Go And See The Corporation

Brenner

Hi everyone,

I just watched a film and felt PROFOUNDLY MOTIVATED to send every person on my mail list....so I did

GO AND SEE THE FILM ::::: THE CORPORATION :::::


I feel a little foolish for being "active" but hey,

I have a conscience, I just found out I need more of a conscience...

This film is *Necessary* - Watch it for your own good

SkepticOne

What did you like about it?

Brenner

It was an awsome rollercoaster through today's stark reality. If I have one reservation about it is that it could be taken as being alarmist, its got a fair amount of really freaky stuff about the corporate world.

What I liked most about it was not that it was a balanced point of view, but that anyone who is seen to defend the culture of corporate transnationals are completely aware of all the terror that is caused as a result and are shockingly passive about it.

So the point of view of the film is completely against the corporation, including a very smart assesment of the corporations (deemed to be legal persons) are essentially psychotic, using the legal metaphore. And with this even the CEO's of the biggest companies are defending the exploitaion of natural resources and people to an absolutely amoral extend without any sense of responsability, since it is the coporation ("person") who is ultimately responsable - i.e. pays massive fines as a punishment for illegal behaviour... the problem being that they have so much bleedin' money that it doesn't ever matter howmuch they are fined, they can afford to transcend the law... :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

DadaKopf

Yup.

I'm constantly fascinated how CEOs themselves, like neocons, are aware their rhetoric and discourse is the opposite of the truth but see their for everyone else to believe their nonsense.

Some people argue the logic of corporations don't just constitute an ideology - Corporatism - but a morality.

Eugh.

I'm looking forward to seeing this documentary some time.

Brenner

It is abundantly clear in this documentary that corporations are completely devoid of morality as we know it... if there is a form of "corporate morality" that is supposed to be applied, then even the people who are earning vast amounts of money from the corporations are by default already in opposition to it. the corporation will compete even with its own life-support systems in order to maximise profit...

this is essentially where the corporation fits the philosophical definition of Evil. It is a destructive and self-destructive system that ultimately is impossible to sustain. It is a thing, that by definition, seeks profit even at the cost of its own integrity... even if that includes its own demise, mergers, funding films that attempt to undermine it, etc.

Hope somebody has a philosophical dictionary handy, could we get a proper definiton of evil as see if fits?

As I said, the reasn for starting this thread, Please for the sake of reality as we know it, go and see this film. I'm dead serious.

DadaKopf

Interesting point regarding corporations and the defintion of evil. You seem to define evil is some form of autodestruction that is, basically, an engine of corruption. Evil is corruption.

It's a view not unlike America's Evangelistic neo-conservatives and Islamist fundamentalists.

But I wonder whether corruption necessarily 'evil', since so many forms of corruption that undo themselves pave the way for their opposites. One example might be punk - in the 1970s, it signified a form of corruption so heinous and destructive that it was the engine of creation and social transformation, but only temporarily.

I dunno.

One French philosopher, Alain Badiou, is trying to bring good and evil back into philosophical discourse. It was, he thinks regrettably, dissolved as a concept by many a French postmodernist. But how he defines it, I don't know.

Personally I don't like the concept because it's one of those things beyond rational justification that people can load with meaning to pursue their own ends.

Brenner

Loading a word such as evil is common enough, I guess it was an attempt to address defining behaviour that is essentially not just self-destructive but also wholly self-seeking. Something that is evil (N.B. In my view) is something that destroys for the sake of profit (whether is be, financial, qualitative, or whatever form of measurable gain applicable to the word "profit"), destruction can take the role of abandonment, disregard etc.

the issue here is that this system, while purely seeking its own growth and development, by its very nature brings upon its own destruction... the consequences of which are, agreeably, sometimes positive, but the devistation that has to be repaired (not always possible) is then the issue...

Should we give way to things like this for the sake of an optomistic (not naive) point of view of the future. What happend to today? is it being disregarded?

simu

I saw this recently. Nothing all that surprising about it for anyone who follows current affairs but it's quite a shock to be exposed to so much evidence of the wrong-doings of corporations all at once. Just as well they had the "ray of hope" bit at the end - otherwise, this film would make you very pessimistic about the future of the human race. They had little explanatory booklets in the cinema i went to with URLs for further information. Some of them are to be found here, if you're interested.

Chipboard

I haven't seen the Corporation but I think from the comments posted, that if you liked it, you would also like Gattaca. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman and its got some pretty thought provoking stuff in it as well as fantastic music by the composer Michael Nyman.

By the way, I work in a Management position for a corporation and I can tell you, if a person thought and acted like a corporation did, they would be put to death. Thing is, me leaving wont stop that, all I can do is make sure I deal fairly with everyone I come into contact with. The fella who would replace me, could be worse than I am.