In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Confronting the Corporate ExpediterBuilding the Religious Counterculture
  • Ana Levy-Lyons (bio)

So i’m at a dinner party chatting with the guy sitting next to me, and he asks me what I do for a living. I tell him all about ministry, and then I ask him what he does for a living.

“I’m an expediter,” he says.

“An expediter,” I say, “I’ve always been curious about this. What exactly is an expediter?”

“I help companies do their business. I mostly handle violations.” “What do you mean violations?”

“Well,” he explains, “I hate waiting in line. So I usually don’t get permits for stuff. My client just does their thing and if they get a violation for it, I’ll try to buy them more time or get it waived or whatever they need.”

“So,” I say, “It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission?”

“It’s best to not get caught,” he says with a wink.

“Do you enjoy your job?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he says. “I get to do all kinds of violations — environmental, health, a broken elevator, what have you.”

“Huh.”

I was appalled! I had always assumed that expediters actually make things more efficient and solve problems, not enable companies to avoid fixing broken elevators. I wanted to say to him, “So in other words, for a living you help broken things stay broken.” But I said nothing.

I think I was stunned into silence because he was so matter- of- fact, so unashamed about the whole thing. It was just what he does for a living. No different, in principle, from what I do for a living. Value neutral. This is business in our culture. It’s just playing the game. You hire this guy to grease the wheels and unsnag you from any snags your business encounters, whatever they may be. No matter that the polar ice caps are melting as I write this or that people are dying because of all the carcinogens in our environment. Keep the flow of goods and services moving expeditiously no matter what. If regulations are getting in your way, this guy can help you get around them. And he’ll do it cheerfully.


Click for larger view
View full resolution

When did it become socially acceptable to flaunt one’s role in environmental destruction and social harm? The Expediter by Olivia Wise.

Olivia Wise (oliviawisestudio.com)

Unapologetic Amorality

There seems to be a shift in the public discourse recently: not only do people feel free to act solely in their own material self- interest, but they also don’t feel the need to pretend that they’re doing otherwise. They don’t try to hide it; they don’t try to justify it by appealing to any larger values. It has become socially acceptable to broadcast one’s indifference to the social and environmental implications of one’s work. Clearly there are exceptions: companies try to “greenwash” their images and some even genuinely try to make better choices. But it’s shocking how often public figures still feel no need to advance any kind of ethical or spiritual justification for their actions.

It would have been funny, for example, if it weren’t so sad, how the politics played out back in February when conservative organizations in Arizona tried to pass a so- called religious freedom bill. The new legislation would have explicitly allowed businesses to discriminate against customers on the basis of an undefined “sincerely held religious belief.” The bill followed a New Mexico court case between a gay couple and a wedding photography company that wanted to deny them service, so it’s clear which customers and which “sincerely held religious beliefs” the bill’s authors had in mind.

The bill passed the state senate. It was then up to the governor to either sign it into law or veto it. But then something changed. The business community flew into a panic. In the words of the Borowitz Report, the bill’s proponents were forced to confront “the awkward realization that gay people have money and buy stuff.” This bill was going to be...

pdf

Share