Ford Stands up to Evangelical Right
Make us want to buy a Ford.
Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday said it will run advertisements in gay publications, reversing a decision last week to pull all advertising of its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands from that sector.
In a letter to some gay, lesbian and human rights groups, Ford said it has decided to run corporate ads for all its eight brands, including its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands, in the targeted publications.
“It is my hope that this will remove any ambiguity about Ford’s desire to advertise to all important audiences and put this particular issue behind us,” Joe Laymon, Ford’s group vice president for corporate human resources, wrote in the letter, which was posted on Ford’s web site.
Question: how big does a group have to be, for it to register as “important”? Last I read the gay community was 5% of the population and that’s being generous. Am I wrong? It seems like with those numbers groups like Koreans, Rednecks, and German Jews are being shafted.
I hate the whole idea of a “group” to begin with. Isn’t anyone an individual anymore? Or does everyone need to identify with one tribe or another in order to feel like a person?
Are you being poetic?
No. I’m just saying that there’s a hell of a lot of tribalism and groupthink going on these days and it seems no one wants to be an individual but belong to some group or another.
Well, society is full of memes and groups and clans, how else do we identify with eachother? the individual does not exist, unless you’re talking about someone who lives in the mountains to get away from all society, but even he would interact better with someone who shares his vision, therefore making him part of a group.
I’ll bring the lemonade.
The individual does not exist!? There you have it. Must feel good to be a cog in a machine, huh? Must feel good to have no thoughts of your own—just to be one cell in a mass brain.
You know something? I remember a certain philosphy very popular in the 1920s & 1930s that thought the same way as you did. There were two people who thought that the individual counted for nothing and that the state–i.e. the group—was more important than the individual and was ordered to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of that group.
But I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Recently, I’ve been saying to a lot of my so-called “liberal” friends that the only fascists they fight is the one they are supressing in themselves.
Wow. Topic drift in action!
To get back to Ian’s original question– and to touch on everyone else’s quest to either destroy or triumph the individual– it’s called “marketing.” Ford needs people who can afford cars to at least consider buying a Ford. By pulling ads from publications targeting gay men and/or lesbians they alienate 10% of the population (sorry, Ian, you’re stats are a bit low, its commonly accepted that 10% of the population identifies as gay, not the 5% you postulate) PLUS they alienate those who are not gay, but object to bigotry. Once again– marketing.
It’s interesting when capitalism presents us with an argument against bigotry and hate, because it does so only for selfish reasons. Conundrum. Hmm.
in pure capitalism, eventually all racism and bigotry is destroyed. thats how the markets works.
and yay for individualism. collectivism is evil, whether its fascist or socialist(but i repeat myself)
Group herding has nothing to do with individualism, collectivism or whatever. It’s a completely sound and logical device to associate one group from the other based on certain identifiable secondary characteristics. It doesn‚Äôt mean that all homosexuals are the same however.