Here’s a fascinating response to the recent culture skirmish that has erupted around Chick-fil-a. Just like you can purchase carbon offsets, spending money on something “good” to essentially atone for doing something “bad”, now there are chicken offsets.
I love the chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A. But I also like my gay-married friends and don’t like the guilt of indirectly supporting Chick-fil-A’s stance on gay rights. And I know there are lots of other people in the same boat. So I’ve started ChickenOffset.com. Every time you buy a chicken-sandwich meal at Chick-fil-A, you can buy an “offset” here. You can print out the receipt and demonstrate to your friends that the money you gave for LGBT youth more than compensates for the profits you put in Chick-fil-A’s coffers. $1 gets you 1 chicken-meal offset; $6 for ten offsets. We promise to send at least 90% of the proceeds (and will almost certainly send more than that) after our minimal expenses to It Gets Better and the Williams Institute. We promise your offsets will provide far more money to non-profits that support gays than buying a sandwich at Chick-fil-A ends up putting in the pockets of anti-gay-rights organizations.
If we are compelled to conflate politics and consumption then we should be able to extend this idea, and offset a lot more than carbon and chicken. What other offsets could there be for behaviors we want to pursue but wish to atone or adjust? Note that these aren’t penalties we use to punish what we don’t want, they are opt-in ways that we counteract our own choices.
I’ll start us off:
- Bad driver offsets – cut someone off or tailgate, your offset contributes $5 to the state fund for uninsured drivers
- Loud talker offsets – talk as loud as you want on your cellphone, wherever and whenever, and your offset will fund earplug distribution
- Homeless avoidance offsets – if you ignore a homeless person begging on the street, your offset will help provide them with clean socks
- Shark fin offsets – enjoy the delicious traditional soup and your offset helps pay for prosthetic fins and ocean-going rehabilitation
- Date rape offsets – no means yes when your voluntary contribution provides counseling services and funds the distribution of the morning-after pill
Offensive, perhaps. Feel free to take on the logical and ethical fallacies in my argument here. Chicken offsets may be a good idea or it may be a bad idea. What do you think about it? And do you think this opens up a precedent that we are going to eventually regret? I’m conflicted, myself, and would be curious to hear other opinions.
Tags: atonement, chicken, chik fil a, guilt, money, offsets
This is bullshit — just like big game hunters who claim to be conservationists. I can see things like buying carbon offsets — sometimes you have to fly.
But eating Chick-fil-A is entirely discretionary. There are other restaurants you can patronize. As long as you’re buying products from companies like Chick-fil-A, you’re helping them continue the behavior/actions you supposedly oppose.
Steve — your examples of bad driver offsets, homeless avoidance offsets, etc., are facetious. There are other better examples (sorry — they’re going to be animal issues) — buying products that contain palm oil but donating to organizations that protect orangutans. Buying products that test on animals but supporting organizations working to end research experiments using animals.
My life is as full of contradictions as everyone else, it’s just that sometimes we have to make what seem like sacrifices to live out our ethics. Something like this seems more like an indulgence than a sacrifice, though.
And I’m hard put to find your date rape example funny.
Comment by Amy 08.16.12 @ 12:38 pmSo if I understand you, the measure of acceptability for an offset-type solution would hinge on how discretionary the choice you want to offset is. We can choose to avoid Chick Fil A, we can choose not to cut off other drivers; we may sometimes have to fly (or we may sometimes have to consume palm oil?) and so in those cases, the offset is appropriate.
And for you, the opportunities for offsets would be around harder-to-avoid consumption.
I think that’s a really interesting framework; it’s not bullet-proof but I don’t imagine anything in this topic would be.
Comment by Steve Portigal 08.16.12 @ 1:26 pmYou’re right it’s not bullet-proof! I guess it partly comes down to whether you have another choice — another restaurant, another product that doesn’t use palm oil, etc.
But could it also be the severity of the consequence of patronizing such businesses? I mean (and this is pretty far-fetched) but let’s say Chick-fil-A was killing gays, I would hope no one would patronize them then!
In the animal world, there are lots of tough choices to make. Many vegans, of course, don’t eat or wear any animal products. They use lots of Earth Balance. Earth Balance is filled with palm oil. Only 3-4% of all palm oil (regardless of claims) can be proven to be sustainable. So in avoiding cruelty to some animals, they may be contributing to cruelty to others.
It’s tough. I’d love not to wear leather shoes but I have narrow feet and it’s really hard for me to find shoes that fit, and I haven’t found vegan shoes that come in narrow. So I wear leather (I have to add that I’m not vegan) and throw myself into other animal rescue and protection efforts.
Sorry to go on and thanks for being open to discussion. Your response made me think more.
Comment by Amy 08.16.12 @ 1:35 pmOkay, that’s interesting. Based on your comments I put together this framework.
Comment by Steve Portigal 08.16.12 @ 5:01 pmOh my — it’s intimidating to see one’s rambling thoughts translated into a framework lol. Oh no!, I think, what am I forgetting or overlooking?!
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as no consequences, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Because by patronizing Chick-fil-A one might be helping to fund its opposition to full rights for gays. Maybe it’s more consequences one can live with. Or consequences one doesn’t want to think about.
Comment by Amy 08.16.12 @ 5:18 pmThanks for posting this (which I first read on my Apple iPhone, networked with AT&T, and am now commenting on via my Apple MacBook with internet service provided by Optimum Online, owned by Cablevision). My use of those products and services does not mean I endorse each of those companies’ values or practices, but I am enabling them, so I should probably be aware of what those values and practices are. I don’t have to buy them, but I’ve chosen to, either for convenience or price or want. I don’t replace them constantly (my phone is 2+ years old, my computer 5+) so I feel like that’s one way to “be good.” But I have only myself to blame if I still support a company that outright contradicts my own values or if I do nothing to pressure them to change.
But your question is about offsets. I think there are all kinds of ways that we offset our choices (e.g., binge drinking then going sober for a week; eating a burger one day, then salad the next). I think it comes down to, what impact do you want to have on the world, and can you sleep at night knowing the choices you’ve made? I don’t see any harm in buying offsets, but they can only “add to”; they don’t “cancel out.” I don’t think buying an offset frees me of any ethical obligations. But of course not all ethical violations are created equal, so not every “bad action offset by a good action” is of equal consequence. You have to weigh who is harmed vs. who is helped, and act according to the code you can live with.
In the case of Chick-fil-A, I think the chicken offset idea isn’t wrong, but it does seem lame. If you’re bothered enough by the company’s ethics that you would pay a couple of bucks to a charity each time you eat there, why not just give all that money to charity and not spend any of it at Chick-fil-A? Or pressure the company to change its ways? Or give your time, not just your cash, to the cause? As Amy said, it’s not like a gay person dies each time you eat a chicken sandwich, but you are now actively doing something you don’t agree with, and you can’t plead ignorance.
On your framework I would put Chick-fil-A high up on the optional vertical and slightly to the right of center on the consequences side.
Comment by Sue 08.17.12 @ 4:51 amSue — Really well put!!
Comment by Amy 08.17.12 @ 8:09 amI did not read as literal and the thought experiment, even if coming off as offensive, is I think still valid.
There is a great deal we do, by necessity or discretionary that we never have to pay the offset for and the consequences discrete. Even if perhaps some crude examples they do reduce the mental offset, if nothing else.
Now off to buy my ‘I’m doing something and I care’ rubber bracelet to cover my middle class guilt and consequent denial so I can ignore actually doing anything substantive.
Comment by Coleran 08.22.12 @ 1:51 pmExcellent, Mark. The baked-in offset I think came up on the chicken page (taxes on gasoline, alcohol); those are decisions made elsewhere and for us, not by us, and so don’t factor in the same way; the idea of the mental offset is a good one.
Comment by Steve Portigal 08.22.12 @ 4:03 pmCuriously, I have been slowly zeroing in on an idea that I think this is a part of.
Although it started out as a small observation and the thing that got me into doing real UI work originally, it has come to form the backbone of most of my thinking and spread way beyond. I think most of these issues, and many more are not the actual issue but symptoms of it.
A larger thesis in development so will not say it right now lest it be taken as an arrogant over simplification but so much of what we observe and try to fix are symptoms. Rarely understanding what the real problem is or more often, was.
Offsets are I think squarely in that category. Not a deliberate action but a consequence of the loss and understanding of something more fundamental.
People know it as well and struggle to deal with it and perhaps the deliberate offset is not denial, but a way to grasp at something people know is there but can’t articulate or touch.
My apologies if vague and non-sensical but something to follow.
Comment by Coleran 08.22.12 @ 4:31 pmColeran — I’m not sure I completely get what you’re saying but I’d love to hear more as you develop it!
Comment by Amy 08.22.12 @ 4:39 pmColeran — While you’re putting on your rubber bracelet, I’m going to sign up for some more FB causes.
Comment by Amy 08.22.12 @ 4:15 pm…don’t forget to change the color of your twitter avatar while your at it.
Comment by Coleran 08.22.12 @ 4:21 pmOh gawd — I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding me.
Comment by Amy 08.22.12 @ 4:35 pm