The response to a letter sent to ExxonMobil

When I received an e-mail from The Ayn Rand Institute, claiming that two American senators, John D. Rockefeller IV and Olympia Snowe have sent a letter to ExxonMobil, “urging” the company to end the funding of groups and individuals who reject the idea of global warming, my first response was a gasp and a question “What?”

First of all, I was surprised, and I mean positively, that there is in fact a company which funds such things. I’m coming from a country where “large corporations” do not even endeavor into funding projects with better than good success probability, let alone things which are not expected to bring any foreseeable profit at all. These “large corporations” in Croatia are technically owned by the government, although the people who speak in their name usually take the blame for all the wrong-doings and non-doings of that company.

Second, I was surprised, and this time negatively, that the senators of a supposedly free nation would interfere with the workings of a company. To make things straight, I think that rational persuasion is a proper tool of spreading an idea to other people. Any other method is a violation of other people’s rights. I did not know whether the method in the letter was rational persuasion, but it seemed odd to me that two senators would ask such a thing of a company, particularly because I flinch every time I hear the name of a government official and the name of a corporation mentioned in the same sentence. My rule of thumb tells me that in such cases it’s about the government interfering with private businesses, and I am very much against that.

In order to find out what this was all about, I have googled the key terms and names mentioned in an e-mail from ARI and found the text of the letter in question. What I discovered is that the letter did not give any rational argument for why ExxonMobil should stop funding the groups it funds. Instead, the letter appeals to ExxonMobil’s “sense of stewardship of [its] corporate citizenship” in order to “end it’s dangerous support of the ‘deniers’” because “[it has] made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy.”

The sentiments expressed by that appeal are nonsensical at best. In effect, they state that the decisions of one American corporation have incapacitated the US government to properly execute its (primarily foreign) policies. It states that these policies are now somehow rendered less moral because of it. Where are they rendered less moral? The letter gives an answer to that too. “[...] climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil [...] has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally.”

Now, I am convinced that the government’s first duty is to its citizens. The proper government is required to protect it’s citizens’ rights no matter what, in both domestic and foreign issues, and these rights include the right to free speech. The only way, therefore, for the US to keep their “stature” internationally is to consistently practice this principle. It is ExxonMobil’s right to fund whatever organization, group, or individual it deems appropriate, regardless of the validity of the ideas they uphold. Therefore, it is not ExxonMobil who is jeopardizing the moral clarity of the US – it is the senators!

Not only do they ask of ExxonMobil to stop doing what it has the right to do, they also “[...] believe ExxonMobil should take steps to improve the public debate”, and they “[...] recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it”. They claim “[...] ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history.” And certainly the most unspeakable, “[... they] believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world’s largest carbon emitters [...] devoted at least some of the money [...] to global remediation efforts.” In other words they claim that there would be a benefit to the United States if ExxonMobil shot both its feet – make public their business secrets and begin funding that which might eventually make them obsolete.

As if this isn’t too much already, the letter also states “[...] ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years.” It is well known what is going on between the tobacco companies and the governments in the world, as well as in America. Cigarettes are heavily taxed, and tobacco companies are sued through and through and probably will be until every dime is squeezed out of them, because apparently it is their fault that people consume their products (while in fact it is the other way around – tobacco companies exist because there is a market for their products). This gives the senators’ letter a bitter taste of demand and threat, rather than request – it effectively says “You do what we ask, or else…” The e-mail I received from ARI identifies the analogy with the tobacco industry as a “thinly veiled threat.”

Finally, I will not even go into the debate of whether or not the environmentalists are correct. In this discussion, which is about rights, this is not relevant. People are free to believe that which is wrong, as well as that which is correct, no matter who they are, or what they represent. The senators are opposing this moral principle and consequently they themselves blur that moral clarity which the US needs in its policies. For this reason, ExxonMobil, as well as every person who holds his freedom dear, must acknowledge that the letter is a violation of ExxonMobil’s right to free speech, for no government may claim the right to tell its citizens what ideas to embrace by issuing threats. Only then can we speak of US’ moral clarity.

Borat

Regardless of Borat being a movie of bad taste, or even the fact that it has been filmed in a bizarre way (apparently, Borat lied to people he interviewed about what the material is going to be used for), banning it is like not allowing a man to speak his mind. People on the videos might sue and even win, and the courts might even decide to withdraw the movie from the market (even thought it’s a bit late for that). But to ban the movie altogether on the basis that it is bad, is to ban free speech. Image by Tostie14, some rights reserved.

If you thought that there is no censorship in today’s world, think again. Borat, the movie of really bad taste which I doubt you have not heard of, is being banned in countries such as Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Both the Russians and the Arabs hide under the culprit and say that they’ve banned it because it’s very offensive to some ethnic groups and other “blahblahs”.

Now, the movie of really bad taste, such as Borat, is generally not worth watching. But, as always, it is the choice of the individual whether or not to watch it. Russia and UAE have violated this principle. They declared that they will choose for the individuals that live in these countries. They declared they will not only censor the movie, but ban it altogether. First of all, what they are doing is wrong. Any censorship, no matter how stupid a thing being censored, is wrong. People have the right to free speech in any form – by speaking, by writing, by filming movies, etc. It is not a matter of what kind of culture resides in which area of the globe, it is a matter of life and death. Exchange of ideas, however poor in taste, is always a matter of life and death. What is really the difference between censoring a bad idea and censoring the best one, except that if you want to censor the best one, you have to keep it secret nowadays? None at all!

Insults towards ethnic groups and religions (Russia), or the movie being gross, vile and extremely ridiculous (UAE) is not reason enough to deny us free exchange of ideas – any ideas. Censoring and banning bad ideas (or movies for that matter) today, fuels the daring of various governments of the future to censor anything and everything on whatever basis they desire. Today the basis is insults and bad taste. Tomorrow it will be disregard for the current cultural norms, which might as well say that a man should not attempt to seek freedom for himself, or to explore the Solar System, or achieve any kind of scientific advancement. Make no mistake, the basis of such anti-conceptual philosophies is already being created, and not with pen and paper. Just take a look at the environmentalists who wish to stop all industry on the grounds that it is destroying the environment, while at the same time contradicting themselves that scientific advancement is necessary, but they do not see that industry generates exactly this kind of advancement; then there are the fighters for “animal rights” who literally destroy scientific advancement, particularly in the field of medicine, on the grounds of “cruelty towards animals”. Just as the grounds of Borat being insulting and of bad taste is not grounds enough to ban and censor it, the grounds of environmentalists and “animal rights” fighters are not grounds enough to stop human advancement.

The point is – just as Russia and UAE today are using beforementioned grounds to censor Borat, any country in nearer or farther future may use any established false grounds (such as that of environmentalists and “animal rights” fighters) to ban or censor anything else. Their success in banning something today gives them wind in the back for whatever bans they wish to impose in the future. Thus, all the fuss about lawsuits against Sacha Baron Cohen and his fictional Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev, and about censorship, lies on grounds by far deeper and by far viler than simply “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” being a movie of bad taste.