The marketplace of ideas?
Why is everything in America reduced to a pitiful capitalist metaphor? Why does every square peg get shoved into the round hole of this paradigm? I had a dickhead former publisher who used to love saying that a newspaper is a for profit business and that was something to be proud of. Granted, among other things, a newspaper is a business and even one that, hopefully, makes a profit, but there is a difference between a business that makes a profit and a business that only exists to generate profit for another company. Money needs to be reinvenested after all in order to be effective.
This is the same dickhead who got cancer even though there was no tumor or cancer cell to be found. Apparently, his doctor said he had "cancer-like" symptoms and this was good enough for him. What he failed to realize is that medicine is a for profit business too these days.
I'm not saying he didn't or doesn't have cancer. I hope he does, you know, for the sake of the truth. But does it serve anyone that doctors should be as interested in generating profit as any other businessman? Glorifying profit is about as righteous and selling your soul to Satan for a few guitar lessons and a 30-pack of Stroh's. Money might be a necessary evil but not everyone needs to chase it and not every human endeavor is enriched by it either.
1 comment:
I was also at the Christmas party when the aforementioned publisher explained how a newspaper was about nothing more than profit. I think that was the moment when the gauge on my idealism tank finally dropped to "E."
At the time, I was a reporter for the paper. My position didn't directly generate any income. From his speech, the publisher was evidently implying that I was a necessary evil.
How's that for helping an employee garner pride from his work?
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