Maybe this is specific to natural resources but as someone who grew up in area that was economically based on a vilified industry AND started my career in said industry, the VI is regionally normalized when all of your friends, family, and neighbors also work in that industry. The people doing the vilifying are generally outsiders and thus dismissed.
People in coal country work in coal, people in places with a lot of oil work in oil, etc.
But unless a person doing the vilifying actually purges all, say, petroleum products from their lives, they are just as much the participant as someone who works for BP.
Coal only recently became possible to eliminate from the US power generation question, as a result of other vilified US gas production.
Lots of people like to vilify, it’s not often helpful.
Purchasing internet service from comcast, the only internet service provider allowed in my area, in a day and age where internet service is necessary for nearly all aspects of life, does not make me an active participant in comcast's bad business practices.
Likewise purchasing products which can not be readily substituted or purchased from a better source does not make anyone an active participant in the decisions of the company supplying those products, especially when the unethical practices go beyond what is necessary to produce the purchased good. I'd love to take an electric train to work, but somebody lobbied to have a highway built instead. I'd love to drink from a renewably sourced bottle, but somebody flooded the market with cheap petroleum derived plastic. I'd love to just fill my gas tank from an oil company that didn't actively lobby for lax environmental and safety regulations, but alas there is no such option. None of these actions are necessary for producing the oil products I consume, and my purchases are not endorsements of any of these practices. The false dichotomy that you must either boycott a product or endorse it is nothing but corporatist propaganda.
You could very well move to a place with a different Internet provider, I have had availability of the local fiber provider be a big part of the choice of where to move.
You could let public transit availability be an influence in your decisions about where to live and where to work, I certainly have let commute time influence which job offer I chose to accept, working from home or having a job within biking distance.
There are plenty of electric cars on the market and plenty of ways to get renewable electricity to supply them.
You probably shouldn't buy bottled water, and if a reusable water bottle made of a material you approve of is out of your willingness to pay for to stand up for your beliefs, you can't be helped.
I see this a lot and it annoys me. The "I have all of these strong opinions but am unwilling to make any life decisions that align with them and am helpless to change". Exactly zero change will ever come from people who make every decision to support status quo (because they are helpless to make different decisions) but complain about it to make themselves feel like they are doing something.
Yeah except I did move to a different city and then comcast came here too. Commute time is my primary concern for where I live, but the war on sensible public transit happened everywhere. You can get an electric car but the emmissions from battery production are actually worse than moderate driving nonetheless electrified public transit. I don't buy bottled water, but if I did the fact remains no one is selling water packaged in a sustainable material. At best, you can vote with your dollar for which corporate dystopia you want to live in, but you can't vote your way out.
When someone pulls a gun on you and asks you to hand over your wallet, are you supporting crime by giving them your money? Sure you could just move to a different place with lower crime rates, but that's not fixing the problem. Or you could stand by your beliefs and let them shoot you though they will just take the money from your corpse. No, there is a fundamental difference between the person who chooses to go out and do unethical things to other people for their personal financial gain and the people they take money from. In a functioning society, people need to be held accountable for their decisions. Bootlickers blaming victims instead of holding the decision makers accountable is exactly how we found ourselves in this mess to begin with.
Show me the oil company that doesn't lobby against public transit, or environmental and safety regulations. Show me the oil company that doesn't engage in anticompetitive behavior. Show me the oil company making good faith investments to diversify into renewable energy. I'll gladly pay a premium to support this good company which isn't a villain. If you can't show me a non-villainous oil company, then the claim oil companies are villains stands.
> But unless a person doing the vilifying actually purges all, say, petroleum products from their lives, they are just as much the participant as someone who works for BP.
People in coal country work in coal, people in places with a lot of oil work in oil, etc.