Corporate virtue signalling?

[Clitheroekid]

Moderator Message:
RS: I've moved this to Bitter Lemons from the Snug with a shadow left in place.

I find the constant attempts by large corporations to demonstrate how woke they are somewhat nauseating, and often completely contradicted by the way they actually behave in everyday life - rather similar to the self-congratulatory corporate governance mission statement waffle that they dish up in their annual reports, and which nobody reads, let alone believes.

The hypocrisy is often encountered in messages about how environmentally responsible they are, when in practice they're anything but - I believe it's called greenwashing.

So I'm afraid my reaction to this latest piece of wokeness induced in me feelings that were similar to having muched down a dodgy sausage - should this latest jump on the bandwagon perhaps be called `blackwashing'?

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/co ... 22243.html

Do other Fools agree with my jaded attitude, or am I just a cynical old git who fails to recognise a kind and loving corporation when I see it?

[Lootman]

Do other Fools agree with my jaded attitude, or am I just a cynical old git who fails to recognise a kind and loving corporation when I see it?

This jaded, cynical old git agrees with you 100%. This wokier-than-thou posturing is actually making me feel less sympathetic to their cause.

I never mind people holding beliefs and believing in causes. But I tend to be put off any cause that I feel is being rammed down my throat. I could have done without the gesturing at last night's premier league games as well. It's hard to see oppression when these footballers make millions a year.

[bungeejumper]

They're both making hard-headed decisions to promote their images in a benevolent way, in the hope of scoring slightly higher than the competition. Don't all large companies do that? Banks in particular are always going on about how they're by our side during these difficult coronavirus days, and never mind that they're running rings around the FCA which is trying to get them to cut their headline overdraft rates. Oil companies promote their greenness because they're terrified of their shares being blacklisted by the pension providers.

I suspect, though, that Greene King have a bit more on their collective consciences than most. If the breweries started out as sugar plantation owners, and if Lloyd's used to insure slaving ships (or own slaves, or whatever), then that probably gets a bit closer to the fear of a public boycott than most companies will ever have to deal with. Not that ordinary mortals ever go near Lloyd's underwriters anyway, of course.

As a business decision, it falls between please-don't-break-our-fancy-plate-glass-windows and please-don't-bad-mouth-us-on Facebook. Either way, it's an entirely obvious strategy.Not so much virtue signalling as a canny marketing move. I don't even blink at such tactics any more.

BJ

[JohnB]

Blacklisting is out, as is the 'master' version of software apparently. All the 'we love you' emails and worse letters are just wasting my money

[Rhyd6]

I'm with you on this CK. I've no doubt whatsoever that my ancestors were enslaved by the English when they took over Wales but I prefer that we settle our differences on the rugby field. I'm no fan of Gary Linekar's but to be accused of being racist and disrespectful for his joke about the first goal being scored by Black Lives Matter is beyond parody. When did it become a sin to have a sense of humour.
I'm going to boycot any company that decides to 'bow the knee' so to speak to this blackmail. I also hope that Dominic Raab doesn't give in to this insidious game of who's the most virtuous. I realise that nearly all politicians are hypocrites but I have more respect for him than those who made sure there was a photographer handy when they took the knee.

Grump over, back to the washing up.

R6

[scrumpyjack]

Totally agree CK, it is quite nauseating. So glad my Greene King shares were taken off my hands by that kind Chinese gentleman who now obviously somehow feels responsible for what a Brit got up to in seventeen something.

As for Lloyd's, I used to be 'name' many decades ago so they shafted me and almost sold me into slavery!

Hopefully the Italians will soon apologise for Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain and the outrageous treatment of Boudicca, not to mention what the French did to poor Harold! As for those virtue signalling Scandies, I still haven't forgiven them for all the Viking pillaging.

[Dod101]

I do not at all agree with CK. They are simply trying to cover their backs. They are damned if they do (as his post is illustrating) and will be damned if they don't. I would not like these days to be in the corporate world certainly not at the head of some of these big international companies. Half the AGM is taken up with some Green complaining about the use of palm oil in Indonesia and another about a bank lending support for trade in coal in Poland. Slavery is the next topic.

Apparently wokeness means social awareness. Big corporations dare not not display it but it is by no means the same thing as virtue signalling. And I wish posters would write in plain English for people like me who do not appear to be up with the latest semi slang words and expressions.

The article mentions banks being involved as well. I do not know what HSBC had to do with slavery considering it was not founded until 1865 and slavery was abolished about 30 years earlier.

Dod

[Lootman]

The article mentions banks being involved as well. I do not know what HSBC had to do with slavery considering it was not founded until 1865 and slavery was abolished about 30 years earlier.

Yes, but someone will dig around and find that some original investor in HSBC also had some South African or Caribbean connection, and bingo, the entire enterprise is built on the profits from slavery.

This whole thing has gotten completely out of hand. With most issues you can see both sides and reasonably support either side. But on this issue apparently we are only allowed to take one side, otherwise we are "racists". The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

The irony is that slavery was a net loser economically. The US is no better offer than similar large ex-colonial countries that didn't have slavery, like Canada and Australia. And now the US has a huge underclass to deal with who commit more than 50% of the crime and draw more welfare handouts than any other demographic.

Nuts.

[Dod101]

I think you may have hit that nail on the head. Thomas Sutherland who is credited with having founded HSBC was also a Director of P & O which (or at least one of their predecessor companies) probably carried slaves.

The whole thing has got completely out of hand indeed but then sadly these days that is what happens.

Dod

[Mike4]

The whole thing seems to me to have rapidly taken on the look and feel of religion with all the social bullying involved. It would have taken a brave person to buck the social pressure and not 'taken the knee', when everyone else there did and with TV cameras recording.

Not that I watched the event, whatever it was, so I might be writing out of turn. But this is my impression from all the news reports.

[scotia]

I
Apparently wokeness means social awareness.

Thanks for the explanation - much appreciated by older fellas.

[Lootman]

Apparently wokeness means social awareness.

Thanks for the explanation - much appreciated by older fellas.

I thought it was just the new euphemism for political correctness?

[Dod101]

Well I Googled it and social awareness is what I got. Seems to make sense but it might be best of CK was to tell us what he meant by it.

Dod

[Lootman]

Well I Googled it and social awareness is what I got. Seems to make sense but it might be best of CK was to tell us what he meant by it.

But that is all part of the game isn't it?

If you believe in "wokeness" then you describe it as social awareness or social justice.

And if you do not, then you describe it as political correctness or hopeless liberalism.

[Dod101]

Well I Googled it and social awareness is what I got. Seems to make sense but it might be best of CK was to tell us what he meant by it.

But that is all part of the game isn't it?

If you believe in "wokeness" then you describe it as social awareness or social justice.

And if you do not, then you describe it as political correctness or hopeless liberalism.

That is exactly right. Like most of these expressions it can mean what the writer says it means, a bit Alice in Wonderlandish. I had not read bungeejumper's contribution when I wrote my response but I think we are on the same lines. It is really an attempt not at political correctness I think but what amounts to self preservation or at least heading off criticism. I think most managements/Boards these days are well aware of this and have got to try to stay on the front foot, without much success very often. It can of course come across as political correctness. I had my eyes opened when I attended the AGMs of HSBC and Unilever a couple of years ago. Much of the Q & A sessions were taken up with stuff that most Chairmen I am sure would prefer not to have to get involved in but they have to patiently give the primed young ladies (they nearly always are) the time to make their point and then to solemnly try to answer them without actually committing to anything.

I am afraid that old fashioned Col Blimp type reaction will get us nowhere these days. I could go on but for the avoidance of doubt, I do not think it is corporate virtue signalling.

Dod

[JohnB]

Woke started as social awareness, but has increasingly taken on the critical elements of political correctness.

Like “politically correct” before it, the word “woke” has come to connote the opposite of what it means. Technically, going by the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition, woke means “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”, but today we are more likely to see it being used as a stick with which to beat people who aspire to such values, often wielded by those who don’t recognise how un-woke they are, or are proud of the fact.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/sho ... -the-right

[anon155742]

The whole thing seems to me to have rapidly taken on the look and feel of religion with all the social bullying involved. It would have taken a brave person to buck the social pressure and not 'taken the knee', when everyone else there did and with TV cameras recording.

Not that I watched the event, whatever it was, so I might be writing out of turn. But this is my impression from all the news reports.

This is what Soviet Russia would have been like.

Managers of shoe factories talking about increased production, clearly due to the wonders of proletariat led socialism.

Academics writing a paper on cell biology, with the introduction praising proletariat led socialism.

Farm collectives reporting a slightly lower yield, due to capitalist pigs attacking the glorious soviets.

You must obey or you are a target.

[redsturgeon]

The whole thing seems to me to have rapidly taken on the look and feel of religion with all the social bullying involved. It would have taken a brave person to buck the social pressure and not 'taken the knee', when everyone else there did and with TV cameras recording.

Not that I watched the event, whatever it was, so I might be writing out of turn. But this is my impression from all the news reports.

This is what Soviet Russia would have been like.

Managers of shoe factories talking about increased production, clearly due to the wonders of proletariat led socialism.

Academics writing a paper on cell biology, with the introduction praising proletariat led socialism.

Farm collectives reporting a slightly lower yield, due to capitalist pigs attacking the glorious soviets.

You must obey or you are a target.

Unfortunately this is where rampant capitalism has got us.

Difficult to argue with the facts.

I don't like it either but last time I looked the USA and the UK were not socialist states.

John

[anon155742]

I don't like it either but last time I looked the USA and the UK were not socialist states.

They are not but to change them you must change the culture first.

Trotsky:

"At the moment, our young men in their leather jackets, who are the sons of watchmakers from Odessa, Orsha, Gomel and Vinnitsa, know how to hate everything Russian! What pleasure they take in physically destroying the Russian intelligentsia – officers, academics and writers!"

[bungeejumper]

"At the moment, our young men in their leather jackets, who are the sons of watchmakers from Odessa, Orsha, Gomel and Vinnitsa, know how to hate everything Russian! What pleasure they take in physically destroying the Russian intelligentsia – officers, academics and writers!"

Humbly suggest that you take a few moments to google the context of that quote. It's been used so often online by neo-nazi and anti-semitic groups that it's acquired a distinctly bad historical smell. I'm not sure you meant it that way?

BJ