the information. The story also must provide attribution that establishes the source’s credibility; simply quoting “a source” is not allowed. Be as descriptive as possible.
The anonymity used could have been seen as a means to garner background information; however, the majority of the information gathered from anonymous sources were opinion. A great example of the frivolity of a large some of the anonymous comments comes when Elkind and McLean quoted a nameless credit officer from an unspecified Wall Street firm saying, “We thought Enron was a very funky animal that kept getting funkier and funkier” (340). This quote added absolutely nothing to the story. I had no idea who it came from, and the description of the source was so ambiguous that I paid it no mind. Further, the substance of the quote was poor at best. Also, Elkind and his co author never mentioned why any sources were anonymous. As a reader, I feel that this prevarication takes away a great deal of transparency. It is the author’s ethical obligation to provide the reader with a sense of legitimacy coupling his/her work. Without sourcing or attribute, I have no basis to believe whether or not the information he provided was truth. I am forced to go off of blind faith, and he remains free of not “abusing” his ability to utilize anonymous sources.
When sources were given a name and a face behind them, none of their quotes were attributed. There should have been hundreds of endnotes littering the last printed pages of the book. Instead, there is nothing and the reader is left contemplating the legitimacy of the entire story. Elkind and his co author empowered the readers with a great deal of trust, for the readers had no idea if the information presented to them by the authors was completely falsified or not. A lack of attribution is synonymous with a lack of credibility in the journalism world. This coupled with the inherent lack of credibility created through anonymity is the author’s major downfall in regards to the research and presentation of the book. Despite these “flaws,” The Smartest Guys in the Room was exceptionally engaging and entertaining. It provided an insider’s approach to the famous Enron story and by capturing the personalities and actions of the 125 characters noted in the story, Elkind and his co authour created an easily accessible work of non-fiction business literature.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Ethics of Eating Meat

As a member of modern day society, I feel that it is my moral obligation to eat meat. Meat isn’t just one of many sources that provides vitamins and nutrients. It isn’t just the remnants of an animal carcass. It is not just a by product of animal cruelty. Meat is a representation of a large network of industries that provides economic security to families and ensures health of both animals and humans.

Before I start trudging through my argument, let’s look at a world where no human is a carnivore. Without meat eating, the world would be devoid of a slew of restaurants, processing plants, packaging plants, and other job sources for the nation’s men and women. Deer would run rampant, because there would be no justifiable reason for hunting. Areas with deer overpopulation have a raised amount of car accidents, higher rates of dangerous illnesses like lyme disease, and have a population of dear that are weak and malnourished due to a high demand of nutritious food for them. There would be a large amount of deforestation (which is the removal of trees from land) to create fertile soil for crops. This would in turn run animals out of their present homes, take away their shelter, and reduce their natural mechanisms of survival. These animals will either adapt to their new environments or die. The cute farm animals whose lives we wish to save, will too most likely die, for they are protected by farmers and bred for the purposes of providing meat, eggs, milk, etc. Without this protection, they stand low on the totem pole of animals in the wild. Maybe you think this sounds wonderful, but I personally find this probable outcome of a world devoid of meat to be awful. If you are a vegetarian or vegan and don’t think this sounds like a beautiful place, maybe you should reconsider your stance on the ethics of eating meat and starting grilling a steak before you continue reading.

Now, I want to point out a common flaw in the quibble that most individuals have with meat eaters: People eat meat at the expense of killing an entity that is already living. Fruit, vegetables, and other plants are all living things as well. We take the lives of those things everyday to provide our bodies with sustenance. The easy counter argument to this is that plants don’t feel pain and animals do, but how do we know? There are no studies showing whether or not plants feel pain, so until we know for a fact it is ridiculous to make an assumption.

Many of you are probably laughing now, but let me delve further into this past idea. We are against killing animals for food because they feel pain and they are helpless. Killing animals, however, provides economic security through a creation of jobs, provides people with food necessary to survive, and in some cases reduces health issues from overpopulation (as with deer and duck). Isn’t this very similar to war? We send fleets of men and women to kill in order to provide a sort of security to our land just like we kill animals to provide security. The people who die at the hands of American soldiers feel pain just like animals do. The individuals who end up being killed are rendered helpless as well. They aren’t as well equipped as us, for they have inferior technology and weapons. More disturbing, they are actually people. Even worse, many times casualty numbers are forged by the deaths of innocent children, men and women just because they live in a certain location.

We as Americans have virtually no sympathy for the lives slaughtered intentionally during warfare, and those are our brothers and sisters inherently bonded to us by our common humanness in this global community. We justify killing other humans with a utilitarian outlook--saying that we are doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of Americans. We have to kill them to provide for ourselves and others. Killing animals for food is the same exact thing but with more justification. It is only right and necessary to eat meat.