How did censorship, airbrushing history and “it isn’t what it is” become hallmarks of progressivism? A discussion for another time…
For the nonce, consider Porsche, which airbrushed away the famous Portuguese statue of Jesus Christ that overlooks the capital of Lisbon in a promotional video celebrating 60 years of its iconic 911 model. For some reason, many people had a problem with that.
Now why would they do such a strange thing? That’s easy: Christianity has landed on the Woke World naughty list, so acknowledging its existence and cultural influence is officially “unwoke” and an offense to diversity and inclusion, or something. Thus, some advertising whiz decided, including a tiny statue of Jesus in the background of a car ad would turn off the good, woke potential customers, and those dumb, racist, Christians wouldn’t even notice.
Good plan! Of course, all it took is for one viewer to notice (My wife notices details like that: she’d be a great film continuity editor), and social media did the rest. Porsche quickly got an earful, and the German auto manufacturer equally quickly issued an apology as it restored the statue to the ad, calling the intentionally faked background “a mistake.” Yup, it somehow happened accidentally, and nobody at Porsche noticed. Go figure! The company added that no Germans knew what Hitler was up to either.
Kidding.
So many corporations have made what they cynically regard as the purely pragmatic decision to throw in with the extreme Left that it seems impossible to keep up with all of their subversive political messaging maneuvers. You can’t trust them, their motives, or anything they do or say.
But then, I suppose, you never could.
Ethics Alarms 
How do you accidentally airbrush something in the background behind bridge cables and the bridge cables remain?
The Germans are exactly as good at lying as they are at figuring out how to dominate Europe militarily.
“Oooops!”
Well, in this case they just get an earful and change the ad. Annoy the woke and suddenly antifa is at your door looking for blood.
It is interesting the vagaries of life. I was aware of the Christ the Redemer in Rio de Janeiro, but was completely unaware of its younger cousin in Portugal. It took an attempt to keep me unaware, to become aware.
“The company added that no Germans knew what Hitler was up to either.”
Apparently the Almada statue was an expression of faith and gratitude for Portugal being spare direct attack during World War II, making this a particularly apt quip.
A mistake, my foot. They could have easily shot the commercial in another spot where the statue wasn’t visible if they, for some reason, didn’t want their audiences deriving a religious message from the ad. That they framed that particular shot and deliberately removed the statue sends a different message.
EC talked in the MAGA Loyalists post about how fear is generating conflict, and good leaders need to allay fear to bring people back together. I really hope I’ll have time to address that in more detail. But here is the general fear that is lurking in my thoughts, that this little example brings out.
So many corporations are capitulating to the Left. That makes it easier for the Left to remove conservatives from the picture. Conservative viewpoints actively censored through the social media platforms for which there are no real viable alternatives. Conservatives debanked for espousing the wrong viewpoint, opinion, or inconvenient fact. Conservatives forced out the medical field, legal field, academic field, and others, because they won’t support abortion, or sex reassignment surgery, or the current crop of vaccines. Conservative values, statues, names, etc airbrushed out of history, documentation, etc. Conservatives imprisoned because disagreement with progressive cant is now deemed violence.
It is good and reassuring to see that sufficient outrage can make these companies backpedal. It gives me some hope that all those fears I just listed are not completely in accord with the real world.
It’s how you start isolating and otherizing minorities prior to outright ghettoizing and eventually persecuting.
Something democrats and other totalitarian regimes have perfected.
I’ve been working through Saul Friedlander’s two-part history of Nazi Germany and the Jews and in the 1930s, that is exactly what happened.
Chilling.
Looking forward to hearing more, Ryan!
Corporations as they legally function on Earth are, in many ways, one of the largest mistakes of human civilization. Other institutions may lose sight of ethics, but corporations are designed without any to begin with. They are immortal homunculi with the sole purpose of accumulating resources through–in theory–voluntary transactions. All other limits on corporations depend entirely on what the enough of the public will put up with, in terms of regulations and in terms of purchases. Corporations create brands that stand for principles only so long as people with money value those principles. If they can save money by breaking trust because people will tolerate it, they will.
If corporations are capitulating to the Left, it’s because the Left has a loud and coherent voice. Even if not everyone agrees, if you can shame enough people into conforming to prescribed buying habits, that’s a steady incentive to signal virtues in the hopes of becoming the official sunglasses of diversity or some such nonsense. I don’t buy symbols; give me a robust, functional product any day. If we want ethical corporations, we’re going to have to talk with our wallets. And hopefully with legislation, eventually.
Are corporate bosses just really slow learners these days to not have noticed that there’s a bit of truth in the “go woke, go broke” aphorism? Marketing is inherently manipulative; do those choosing that career have the same (or worse?) sort of “I want to tell people the right way to think about things” mindset as many journalism majors?
In any case, it might be fun if the car tag appeared in some shots and it, by chance, read something like “DF1488”. Then they could catch he’ll from both sides.
I’d like to say I will be boycotting Porsche over this, but they make such amazing cars, so I’m giving them a pass—through they have to wait before getting my money until I’m done driving the kids around in the minivan (and hopefully before Biden/Obama take all my money, to make me pay my “fair share”).
The “mistake” was thinking no one would notice. Or care.
It’s irritating when people refer to their deliberate actions as “mistakes” but I think the error in judgment they’re confessing to is that they thought they would get away with it, or that it was worth the trade-off.
“How did censorship, airbrushing history and “it isn’t what it is” become hallmarks of progressivism? A discussion for another time…”
Perhaps deep in the heart of mankind there is an addiction to alienation and condemnation as a repsonse to anxious fear of loss and of the unknown. Whether from the right or left, the attemtpt to supress and cancel is merely a base protectionist response. And oddly, people would rather return to consuming what is called “news” because its serves fresh but familiar things which are safe to fear and feed protectionism. And like most things going down hill, even censorship, cancelation etc. gain momentum. Yet, until censorship lands in my neighbors back yard, all I have is a conspiracy theory.
They have always been a hallmark of Marxism, which is what ‘progressivism’ is based on.
Kids don’t grow up and become adults these days. The woman who ran Bud Light off a cliff is not an outlier. These overgrown brats are effectively running companies. Certainly, they’re doing all the grunt work and filling up the cubicles. They’re in control based simply on their sheer numbers and ubiquity. They’ve been coming out of undergrad for at least the last thirty years.
I think they’ve basically terrorized and over run senior management. Clearly, the NYT is a case in point. I think almost every newspaper in the country is in the same situation. They’ve run off older reporters in an effort to economize and replaced them with younger workers who are all crusaders for revolution.
I just cancelled my order for a customized 2023 Porsche 911.
Frankly I don’t care how stunning this car is, cancelling Jesus is several steps too far and I let corporate know it!
I never realized the Batmobile was a Porsche.
I wish I had known. I would have tried way harder in college.
This is crazy. Christianity is one of the most influential forces that has shaped modern civilization. Christians invented the modern university, were mainly responsible for creating modern science, and were the most important factor in defining modern concepts such as human rights, opposition to slavery, women’s rights, and so much more. To delete a reference to this hugely cultural influence is simply stupid if not malicious.
I’ll be cancelling my order for my new 911 forthwith.