While recently reviewing the Friends of the Earth US (FOE) website, I saw that they introduced a new genetic engineering policy campaigner named Eric Hoffman. Congratulations to Mr. Hoffman. Perhaps at a future time, he and I can have some interesting discussions on issues of mutual concern. But I hope that those future discussions would be based upon better writing than that which I found in connection with Mr. Hoffman’s employment announcement.
As part of the FOE US introduction of Mr. Hoffman, FOE used the following lead-in passage:
Friends of the Earth is a fierce advocate of scientific progress, but corporations often seek profit from scientific developments with little regard for human health. We must take precaution (sic) to ensure new technologies don’t do more harm than good.
Now, I’ll put aside the minor spelling error in their second sentence. I’ll also put aside the fact that there was no date on this post, which is really just a “bush league” error when it comes to Website writing and management. Instead of those small errors, I’ll just concentrate on the meaning of the passage itself.
This approach of playing the “anti-corporate card” gets a bit wearisome, and is plainly just bad argumentation. The anti-corporate card to which I refer is the phrase, “corporations often seek profit from scientific development with little regard for human health.” Let’s take this phrase apart to see how it represents poor argumentation on the part of FOE and only weakens any argument that they are trying to make.
“Corporations often seek profit.” Yes. Okay, I can go along with that part. That is the function of a corporation, to seek a profit in its activities, many of which are directed at scientific developments. Thankfully they do that. Without profits, no one would ever get a merit raise in pay. And without scientific developments, people would be dropping dead from what are now, as compared to the past, “easily-cured” illnesses or from complications arising out of minor injuries. Now, let’s move on to the next part of the phrase and talk about “with little regard for human health.”
This part of the phrase conjures up a picture of research & development departments operated by zany, madcap scientists who indiscriminately toss new products out the door without adequately testing them, or at least without testing them to the satisfaction of government regulators within the jurisdictions in which their corporations do business. In my career, I’ve known many R&D personnel, and have found them to be painfully cautious and responsible personalities, almost to the point, perhaps, of being too cautious. I’ve yet to meet one who I would consider as either a businessperson or scientist with “little regard for human health.” If, indeed, these individuals, and the corporations for which they worked, “often” acted as portrayed by this phrase, their mad scientist-like lack of “regard for human health” would produce deadly products quickly killing thousands, drawing the ire of the marketplace, causing the corporation to lose revenue quickly, putting the company out of business in short order. And if the marketplace didn’t do this, government regulators surely could and, I would hope, would
Using unsupported phrases such as “corporations often seek profit from scientific developments with little regard for human health” is plainly unfair and irresponsible. Had they sourced that passage, I might not be writing this post. Phrasing of the sort used in this FOE example plays upon people’s tendency to believe whatever it is they read, just as long as it’s in black and white, and not vet what it is that they read, especially on the Web. (How can I make a statement such as that one? With support. For more on this human tendency to believe without question what’s written on the Web, please see: “Making the Call on Web ‘Facts’.” The Christian Science Monitor. October 11, 2009, and Universal Mc Cann’s study entitled “When Did We Start Trusting Strangers?”)
In using this type of phrasing, it appears that FOE and perhaps many other NGO and activist organizations base their media tactics on this knowledge that people won’t question what they see in writing. And in making such unsupported, anti-corporate statements, it seems that organizations making such statements will count on their audience to call upon the NGO or activist organization to “right the wrong” as defined by the self-appointed “expert” group. (Don’t forget the second sentence in the passage: “We must take precaution (sic) to ensure new technologies don’t do more harm than good.”)
No. For me, at least, unsupported, “anti-corporate card” plays of this sort only make this organization appear weaker, as if they can’t find enough examples to support what they contend. And I would think that an organization of FOE’s stature would be able to find examples through which to set up a better argument.
On a recent visit, where I was once again befuddled as to why Corporate Watch doesn’t have a social media campaign, it occurred to me that maybe I was missing indicators of their participation in the social web. Upon visits to their site, I’ve found myself looking for the “obligatory” indicators of a Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or other social media account. You know. What I was looking for was those cute buttons hung on websites and attached to social media profiles at Twitter, Facebook, etc. CorporateWatch.org doesn’t have those. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t participate in social media. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place. So, I started a hard target search.
When you’re a corporate communications or PR person trying to deal with an irregular competitor who is talking trash about your company, it’s good to know something about them. (That harks back to what Sun Tzu said.) An understanding of the irregular competitor’s strengths and weaknesses will definitely help you in determining: 1) whether you should be responding to them at all; and, 2) if it’s determined that you should respond, knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses can help you choose which strategies and tactics to apply against them and what the irregular competitor’s counter-actions may be in return.
I have no idea what the authors, Hart and Sharma, are doing now, but when they wrote this 2004 article they were described as follows. Hart is listed as being the S.C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management. Hart is also listed as being a professor of strategic management at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Fagler Business School. Sharma is listed as being a professor of policy at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. So, quite frankly, I’m astounded that men with these academic credentials would use only one source upon which to describe a business environment, that tired old meme of the “evil corporation,” that supports their thesis. I’m also astounded that the journal editor would let this type of research go to print. And, adding even more to my astonishment, I’m gobsmacked that they would draw that one source from an 
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