Purchasing Decisions?

[anamardoll]

So without bringing up He Who Must Not Be Named, I was intrigued by a recent thread wherein someone contended that deliberately not buying the (unrelated) works of someone for having different views than you was a trampling of the freedom of expression/speech.

I found this quite curious, because I actually "vote" with my dollars as much as I possibly can. I don't consider this to be censorship; I just consider myself to have limited disposable income and I want to maximize the chances that it goes to people who I feel will do the least harm with it.

I consider "freedom of speech" to be an absolutely sacred right, but at the same time, I don't expect there to not be financial consequences. If I released a very lovely book but then vocally went about on the internet saying that I very much enjoy watching, say, Cat Juggling, in my spare time, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see my book sales tank.

But that's just my opinion. I'm curious as to where other people stand on this. NOT AS SILLY AS ONE MIGHT LIKE FOR A THURSDAY POLL TIME.

[replica145]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I consider "freedom of speech" to be an absolutely sacred right, but at the same time, I don't expect there to not be financial consequences. If I released a very lovely book but then vocally went about on the internet saying that I very much enjoy watching, say, Cat Juggling, in my spare time, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see my book sales tank.

Cat juggling goes against nature... they always land on their feet.

[ucfgrad93]

Freedom of speech protects our ability to say things without the fear of reprisal from the government. It does not protect us from financial consequences when people who are trying to sell stuff shoot their mouth off and alienate a portion of their fans.

Yes, I vote with my wallet. I did not go to a particular restaurant for several years after a few bad experiences with their service. I will not see a George Clooney movie because of what he said about Charleton Heston.

[anamardoll]

Is there a difference between boycotting Clooney movies because of his personal opinions and boycotting Clooney movies because they are dreadful?

I kid, I kid. Please don't kill me with sheep.

[RDaneel54]

I've got several authors whose expressed opinions are not something I am willing to reward with my money.

Dean

[stickybuns]

Wuh?

If I felt morally obligated to buy a book from every Tom, Dick, and Harry exercising his freedom of speech, I would be broke before I could come close to even scratching the surface.

I was once asked if I was going to boycott a particular fashion designer who had made some sort of offensive comment to somebody. My rather confused reply: "Given the fact that I couldn't afford his stuff even if I wanted to buy it, the question seems to be a bit moot."

At any rate, just as you (the universal you) have freedom of speech, I have freedom of "I don't really care" and freedom of "Wuh? Did you say something?"

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I kid, I kid. Please don't kill me with sheep.

Ok, but are goats still on the table?

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by replica145

Cat juggling goes against nature... they always land on their feet.

Paradox - If you tie a piece of buttered toast to a cat's back (butter facing up), and then drop the cat... How will it land? Cat on its feet, or buttered side down?

As far as the poll goes.... Yes. I vote with my wallet (when I'm able to retrieve it from my wife's purse...).

[banjobama]

I really don't think I care. If I liked the series or the author's writing enough, I'd probably still continue to buy it. I like to think I'd boycott if something really inappropriate was said but really I just like to read and I don't care much about the author's opinions on other stuff. I don't buy books on topics or with themes that I know I'm not interested in and that's as far as it goes for me, until I find out all the proceeds from a book are going to fund religious genocide or some such. I definitely don't consider it a censorship issue.

[Penforhire]

I'll vote with my wallet but I really have to have a strong dislike for the off-stage (off-page?) persona involved. That is personal censorship I suppose but quite different than book bans, burnings, or library removals.

[jgaiser]

Well... Since *I* started the afore unmentioned thread I vote with my pocketbook, especially in the case of HWMNBN.

[GreenMonkey]

I must say, I bought less of he-who-must-not-be-named books since I found out about his rants.

The thing is, if I support someone with dollars, some percentage of that dollars is going to support things I don't support.

Say I buy a bunch of someone's books, and then they donate money to some group with a particular agenda. I'm indirectly funding the hate mongering.

I certainly don't worry all of the time and research all of my purchases to make sure nothing is going to the wrong places - that would be impossible.

But if it's obvious, I avoid. When my wife brought up Girl Scouts for my little girls I expressed some reservations for similiar sorts of reasons (although it seems they've gotten a bit better than the Boy Scouts).

Vote with your dollars!! I think they are even more effective than actual votes in some ways.

[HomeInMyShoes]

My personal opinion is that we vote every day and these votes are more important than the vote we exercise once every four years. As consumers we shape our future options through the choices we make each day regarding the stores we go to, the transportation we take to get there and the things we buy.

With respect to books there is a lot of value in reading differing opinions and a lot of what is wrong with the Web is that links are usually only to similar opinions. It's bankrupting our ability to critically think and evaluate alternatives. In increasingly polarized debates we lose the muddy greyish middle ground where real solutions may lie outside of the extreme dogmas that we are fed as so-called debate.

[phenomshel]

I've only done it once - well, I'm continuing to do it, I suppose, because I'm still not buying the author's books. There is a mystery author who posted in a "pet peeve" thread on a blog right about the time that the whole Amazon 9.99 pricing was under fire, about how her pet peeve was "people who read ebooks need to pay to play". 'Scuse me? How is paying $9.99 for your ebook NOT paying to play?
She writes two fairly popular series (I think only one is current) and though the books sound good, I won't buy them.
Logically, I should probably buy them (in ebook) and prove her wrong, I suppose.

Normally, I'm real big on "live and let live" and figure that, like with the Dixie Chicks, I don't have to admire their politics or their intelligence to enjoy their output. But that one, I guess hit me a little bit close to home. And yeah, I hold a grudge, because this was way over a year ago, now.

Do I honestly think I'm hurting her? Nope. I'm sure she wouldn't care about losing a sale to me even if she knew that she offended me, which I'm sure she doesn't. I may yet relent someday and get both series, who knows? But for the moment, I have more than enough to keep me occupied without them.

[HarleyB]

I selected the 4th option "None" because I just loved the phrasing of that choice and because it was the most accurate!
For me this would depend on how offensive I found the topic of disagreement and whether or not it was obvious in the author's work.
I've certainly been disappointed to discover certain things about some authors whose work I enjoy. But as long as it doesn't impact on the storyline in their books I wouldn't let it influence any future purchasing decisions. However if it was something that I found truely offensive then I probably wouldn't enjoy the books as much and so may choose to avoid them anyway - not as a boycott but because I wouldn't enjoy reading the book if I was preoccupied with whatever nasty thing they had said or done.

Sadly for a new author whose work I wasn't familiar with I might be swayed against them by their public persona and decide that I didnt' want to read their work as I wouldn't have the prior experience of their writing style to convince me otherwise.

EDIT: So I could probably have chosen number 2 "Maybe" but I just loved option 4!