TIM COOK AND INDIANA…Or…WHY I HAVE COME TO BURY SELECTIVELY ACTIVIST CEO’s…
According to some on both the Right and the Left, corporations are the new Governments, and I’m beginning to agree: They’re certainly acting that way. Morally hyperbolic — when and only when — it carries the least amount of RISK.
Tim Cook has come out against Indiana’s Religious Freedom law, and as a CITIZEN of the United States, he certainly has every right to do so. And I’m sure this law strikes him as particularly odious because he’s gay (it strikes me as odious too). However, Tim Cook the CITIZEN, is not frothing against this law by himself, he’s bringing the full weight of APPLE to bear upon the situation.
This is problematic for several reasons:
1.) HYPOCRISY: Cook claims in the article that APPLE STANDS FOR EVERYONE. And that just isn’t true. Apple showed no similar outrage when a St. Petersburg politician wanted to ban Tim Cook from Russia for being gay. One would think that presented an ideal moment to strike out against Putin’s draconian crackdown on gay rights. However, Cook had nary a word to say.
APPLE continues to do a thriving business in China, which has violently suppressed pro-democracy activists. And APPLE is also CLEARLY for EVERYONE in China — except the people who HAPPEN TO MAKE THEIR PRODUCTS .
So Cook’s outrage strikes me as the most galling type: BULLYING. APPLE has too much to lose by calling out Russia and China, so Cook has decided to project his ire in a low-risk environment: Indiana. Which is what bullies do.
Now I’d consider my case here to be flimsy at best had Tim Cook — the PRIVATE CITIZEN — stood up to Indiana, but he threw the APPLE name behind it, and most importantly, claimed — APPLE IS FOR EVERYONE. He didn’t say APPLE IS FOR AMERICANS, and as an American, I’m disappointed in Indiana. No. He used the world’s most powerful BRAND NAME and applied it to EVERYONE.
So apparently APPLE isn’t for EVERYONE — it’s for WHOEVER COSTS APPLE THE LEAST TO DEFEND.
2.) CORPORATIONS AS THE NEW GOVERNMENT: I actually HOPED and DREAMED this might be true when it came to the TECH SECTOR. The FINANCIAL SECTOR already resembles the government: bloated, bankrupt, inefficient, and branching off into radically deregulated splinter groups. However, I had hope for the TECH SECTOR. They had vision, drive, and appeared to be politically atheist. If I had to be subjected to the rule of benign despot philosopher kings — I’d have gone with them. I like my GOVERNMENT with the least amount of POLITICS possible. But this leads into a thornier issue inside the TECH SECTOR itself…
3.) THERE ARE ACTUALLY TWO TECH SECTORS: And one of them is in a state of Nietzschean degeneracy. Just like our government. First off, Nietzschean degeneration occurs when MORALITY becomes of paramount importance — hysterically so — because there’s NO SUBSTANCE underlying the human endeavor, and everyone flails around searching for a PUPOSE.
Like APPLE and MICROSOFT are doing right now.
Tim Cook has claimed the throne as the most ACTIVIST of CEO’s. Bill Gates is the most activist former CEO. And what do APPLE and MICROSOFT have in common? They stopped INNOVATING. They’re barely in the COMPUTER BUSINESS anymore. APPLE is a PHONE, MUSIC, and now WATCH company. But when was the last time they had an actual exciting TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH that changed the face of computing? MICROSOFT is in a similar state. It’s not in the COMPUTER BUSINESS ANYMORE EITHER. It’s in the SOFTWARE BUSINESS.
The core SUBSTANCE to these companies was a DRIVE TO THE FUTURE. PROGRESS. And now they collect MEDICI MONEY manufacturing GADGETS and the newest EXCEL upgrades. This is DEGENERACY in it’s finest state. They have lost the mission, lost the substance, and so what do you get —
MORALITY. And lots of it. Just as the STATE has lost it’s raison d’être and can’t keep it’s nose out of SOCIAL ISSUES.
The true innovation occurs in companies like SpaceX, Calico, and Cambrian. They may not always achieve their goals in a timely manner, but these companies have SCOPE. They’re trying to fly missions to Mars, build driverless cars, study life-extension techniques, and cure Cancer. And what’s more: You never hear a peep of MORALITY out of them.
When CORPORATIONS and GOVERNMENT begin to preach MORALITY, they’re in the death throes of DEGENERACY. And Tim Cook just showed us the cancer of mission collapse has begun to infect APPLE, and it’s likely terminal. Sure, they’ll make a trillion dollars soon: but it won’t erase the VOID at the center of the mission.
Expect much more MORALITY from them in the future.
