[asploder]

It’s interesting that the author considers the conceptual framework of microaggressions spurious, while describing his negative experiences as a conservative Googler in terms of what a feminist might describe as microaggressions. To further undermine his own point, he asserts that several harms against conservatives have been caused by these microaggressions.

The difference between effective negative feedback and harassment/microaggressions is the former encapsulates a desire for the person receiving the feedback to succeed. Or, in the feminist lexicon, empathy.

[Hasknewbie]

I think the author is implicitly referring to more than simply unpleasant interactions at work.

As someone who is neither American nor conservative, I have to give it to them that there is a level of virulence from some on the left that is far beyond mere microagression, but is not acknowledged as such: there are continuous attempts to ban some speeches on campuses. If a ban fails it is picketed (which is OK), sometimes violently (which is not): speakers may receive death threats, and so can attendees. At first nobody cared because it was happening to far right hate-clowns (not that this would be a good reason to ignore this in thebfirst place), but this has drifted toward anything non-left, and now is even happening to people who do not toe the line, however liberal they may be (cf. the edifying story of Bret Weinstein).

Are there conservatives whining at things that are in fact tiny microagressions, and the hypocrisy is funny? Absolutely. But there is also a legitimately more dangerous phenomenon that is slowly growing, and the worrying part is that it is not being acknowledged by the 'moderate' left. The fact that political crusaders on their side routinely attempt to ban free speech, or send death threats, should be very much a concern to progressives. Instead it is oddly glossed over, and/or lumped in with microagressions or counter-demonstrations.

During Obama's first term people on the left could not understand how the American right could tolerate the crazies from the Tea Party and were looking the other way whenever their insane ideas were uttered. But today we are seeing the very same behaviour on the left when these psychotic episodes pop up. That is not normal. Regressive and authoritarian tendencies should be acknowledged and denounced, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they come from.

[Pulcinella]

So what you are saying is that there should be safe spaces for conservatives to express themselves? That conservatives should be welcomed for their diversity? That conservstives should be given a participation trophy and honored for their special snowflake ideas?

[Moshe_Silnorin]

Summers was put in a struggle session and fired for pointing out an obvious hypothesis that has psychometric backing.

Your ideology is ascendant. Congrats. But please don't tell me destroying someone's earning capacity is a micro aggression.

And know, this can't last. This strange moral fad will pass: our modern Lysenkoism is about to be killed by cognitive genomics.

The lies require constant maintenance while the truth drips in from every pore.

[malandrew]

Thank you for introducing me to the term Lysenkoism.

[amiga-workbench]

I don't see what's micro about losing your job for wrongthink.

[rifung]

> I don't see what's micro about losing your job for wrongthink.

I admit this is my first time hearing the term "wrongthink" but I assume this means something along the lines of "thinking the wrong thing".

If that's true, then nobody loses their job for wrongthink. What they lose it for is actually acting on it, which i guess you could call wrongdoing.

Take for example, sexual harassment. It's okay to find your coworker sexually attractive, and also okay to think about them in a sexual manner, but to openly say something without regard for whether it would make them uncomfortable is not okay.

[humanrebar]

...or being officially stereotyped (privileged, overrepresented). Or being explicitly excluded (mentioned several times in the article).

[rhizome]

Do you believe in the term, "culture fit?" How Google responds to this describes theirs. If you say that "it's different," or, "it depends on the department," then that's just a difference of degree, not of kind.

[skywhopper]

Who has lost their job for wrongthink?

[smsm42]

I think there's a bit of a difference in conservatives complaining about their ideas not being honestly considered and being excluded because of (perceived) groupthink, and claims like saying "America is the land of opportunity" or wearing a sombrero or making a burrito while being white as "aggression", micro or not. If the question were about some people, out of sexist or other considerations, would exclude feminists from being considered the part of intellectual discourse, that complaint would not get much pushback. Most reasonable people would agree that feminists should have equal chance to present their case, and for it to be considered on merits. What gets significantly more pushback is widespread attempt to use "microagression" framework to police everyday conduct and "micro"-criminalize or shame routine behavior - food choices, activity choices, clothing choices, even how a person sits - it all can be "microagression". Microagressions are[1]: "Where are you from?", "America is a melting pot", "I believe the most qualified person should get the job.", presence of liquor stores in certain neighborhoods, commenting on certain behaviors (note there how telling person of one race about being loud and another about being quiet is aggression, but the reverse is not, because obviously everything depends on the race!) posting a funny picture about Obama[2], or "Statements that indicate that a White person does not want to or need to acknowledge race" and "statement made when bias is denied"[3]. I think there's a bit of a difference here between the complaints.

[1] http://sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf [2] http://time.com/32618/microaggression-is-the-new-racism-on-c... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

[santoshalper]

I noticed that as well. I find it interesting that the alt-right has started to embrace so much of modern feminist/liberal terminology and tacitly accepted so many of the premises.

The modern alt-right conservative: "I don't believe in safe spaces, but please stop bullying me!"

[twh270]

This is incredibly disingenuous. Much of the left considers simple disagreement to be micro-aggression, while at the same time finding it perfectly acceptable to launch hate-filled screeds of animosity and hatred at anyone who doesn't toe the line, e.g. "You're a fucking animal that deserves to be put down!!"

Your comment implicitly supports this sort of misbehavior, implying that any complaint by an "alt-righter" is just whining and carries no legitimacy.

Both the far left and alt-right have adopted extremist positions and in general have nothing good to say about each other. Please don't legitimize hateful, unacceptable behavior from the left just because the alt-right has learned to play some of the same games.

[freshhawk]

I'm not surprised by it at all, because I think it's not that they have started to embrace the premises but always did and used them as the foundation for their ideology.

It is, to generalize, a group of white, middle class people who were raised in this modern feminist/neo-liberal framework that struggled to translate very academic ideas into a pop culture suitable form. Those poor approximations got mutated by internet forum culture (tumblr and 4chan most famously, but it happened everywhere).

The alt-right people looked at this incoherent pop-ideology and, not totally unfairly, saw it as saying that race and culture are the same and are very real, unless you are white. Sex and gender are the same, are real for men but a constructed form of oppression for women. It's not a fair description of the actual ideas, but the pop-ideology was and is an incoherent mess. So a group of mostly middle class, mostly white and mostly men rejected the parts they didn't like and used the incoherent aspects that benefited them as weapons. The parts they did like remain unexamined, so while they ridicule the language used by their "enemies" they still think inside that ideology.

[humanrebar]

> I find it interesting that the alt-right has started to embrace so much of modern feminist/liberal terminology and tacitly accepted so many of the premises.

The alt-right, to some degree, is a movement that has accepted the framework of progressive identity politics and has decided that they better start fighting for themselves, too. The complaint about safe spaces is an argument about equality and power ("If I don't get safe spaces, nobody does!") than an argument from principle.

I find the whole thing distasteful, but I can understand why if someone finds identity politics a foregone conclusion why they would start fighting on the battle lines they think were drawn for them.

So I'm not sure how to get out of this mess, but I think a first step is trying to understand people, even if they're wrong.

[smsm42]

There's a difference between asking not to be fired because somebody overheard and misunderstood your conversation as being "microagression" and asking mentioning anything that might upset you to be proscribed. In fact, the persons doing the latter are very likely to be the perpetrators, and not the victims, in the former. So it's completely logical - what they are saying is "we do not believe in declaring everything that we disagree with is violence and should be purged from existence, and we do not want to be purged from existence because we think so". I think there's nothing wrong in such opinion.

[LyndsySimon]

Many on the right now use that terminology to implicitly underscore contradictions in those belief systems.

I think it would be a mistake to believe that they subscribe to those viewpoints. Rather, a core characteristic of conservativism is a desire for rules to be followed and equally enforced. Pointing out places where the left is inconsistent is their way of discrediting those views.

[throwanem]

What surprises you about this? Historically speaking, it seems high time for a synthesis to arise.

I'm not sure what you find incompatible in "I don't believe in safe spaces" and "please stop bullying me". Hiding from bullies is a tacit concession. Confronting them is not. You might confront a bully and lose, but you might confront a bully and win, too.

Many at least - I think most if not all - who embraced the "alt-right" label, before its cynical and unjust equation by their enemies with Nazism, perceive themselves to be and have been bullied by those with whom they have the intolerable temerity to disagree. But those safe spaces which they have attempted to establish have not been permitted the conventional inviolability, but rather been gleefully invaded and their inhabitants shamed and castigated without scruple. Why "believe in safe spaces" when you are not permitted to have them, but rather encouraged with great firmness to accept that only once you have surrendered your dissent, and publicly abased yourself in hope of expiation for the sins you now forswear, will there be even a chance you may be allowed to feel safe?

As in every case where bullies run rampant and are unchecked by any impartial force majeure, the only passive defense has been invisibility, and it is very hard to remain unseen indefinitely. Your enemies only have to be good, or lucky, for a moment. You have to be good, and lucky, all the time. When you inevitably slip, or when your good fortune inevitably runs out, you are at their mercy. The social, educational, vocational, and even legal consequences can be severe - and, worse, it is not in your power whether they will be or won't be. But, like any bully, they're probably going to work you over that much harder for making them go to the effort of catching you, instead of politely submitting yourself for violation like a good little victim.

And as with any bully, there's no merit in what they do to you. No doubt every bully imagines himself enforcing some sort of right ordering upon society, in whatever sphere his power enables him to encompass. But this is a lie. The bully does what he does to his victim because his victim cannot or will not be what the bully demands he be. But even this is a lie. In truth the bully does what he does because he can, and because it's easy, and because it brings him pleasure.

Some grow out of this over time. Not all do. And power is seductive. It can easily betray you into doing things to others which you would never suffer upon yourself. It can give you any number of reasons for the former to seem virtuous even though the latter is iniquitous. The danger comes in the difficulty of differentiating this betrayal from reality. There are times when it truly is virtuous to, for example, break someone's nose, and times when it truly is iniquitous. Standing up to a bully, for example, bears virtue. Imagining one stands up to a bully, while in fact behaving as a bully oneself, does not. It is vitally important for everyone, but especially everyone with the power to crowdsource the sort of vengeful mob that can so easily destroy someone's social and professional and educational life, to bear this distinction sharply in mind. To fail in so doing risks erring into shameful, unjust, indeed frankly abusive behavior. And I suspect there are few on any side of any political divide who would be willing to argue that abusive behavior merits tolerance from those whom it would make its victims.