Apple's leaders take strong stances in those American political positions because those stances are against the tribal outgroup of the people who control Apple.
The tribal outgroup is, of course, American conservatives - especially social conservatives and Christians.
Of course any reasonable person would acknowledge that China's government is far more guilty of all the same wrongs as American conservatives, and many more. However, China isn't the outgroup of the tribe that controls Apple. They are a "far group" - just some people on the other side of the world doing terrible things.
What's more, they're non-white, which in the far-left view means the real moral responsibility for their actions must be traced back to the decisions of a white man some time in the colonial past. Ultimately all wrongs point to the true tribal outgroup - white male Western conservatives.
So Apple's leaders don't really care emotionally about anything China's government is doing. Because the tribal lines don't point to caring.
]Fighting against American conservatives is really rewarding, in self-image and social standing, and it doesn't cost or risk much business-wise, and it feels good to make them suffer because activists don't like them anyway. Fighting against China isn't rewarding at all, and costs a lot more, and people are trained to see them as hypo-agentic victims since they're non-white in the first place. That's the difference.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
Apple's leaders take strong stances in those American political positions because those stances are against the tribal outgroup of the people who control Apple.
The tribal outgroup is, of course, American conservatives - especially social conservatives and Christians.
Of course any reasonable person would acknowledge that China's government is far more guilty of all the same wrongs as American conservatives, and many more. However, China isn't the outgroup of the tribe that controls Apple. They are a "far group" - just some people on the other side of the world doing terrible things.
What's more, they're non-white, which in the far-left view means the real moral responsibility for their actions must be traced back to the decisions of a white man some time in the colonial past. Ultimately all wrongs point to the true tribal outgroup - white male Western conservatives.
So Apple's leaders don't really care emotionally about anything China's government is doing. Because the tribal lines don't point to caring.
]Fighting against American conservatives is really rewarding, in self-image and social standing, and it doesn't cost or risk much business-wise, and it feels good to make them suffer because activists don't like them anyway. Fighting against China isn't rewarding at all, and costs a lot more, and people are trained to see them as hypo-agentic victims since they're non-white in the first place. That's the difference.