Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
One last thing:
Thanks to everyone for refraining from commenting on the word corrupt in this phrase: "It's a question not of NYTBR's being corrupt but of its fraud markers being bypassed."
I would argue that virtually all mainstream publications are corrupt to varying degrees, and I personally would neither single out nor ignore that aspect of the NYTBR. My point is that the fallibility of the NYT's Bestseller list is due not to inherent corruption but rather system-gaming which could apply to virtually every list at any level.
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We tend to malign a false consensus by attaching stereotypes of the kinds of people we assume must comprise it:
People whom the heckler feels are dangerously wrong must also be visually and socially apparent -- or so the stereotype implies. They must be people with unlikeable and/or threatening attributes.
Ergo academics = inbred intellectual bullies passing awards back and forth to one another; classical music fans = disingenuous tsk-tskers in whiskers and black turtlenecks who tend to brandish opera glasses or Herbert Tareytons* fitted into ludicrously elongated cigarette holders; genre fiction readers = white-eyed consumers with tentacled sucking mouths.
I won't even touch on the stereotypes favored by people on both sides of the political loyalty divider (as if all politics were Boolean). It's a divider which is nearly always arbitrary.
Suffice to bray this:
Every one of us is a closet Lilliputian.
When seeking out systemic ills, resorting to the stereotypes we associate with those ills is nearly always a mistake.
A thief can emerge from any group or stratum. The devil is in the distinctions between that individual and the people they might resemble. The sociocultural aspect of their existence is probably camouflage.
By extension, we ourselves are implicated by those same ills.
Our sociopolitical position doesn't matter. If we're willing to mischaracterize, stigmatize and demoralize people with antipodal ideas, then our de facto argument is for a culture in which debate is sacrificed to domination.
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* See this '50s Teryton ad campaign. |
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1) Every Ethical Perspective is equally valid.
What I mean is - Ethics is just strategy.
You're honorable. That's great. It helps other people so it's an 'approved' ethical strategy.
Someone is dishonest. That's not great for everyone else. However, it might be good strategy.
Note: I'm not saying it's the right thing. Just that it might be valid strategy. Which means that until the loophole is fixed anyone who doesn't have a proper moral compass (whatever that means) will use it.
2) Every list is manipulated. Usually it's the store itself doing the manipulation. Then you have the little fish and the big fish (Publishers) doing their own manipulation on top of that.
3) You might think the List Keepers are ethical and the system is being manipulated but they too are biased in the very ways they set up lists. For a long time all the top book bestseller lists didn't include ebook sales.
Isn't that corrupt?