As I mentioned previously, it's inaccurate to depict the decision not to release The Interview as being entirely about Sony. All major cinema chains turned down the movie first. And rumor has it that cable channels and download services wouldn't touch it either. But on the other hand, most individuals in the entertainment industry disagreed strongly with the decision. And now that it is getting limited release, it's mostly at independent theaters that are run by individuals. That brings up a difficult question: how is it that our corporations all reached a different decision than individuals?
Companies are often referred to as, "fictitious people." That's a description that is often ridiculed, but I've always thought that it does describe the concept pretty well. Don't get me wrong, I don't think of companies as morally equivalent to human beings. But they are complex entities that have their own personality, characteristics and reactions. Those actions may just be the result of the actions of lots of people, but they end up having their own personality, one that often is quite different from that of the constituent people.
A few years ago the documentary The Corporation took this concept further, having a psychologist examine corporations and conclude that if they are people, they are psychopaths, since they don't show any empathy for the other members of society. I'd have to agree with that assessment, but I wouldn't take it as rejection of capitalism. After all, there are a lot of psychopaths in society who don't cause anyone any problems. But then, they have to obey laws. And to me, that's the conclusion to take from the psycho-corporations concept: it doesn't rule-out capitalism, just unrestrained capitalism.
But that seems strange when we look at the actions of corporations dealing with The Interview. I'm left thinking that these companies may be psychopaths, but they're also kind of cowardly. That's different from what we see in humans. So I wonder how that happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment