Sadly, I found out that Kurt Vonnegut died through an email newsletter from BORDERS titled “Remembering Kurt Vonnegut.” There was a link to a nice reflection piece about the life and writings of Vonnegut… and then links to purchase his books.
Looking at this email reminded me of my Business Ethics (not an oxymoron) class I took in college. This course is one I wont soon forget… 8am tues/thurs class Fall 2001 semester… that was the class I walked out of on 9/11/01, only to run into my friends Sarah and Catherine who told me a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.
My group project for this class was an ethical analysis of corporate response to the events/tragedies of 9-11. Basically, we tried to determine what was an appropriate response for business to take and what activities were really just “taking advantage” of the situation. For example, a major car company took out a full page ad in the NY Times expressing their condolences. No pictures, just their logo on white text on a black background. It could be taken for what it was, a major company acknowledging the gravity of the situation and expressing sincere condolences. It could also be viewed as a backhanded way of saying “Hey look at us, we care. We care about the people. Where are the other companies? Our company cares about you in this time of need. See our logo? Buy our cars because we care about you.” Another company, famous for “Good Things” had a pop up ad on their website that basically read “Show you are proud to be am American, bake an apple pie. Click here for recipe and order the tools…”
There were countless examples of varying corporate responses, and in the end I am not sure we came to a concise conclusion. If a company just ignored the tragedy, they would be considered heartless and out of touch… but if the company mentions the tragedy/uses an Americana theme in their ads, they run the risk of looking like some sort of predator taking advantage of the tragedy and sudden burst of patriotism in Americans. Sadly, there is virtually no such thing as a Selfless Good Deed.
Borders response to the death of Kurt Vonnegut was thoughtful and appropriate. However I wish the email was exclusively about Vonnegut, in the fashion of a “Breaking News” email you’d receive from a news website. Borders instead chose to use Vonnegut as a lead in to a list of sales specials. Any thoughts?
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