Convenience vs. Affordability, The Ethical Dilemmas of the World We Live In

“Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former.”

Let’s face it. Aside from living in a material world, we have succumbed to a life of leisure in lieu of exertion. We no longer get up to change the TV channel. We don’t manually roll down car windows anymore. We don’t open the freezer door to get ice. We live in a push button world. 

Mattresses no longer have to be turned every month. For most products we don’t have to trek to the store. Our exercise, instead, is to pick up the Internet or mail order package from the front porch or apartment lobby. 

The premise having been set, if not accepted, please contemplate the shared meaning of three articles I pass along for your edification. The first is from a philosopher, S. Matthew Liao. Writing an Op-Ed in The New York Times, Liao wondered aloud (if you can do so in print) if one has a moral duty to jettison one’s relationship with Facebook given its unconscionable and inexcusable behavior in the 2016 presidential elections and in other activities that have undermined democracy in America and abroad (https://nyti.ms/2zqSUx8). 

Aside from posting my blogs to Facebook, I have a financial interest in professor Liao’s opinion. My broker talked me into buying some Facebook stock shortly after it went public. Am I a silent sinner in the debasement of democratic values? 

It’s not every day, but hardly a week goes by that a box with a smiley face on the cardboard exterior doesn’t land on our front porch. I spent almost all of my journalism career in support of physical retail stores. Chain Store Age, by its very name, heralded my bias. Though the magazine covered mail order and Internet retailers, our first allegiance was to brick and mortar stores. 

When Amazon erupted on the scene, it was as an attack on book stores, most prominently exemplified by Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton Booksellers, Borders, Books-a-Million, Crown Books, to name but a handful.

Now, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is ranked the wealthiest man in the world as his creation sells virtually all types of merchandise. And through Amazon Prime I download programs not available on cable or basic television stations.

With bigness comes inevitable vilification. From the Web news site Vox, here’s an article suggesting the time is ripe to cancel one’s Amazon Prime subscription (https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2018/11/26/18112769/amazon-prime-cancel).

Could I really give up watching the upcoming second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Or pay for shipping on all those purchases? And what would become of all those UPS and FedEx, not to mention USPS, delivery men and women who rely on Amazon to keep them on the road? 

On the one hand, the Vox article correctly notes Amazon’s history of “monopolistic practices to tax avoidance, poor treatment of both white- and blue-collar workers, union-busting, environmental damage, and most recently, the year-long publicity stunt of HQ2, a bad-faith ploy to extract private data from US cities that ended with Amazon plopping its supposedly economy-boosting offices into the two most established markets on the East Coast.”

On the other hand, the history of retailing, and for that matter almost every industry, is that market leaders are attacked. As Sears in its heyday was, and then Walmart was and still is, Amazon is scrutinized for practices that virtually all other retailers undertake in their own spheres. Target might emit a nicer aura in which to shop, but it treats its workers no better than Walmart, or Amazon. 

So I swallow any bile I might have toward Amazon and continue to log on. As long as I’m getting value for my dollar, I will continue to do so.

The third article presents in stark terms perhaps the penultimate consequence of society’s acceptance of the depreciating value of human labor. From Vox, here’s an article that asks, “Sex doll brothels are now a thing. What will happen to real-life sex workers?” (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/26/18113019/sex-doll-brothels-legal-sex-work?_gl=1*13fjbq5*)

Returning to the opening quote taken from the sex doll article, here’s an added line to it: “Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former. There’s no reason to think that the sex industry will prove the exception to the rule.”

And to think, just a few short paragraphs ago I was worried about the future of truck drivers!

Kavanaugh's Calendar Key to FBI Probe

So the Dumb-ocrats got what they asked for, a new FBI investigation into allegations the teenage Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted 15-year-old Christine Blasey (Ford) back in the summer of 1982. The Feds also will look into two other allegations of sexual misconduct alleged to have occurred during his high school and Yale undergraduate days.

Unlike the professional background checks the FBI performed six times on Kavanaugh for his successive federal jobs, the new investigation will focus on his behavior before he earned his education degrees. Here’s how The New York Times described the scope of the inquiry: https://nyti.ms/2OXnzrE

Of particular interest might well be the calendars Kavanaugh innocently enough submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee as evidence he could not have sexually assaulted Blasey Ford. While Democratic senators tried to decipher some of his obscure (to them) notations, they missed an opportunity to reveal to the nation the extent to which Kavanaugh was a party boy and not the wholesome football and basketball varsity jock and top student he projected during Thursday’s hearing. 

Kavanaugh acknowledged his love of beer, an infatuation with the brew he said he maintains to this day. But several times he either misled or provided incomplete responses to inquiries about his calendar entries.

He claimed he legally drank beer during his senior high school year, when he was 18. But Maryland had raised the legal drinking age to 21. None of the Dumb-ocrats seemed aware of this discrepancy. 

For a more detailed explanation of his calendar’s cryptic meanings, including keys to “Renate Alumnius,” “Devil’s Triangle,” “boofing,” and “Beach Week,” read Vox from September 26, the day before the committee hearing (apparently the Dumb-ocrats and their staffs did not): https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17901368/kavanaugh-yearbook-boof-devil-triangle-renate-beach-week.

No doubt, the anguish on the faces of Kavanaugh’s family reflected the pain and trauma they have gone through over the past two weeks. But I also wonder if some of the horror evidenced on their faces came from the revelation that their all-American boy and husband was not the straight shooter he portended to be in his youth. Did his parents know he routinely got drunk? As both his parents were lawyers, they should have been aware the legal drinking age had been raised to 21. Aware now of how frequently he abused alcohol, could a seed of doubt be festering within their devotion to their son?  

So we await an FBI report likely to corroborate Kavanaugh swallowed prodigious amounts of beer back then, but likely to fail to pinpoint any fact to corroborate Blasey Ford’s testimony. 

It will be her word versus his. Her memory seared into the hippocampus part of the brain versus his beer-saturated recall aided by calendar entries he is reluctant, probably embarrassed, to fully explain. 

And on this division, the fate of Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court and with it the future of our country, hang in the balance. 

Authoritarianism Threatens Our Democracy

I’m beholden to my friend Cathy Hotka for posting a most troubling but illuminating article on the implications and ramifications of Donald Trump’s rise to prominency in the Republican presidential race. The article from Vox.com analyzed the rise in authoritarianism, its acceptance as a political force not only as it pertains to the United States but also in other countries now and beyond 2016.

I can’t find a link that easily directs you to the article, so you’ll have to work a little to find it. But it will be well worth your time and effort if you care at all about the future. So here’s the drill: go to Vox.com and in its search function type in “The rise in American authoritarianism.”

 It is a long article but disturbingly pertinent to the convulsions emanating from the political hustings this year and perhaps for years to come as our country, and others, try to cope with social, demographic and economic changes and military/terrorist threats from outside and even inside our borders.

With each passing day Trump and his supporters seem to channel behavior last seen in Italy and Germany more than 75 years ago. Could it possibly be that people under 40 don’t truly understand the evil of the Hitler-Mussolini era? My generation grew up watching World War II-based  movies. Many of our fathers and uncles served in the armed forces. We knew why we fought fascism. Today’s young voters grew up on Star Wars. The evil empire was bad but it was a sci-fi abstraction, even if it was a stand-in for totalitarianism. 

Regrettably, too many young voters have little understanding of how life was different before women reached the level of achievement they currently enjoy. Even young women see nothing historic in electing a woman president. They don’t appreciate what it was like to live during a time when seeking an abortion, for whatever reason, was a crime. Many young people have little understanding of how different life was for Afro-Americans before the Civil Rights era (unfortunately, the Supreme Court apparently believes racism has been vanquished, leaving no need for a vigorous defense of the Voting Rights Act). Too many lack perspective on the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict. 

As the Vox.com article explains, Trump’s appeal is not just to the uneducated. Take the time to read the article.