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Copywriter Ryan Healy had an interesting post today discussing the reasons why people unsubscribe from his blog. Not surprisingly, many had to do with e-mail overload. But quite a few had to do with Ryan’s openly conservative Christian mindset.

I’ve been reading Ryan’s stuff for a couple of years now, and I’m very far from either conservatism or Christianity. But I still read him. Here’s the comment I posted on his blog that explains why:

I get some posts like those as well. And Ryan, while you and I are poles apart politically (I think Obama has sold out to the conservatives), and while I do consider myself a person of faith, I don’t happen to be a Christian, or particularly religious. But for me, those are not reasons to unsub. You always keep a civil tone, and I think core disagreements force me to rethink my positions, justify them to myself, and sometimes find them wanting and shift. If you were nasty about it, that’d be different. (I don’t read much of Dan Kennedy anymore because he’s way too shrill in his conservatism. I do read Clayton Makepeace, and have even contributed a few articles to his conservative news site as “The Unabashed Progressive”–but I tend to turn off when he goes political).

Anyway, in spite of my ultra-crowded in-box, I’m continuing to read your stuff even as I’ve cut back on a lot of others

And I love both your commitment to ethics (which I share) and your copywriting/marketing smarts.

I trust also that if you read my blog, you wouldn’t be turned off by the unabashedly progressive positions I often take.

I wanted to share my response in a LinkedIn discussion around ethics (I don’t know if that link will work if you’re not a member of the group). It started when someone asked participants to list a few ethics books they’d found helpful. I posted several titles, culled from the archives of my Positive Power of Principled Profit newsletter, where I review one book per month on ethics, Green business, or service (scroll down).

One of the group members, Professor Allan Elder, wrote back with a long comment; here’s a piece of it:

The concern I have with all the books you recommend is they espouse a certain set of behaviors without explaining the reasoning behind them. For the casual reader (which is nearly all), this leads to prescription without understanding.

This is my response:

It’s true that my list focuses heavily on books that talk more about the behavior than the philosophy behind them. A book like The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid is based on a simple economic construct: there is money to be made helping the world’s poorest improve their lives. Yet several of the authors I mention would, I’m quite sure, be very comfortable showing their roots in Kant and John Stuart Mill.

I don’t see this as a problem; I actually see it as a strength. Self-interest can motivate positive changes in behavior, and thus in society, that more abstract thinking cannot. Those who would never voluntarily expose themselves to deep philosophical thinking start to create changes in the culture–and those who find their curiosity engaged will go deeper.

A practical example from my own life: as a teenager, I got involved with food co-ops, not because I had any particular consciousness at that time about the problems caused by our society’s choices in food policy, but because I was a starving student and it was a way to get good cheap food. But from that beginning based purely in narrow self-interest, I grew to understand some of the very complex web of policy, philosophy, and culture that have caused our food system to be the way it is. Thirty-five years later, I can talk about food issues on a much deeper level–but I still recruit people to eat better by engaging in their own self-interest: better health, better taste, etc. If they seem open to it, I start bringing in issues like the positive impact of supporting the local economy (which can then, in turn, open the door to a larger discussion of ethics issues).

In short, I think the literature has ample place for books rooted in either the philosophical or the practical, because different people will be drawn to the different schemes, and either one is a starting point for understanding the other

Of course philosophers pay attention to practical matters first, only they use a fancy word: “Praxis.” I didn’t mention that in my response.

What do YOU think?

Here’s a depressing article that says today’s teens think they have to lie and cheat their way to success.

Sorry—I’m not buying it! Call me naive, but I’m the parent of both a teenage boy and a bit-past-teenaged girl. Among their friends, I see a delightfully high awareness about the importance of an ethical, socially conscious lifestyle, and about the importance of leaving the world better than they found it. And I think that kids raised in the era brought about by the transparency inherent in social media will be more likely, not less, to follow an ethical path.

The study is from a respected ethics organization, the Josephson Ethics Institute. While I’ve long known their work, and respect it, I can only hope they’re wrong this time. Faith in human goodness is part of what keeps me going.

While visiting Minneapolis, I took in the opening day of the new Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. I’ve long ben a Franklin fan. To me, his far-reaching curiosity, big-picture viewpoint, multiple interests, creativity, willingness to question authority and even make fun of it, media and persuasion skills, dedication to the public good, and rise from poverty to a comfortable (even hedonistic) lifestyle are all traits that today’s entrepreneurs can learn from.

No one can question that he made many important contributions in science (adding vastly to our knowledge of electricity, inventing a safer and more fuel-efficient wood stove), diplomacy/statesmanship (bringing France in as a powerful and game-changing ally against the British during the Revolution, oldest member of the Constitutional Convention), literature and communication (best-selling author/journalist/printer/publisher who was successful enough to retire from printing at 42, and propagandist for causes and philosophies he believed in), entrepreneurship (training and funding printers for a multistate network to print and distribute his works, anticipating the Internet by about 200 years and the modern franchise system by at least a century), as well as civic good (co-founding a public library, public hospital, fire department, fire insurance company, postal system, philosophical society).

But what struck me were some of the contradictions—there are many others, but these two in particular need a second look:
Slavery
Franklin became convinced late in life that slavery was evil, and served as president of an anti-slavery society. Yet he not only owned slaves for over 40 years, but often published ads from slave-hunters in his periodicals, and refused to put his name on much of his earliest anti-slavery writing.

Integrity
Franklin is well-known for his moralizing, his aphorisms, and his commitment to honesty and integrity. Yet he broke his apprenticeship to his brother, ran away to Philadelphia before it was completed, and started as a printer without the papers necessary to show he qualified as a journeyman.

While none of us are perfect, it does seem that these areas of Franklin’s life, among others, need careful examination, with more detail than was provided by this traveling exhibit (which seemed to be aimed largely at children).

Exactly how did Bernie Madoff steal his billions? Why are Halliburton’s hands so dirty? What happened with corruption cases in the rebuilding of Iraq? Following a link from EthicsWorld’s e-newsletter, I came to a single URL that has multiple stories on corruption: http://www.ethicsworld.org/publicsectorgovernance/corruptioninvestigations.php#sec.

This is what we’re up against, those of us who believe in ethics.

Although I’m a strong advocate of same-sex marriage, and have attended a number of gay and lesbian ceremonies long before they were legal in any U.S. state, I am very disturbed by a ruling of New Mexico’s Human Rights Commission that a photography studio, Elane Photography (owned by Elaine Huguenin and Jonathan Huguenin, was not within its rights to decline a job photographing a same-sex wedding. (That link is to the NPR story–scroll down–and in the midst of the coverage is a link to download a PDF of the actual decision.) And the photography studio is to pick up $6,637.94 in plaintiff’s legal fees!

The decision quotes the actual e-mail correspondence, which was civil, measured,not the least bit threatening, and simply stating that the couple did not choose to photograph same-sex weddings.

When someone contacts me regarding my copywriting/consulting services, I send back an e-mail response that includes the following:

Please note that I reserve the right to reject a project if I feel I’m not the right person for it. This would include projects that in my opinion promote racism, homophobia, bigotry or violence–or that promote the tobacco, nuclear power, or weapons industries–or if I do not feel the product is of high enough quality that I can get enthusiastic about it.

In other words, I am putting out my values and stating clearly that I will not accept projects in conflict with my values. I have in fact occasionally turned down projects because they were promoting causes I actively disagree with. And in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I even have a section called “When to Say No to a Sale.”

While the values of these photographers are not my values, I think they, too, should have the right to turn down projects that violate their particular beliefs. I feel this on both ethical and practical grounds: the truth is, when someone takes on a project in conflict with deep internal values, that person won’t turn in good work.

I support their right to not be hired to perform their art for a cause they disagree with; this is not a public accommodation, such as a restaurant or hotel denying service. It is not a job discrimination issue, but a self-employed couple in the creative arts choosing not to be hired by a prospective client.

It would be a sad day indeed if someone were to compel me to write propaganda for, say, a homophobic organization, or a company whose primary product is nuclear weapons.

I don’t know if there’s any appeal process for the New Mexico board, but I certainly hope there is. Something is very definitely rotten in this decision.

Very interesting discussion at LinkedIn on when it is or isn’t OK to pay referral fees. I don’t believe you have to be a member to see the discussion though you do if you want to make a comment (might have to join the group first, I don’t know).

Here’s my take.

When colleagues refer new business to me, I offer them a choice: commissions or “karma points” (good vibes and my thanks). As a copywriter, I get referrals from designers, complementary service providers, etc. I am comfortable with whichever they choose and see no ethical problem in my industry with paying a referral fee, any more than I do in paying a commission when someone sells a physical product.

However, there are industries where cash payments could easily be problematic if not disclosed, not just because of regulations but also because of ethics. The financial services field strikes me as a place to be particularly upfront, as with any companies providing services to elders, disabled people, or others in a position of vulnerability. And the issue of someone within a company referring to another part of the company is another place to be very upfront.

From liberal Democrat State Senator Dianne Wilkerson of Massachusetts to Chen Shui-bian, the former President of Taiwan, there’s been another spate of politicians caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Some of these people, like Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, have had positions of public trust for decades.

Isn’t it time we looked at this as a society? Not just in the U.S., but around the world. There’s got to be a way to govern that doesn’t put so much temptation in front of our politicians to abuse their trust and their power.