The Yes Men use somewhat illegal tactics to bring to light what they believe to be wrong with large corporations and how they treat people and profits. One instance of this is when they poked fun at Exxon for making ‘biofuel’ out of humans. Obviously Exxon does not do this, but by telling people that they do, The Yes Men try to ignite peoples’ sense of morality and get them to question big business. It invokes a sense of anger at the company for something that they did not do, which can be redirected to things that the company does do, such as unfair business practices, like price gouging or unfair labor or wages. Personally, although I think that big business is (on average) a horrible machine, The Yes Men go about it in all the wrong ways. The way they conduct their culture jamming is in and of itself immoral and untruthful. They should not be able to hurt a business just because, they as a group, think that it is the right thing to do. That is why we have a legal system and laws. The Yes Men are nothing more than vigilantes.
A TCS term that relates to what they did is commodity fetishism. They believe that big business turns people into objects, devalues life, and uses others for profit, which is what commodity fetishism is about. Commodity fetishism is a Marxist theory that states that social relationships are transformed into monetary ones within a capitalist society.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment