OpsLens

Cheap Virtue

I was having a conversation with a British pal of mine who is an Anglican seminarian. I think I’ve mentioned him before in this column. We’ll call him Ian, well, because that is his name. Anyway, we’re both fans of bourbon and cigars and while enjoying them simultaneously at our local social HQ, Annapolis Cigar Company, we began ruminating with other friends present on subjects of general interest. The atmosphere there tends to be rather conservative. Ian is quite liturgically rightist regarding his future profession but pretends a Mimosa Marxism in other matters to amuse the rest of us during booze-soaked discussion.

During such Ian brought up a very good point, though not very Marxist, on how the modern practice of corporate institutionalization of PC norms is virtue on the cheap because it rarely costs the corporation a whit but gains them much credibility with the gullible. It’s virtue signaling without virtue. I, of course, turned it into a headline that sounds like a pulp fiction era “Girls Behind Bars” paperback. My favorite trashy paperback title? “Girls Who Don’t Read Are Skanks.” Oh yeah, back to the subject.

The future vicar has a point. Let me elucidate on this and associated topics.

We know of the recent practitioners of this tactic. Gillette and their exhortation to men to be soft and pliant in their demeanor, Target’s former creepy weirdness in allowing anyone to use the restrooms and dressing rooms of their choice, and the years that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz went on public tirades against customers who were not to the Left of Pol Pot, all took nothing off the bottom line. There was no heroic sacrifice, no expending of resources, no manning the barricades against the great social maladies of our time. Only a couple of corporate marketing people who convinced management that being au courant was more important than the downside of alienating droves of customers.

As Harry Callahan opined on another matter, “That’s a helluva price to pay for being stylish.”

Bargain-basement altruism like this plays well to media, academia, and all the usual suspects. Yet when Microsoft promotes “diversity” to the point of absurdity I wonder if it extends to their upper-level technical staff. Somehow I bet not, as math, IT, and physics personnel tend to have poor patience with people who got their jobs on qualities other than proficiency. When a firm loudly applauds transgender rights and the duty of all to comport to those principles, does the proclamation cover the recruitment and composition of their boardroom?

There’s the opposite tactic too. Wrapping yourself in the flag. But in name only.

Right across from my cigar lounge is a big Starbucks, on Main Street. Because of the presence of the Naval Academy, and other factors, this is a very pro-military town. So Starbucks puts up large signs in the store to say how much they appreciate and support the military. That’s there probably to compensate for the former hard Left tilt of the company. Oh look, they want us to feel we’re all one big star-spangled family again. Uh-huh.

That still leads various military personnel and veterans like your noble writer to ask just exactly how they implement that admirable vision. Military discount? No, they explained. Donations to military charities? No. Donations to local charities in this military town? No. So just how do they support the armed forces? “We really like you,” I was hesitantly told by a barista. Oh joy, I can now sleep well at night.

On the other hand there are companies like Comcast and Home Depot, especially Home Depot, that walk what they talk. Those two corporations donated a lot of time, effort, and assets to support the mission of the non-profit homeless shelter for U.S. military vets where I served as Executive Director several years ago. Their people were with us shoulder to shoulder at the shelter on numerous occasions. The contrast with Starbucks could not have been starker.

Though non-profits can be problematic as well. There is a veterans charity you all know. Since I hear they’ve gotten their act together I won’t mention their name. There was a time not long ago when they took some deserved heat for rather high-on-the-hog fun. Now don’t get me wrong. I realize that “non-profit” means you just call the profits “surplus” and, if you’re on the up and up, use it to fund the mission. Then again, the larger the mission, and this one is big, the more temptation to have that fun to balance the pressures. After all, work hard and play hard, right? And you’ve got to keep up the morale of volunteers and staff, correct? But, as their rootin tootin CEO did then, riding a horse into a function held in a hotel ballroom doesn’t quite create the image donors are looking for. So, as in anything else, do your due diligence before donating. Actually, go to Guidestar to check out the group you have in mind. They’re the BBB for non-profits and do a great job.

I’ve digressed, again.

To further contrast with Gillette, Starbucks, Target, and also with people of note who use PC image burnishing to feather their public perception, there are those like the actor Gary Sinese and groups like the USO who lay back on the glitter and sincerely give of themselves, their time, and resources to help veterans and local communities. These are not poseurs like some. They put more on the table than a hectoring ad about shaving.

Gillette has become part of the modern Bluestocking Brigade who feel comfortable in lecturing the rest of us on how to be good people. Their sanctimony is a badge of nobility to them, for the unwashed masses like us to look upon and sigh with admiration at their alleged sainthood.

Well, cheap virtue may garner a standing ovation in some quarters. It always works at award shows. However, those with common sense and requisite suspicion of do-gooder self-promotion see it as something else: a worthless appeal to the PC herd instinct, a valueless stunt that necessarily underwhelms.

In most reputable barbershops that and two bits won’t even get you a decent shave.