Wal-Mart

Greetings,

Today there was an article in the news about a dispute between Green Day and Wal-Mart because Green Day, God love 'em, refuse to censor their new album 21st Century Breakdown.  As you might know, Wal-Mart has a long standing policy against selling music which carries a parental advisory sticker for explicit content.  The retailer, which is the largest outlet for CD's in the country, often agrees to sell censored versions of otherwise explicit albums.

The article outlined comments from members of the band and from Wal-Mart representatives on the issue, but neither party really hit what I feel are the most compelling points to be made in this argument.  The members of Green Day focused on the moral issue of asking artists to censor their art, while Wal-Mart, of course, focused on their PR spin of wanting to provide wholesome entertainment for families, and their willingness to compromise with edited versions.  

My problems with both of those lines of thinking are two-fold:  First, Green Day should not be attacking Wal-Mart by attacking the issue of censorship, it should be attacking Wal-Mart for the double standard of asking musicians to censor their art while not holding other artists, namely filmmakers, to the same standards.  Seriously.  You can find any number of DVDs for sale at Wal-Mart which contain much more explicit content than a CD would need to have in order to be slapped with a Parental Advisory sticker.  Not to mention the fact that if the whole "life imitates art" argument were true (which I also personally think is bogus), horror and action movies would have a much bigger negative impact on American youth than explicit content in music would.  Which would you rather have your teenager exposed to - graphic images of a woman being tortured, raped, and brutally murdered in the movie Last House on the Left (which sells at Wal-Mart on unrated DVD for $14.86), or Billie Joe Armstrong singing "Fuck" a few times on a CD?  It is a completely idiotic double-standard.

My second issue with this whole debate is actually more of a broad philosophical issue, rather than a specific issue.  The whole problem is being put in the spotlight because Wal-Mart is the largest CD retailer in America, and for many artists, they have to censor themselves in order for their album to be successful (which is one of the main points that Green Day made).  The real issue isn't one of Wal-Mart being evil, however, it's the fact that our system allows a retailer to get into Wal-Mart's position in the first place.  This touches on one of the big flaws with capitalism.  What is very good for Wal-Mart as an individual corporation turns out to be very bad for society at large.  In short, the blame for Wal-Mart's abuse of its economic muscle doesn't lie with Wal-Mart itself, but rather with the whole system for creating an environment in which Wal-Mart can be as powerful as they are.  (Told you it was a broad philosophical issue)

Sure, from a moral standpoint Wal-Mart should feel some personal responsibility (if you'll forgive the oxymoron of a corporation feeling "personal" responsibility) to do what's best for the group as a whole, but that's not the nature of the real world - as evidenced by the fact that we need anti-trust laws and labor regulations in the first place.  In the real world, each entity does what's best for itself - even when it appears to be doing something in the best interest of another.  Ultimately, pure altruism is very hard to come by.  And, by the way, if we followed this rabbit whole all the way down, we could have the same argument over whether God is to blame for the evil in the world, or whether Satan is to blame - but I don't really want to go there right now.

The goal I really wanted to accomplish with the second half of this post was to ensure that this post doesn't end up as another "Why Wal-Mart is Evil" post.  In my view, Wal-Mart is no more evil than a rattlesnake is.  Wal-Mart only does what comes naturally to an entity of Wal-Mart's size, and the key to tempering it's destructive nature is to have some respect for that nature and put it into some kind of cage if you want it to live in your house - or just stay away from it altogether.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.

P.S. - (Production Note)  I will be posting more of my English essays just as soon as I get the graded copies back.  For some reason I don't feel right about posting something on here unless I know for sure it's an "A" paper.