I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article.
I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions in the workplace for fear of potential repercussions. One thing that particularly upsets me, is how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace. I regularly hear woefully uninformed diatribes on geopolitics and American domestic politics (I do not live in America) in the workplace. Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense. As a result, I do not enter into such discussions.
I feel as though I am more open-minded than many others. I am always ready to be corrected if I am wrong, and I am always willing to discuss my views with people subscribing to other political ideologies. However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind. I also feel as though many politically active people are not acting in good faith. I feel that the safest option I will not regret is not to engage.
"However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind."
You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and informal debates on many topics but without my opponents becoming annoyed or offended (as so often they do nowadays). These days it seems almost impossible to debate any subject without upsetting someone.
I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. For instance, I remember Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge and A.J.P. Taylor and many others and it was wonderful and exciting television.
What so many people fail to realize these days is that one can learn so much from discussions and debates of this kind.
Incidentally, such discussions always remind me of the wonderful formal debate between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus in Book One of Plato's Republic on the topic of justice. It's so good that every time I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my back.
Lot of advice floating about the workplace these days along the lines of be candid, join the conversation, bring your whole self to work, etc. The people giving this advice seem to have no conception that not everyone actively engaged in these topics is acting in 100% good faith. Being too open could so easily backfire. Encouraging this is borderline negligent. Indeed there’s entire branches of activism that rest on bad-faith ideologies. Good advice would be to avoid controversial and political discussions and to keep a strong separation between your private life and your work life. Instead, we have employers, especially universities, asking staff to promote their organisations through their personal social media accounts.
I would say that this is a failure of philosophy in political leadership. Not that philosophy was ever paramount in politics, but it was at least expected in the highest classes.
Everything devolves into tribalism without philosophy. It looks like people are discoursing, but they are really just signalling.
> correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense
This is modern anti-culture. It's a climate where "opinions" matter more than knowledge and consumerism matters more than democracy.
There are many employers. I am an employee, but I am first and foremost a citizen in a Democracy... If I have the courage to defend it and the will to learn/educate.
An educational system worth the title should provide understanding of society and democracy.
> Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense.
This resonates deeply. I'm at the point where "I'm entitled to my opinion!" is a great signal to change the topic, never to return to the topic of politics with that person ever again
The result is that world becomes more and more boring. No interesting discussion can take place. Environment becomes more toxic and it's mainly due to radicals who perceive everything as offensive and everybody who disagrees as "nazi" or "racist" or "-phobic".
I think one aspect of Polarization in the US is that a big part of it is our expectations of polarization. I think we strongly overestimate the degree to which we can predict someone's political views and world outlook from a single statement.
I am worried we are in a positive feedback were perceptions of polarization lead to self-censorship among the less polarized, which further drives the perceptions of polarization.
I've been one to speak my mind. I see myself as having been punished for it. I was doing work a grade or two above mine but was held back from promotion. So I didn't make senior developer on that team. Then I was even in jeopardy of losing my job over a statement I made (not vulgar, disrespectful, or anything) so I have to switch stacks a couple times to move out of a bad area of the company. I'm 9 years in and just a midlevel. My trust in the company and my desire to work hard for them are abysmal.
"Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense."
I was stupid enough to do this too. People were discussing the gender wage gap the way the TV reporters do - that a woman in the same job as a man, with all things equal, makes 80 cents on the dollar. So I brought up the BLS study that shows that the 80 cents number is about an aggregate comparison of all men and women in the workforce, and that the main driver of the discrepancy comes from the types of jobs that men and women are in. I wouldn't be surprised if I get downvoted on here for this comment too.
HR departments are also being given the false impression that their latest "initiatives" have near-universal support because they only hear words of praise from the usual politically outspoken set. Everyone else keeps their mouths shut.
A large number of employees are in a "quiet seething" mode and are becoming increasingly disengaged from workplace culture (i.e., "I don't want to get to know any of you. I just want to do my work and clock out").
> Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense.
This is so true.
I've seen polling showing that large numbers of people believe that the number of unarmed black men fatally shot by American police every year is in the "thousands" or even "tens of thousands". And the further to the left the media people consume, the higher they're likely to believe the number is.
The actual number of unarmed black men shot dead by American police in 2019 is thirteen.
Regardless of what you think about racism and police violence, this is a fact. People who think that "thousands" of unarmed black men are killed by police every year are not only numerous, they are wrong - so absurdly, wildly wrong by so many orders of magnitude that if you tell tell me that the number is in the thousands, I'm going to assume you're deeply uninformed on many other things, not just this one number.
Yet in the current climate I'd be afraid to even correct people on this enormous, inarguable factual innaccuracy.
(And good luck explaining to people that "unarmed" isn't synonymous with "innocent" - you can be unarmed and still give a cop a good reason to shoot you, for example by attacking the cop with your fists.)
Is it really too much to ask that we leave this stuff out of the workplace?
Would you feel more comfortable in a company that openly encouraged / enforced political debate within a civil framework?
Is the problem (in your company and the world at large) that open respectful political debate has not got a common set of rules / words? If there was a phrase "I respectfully disagree - I understand that ..." was a phrase used by every TV host, Politician and Facebook poster, would prefacing your words with that make others more open to receiving it?
I still speak my mind openly in the work place and invariably I find that most people are actually delighted when they realise they can have open conversations with me without fear of judgement. The vast majority of people are still entirely reasonable.
Of course you never know if you’re going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, but I don’t go to work to make friends and I certainly don’t go there to be intimidated by bullies.
I can count the number of unreasonable people I’ve had to deal with on the knuckles of one finger and they all skulked away pretty quickly when they realised I was standing up to them.
I’m not trying to downplay what you’re saying. I think there is a culture of fear and I think it’s been stoked deliberately to a certain extent, but I also think it’s a lie. Most of the people you work with are probably like you. That may also explain why you don’t notice them ;)
Hmm. Seems like, in a political discussion/argument, the least open mind "wins", because they are the most impervious to evidence.
But the consequence is that the other side becomes less open minded too. They've tried arguing with someone who Just. Will. Not. Listen, who Just. Will. Not. Think. And when they run into the same arguments from someone else, they are less likely to be willing to listen themselves.
It's hard to stay open minded in the middle of this. It's a battle. There are areas I just don't want to talk about any more. So I guess I'm losing the battle, at least to some degree.
Whether there is legitimate fear of reprisal or not, work is not a good place to talk politics, religion, or any other topic that gets people emotional. Unless of course topic is relevant to your work!
> I feel as though I am more open-minded than many others. I am always ready to be corrected if I am wrong, and I am always willing to discuss my views with people subscribing to other political ideologies. However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind.
This is how every open and critically minded person feels nowadays.
There is a clear line between two groups:
1. People who think the best way to learn, educate and explore other people's views is by having an open discussion, saying uncomfortable things and having an ear to be corrected and showing mutual respect.
2. People who think that saying something uncomfortable during a discussion is an act of offence itself and therefore must be muted even if it takes some form of aggression by one or many people in order to mute that person. A discourse is only allowed if people immediately subscribe to a specific ideological idea and people are not allowed to get to that point through saying or asking the wrong things but must somehow be born with those views or otherwise need to be extinguished by the mob.
Unfortunately the 2. group is getting increasingly more violent and aggressive in their approach which makes the 1. group increasingly more aware that they are in fact in danger to just be themselves and learn about life through sometimes tough discourse or mistakes.
I would say exactly same is happening with health of human body or even how it's working. I simply stopped trying to correct others and talking at all about it. When people start conversing about it, I just shut up.
I believe that liberalism and conservativism concern different values, liberalism is about personal freedom (like freedom of speech), while conservativism is about preserving the existing values in the society.
It's quite normal as we grow up we become more conservative, especially successful people - we want to continue the success that was based on values we grew up with. That's why conservativism is associated with belief in authority - you need authority to enforce the values of the past.
So when you grew up, you perceived freedom of speech as a good value because it meant freedom, and now you perceive it as a good value because it was there when you grew up.
However, liberals moved on, and found other issues that concern human freedom, which were neglected before. So for instance, there is freedom to have a different sexual orientation, and be able to express it. Conservatives disagree with that value because it simply wasn't part of our culture in the past.
(Progressives - or perhaps socialists would be more fitting name - are based on another value, namely inclusion in the community. They are distinct from liberals.)
> how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace
I'd say I'm a mix of conservative/Libertarian and this kind of blows my mind over the past few years. It seems like I constantly hear people on the left openly voicing their political opinions around crowds of people, and always speak in a way that they genuinely believe everyone around them agrees....and often have a condescending way of saying it. It amazes me how they seem to have absolutely no idea where the right-wing people are even coming from. I think this recent over-confidence is mostly due to them not realizing the major media outlets are essentially feeding them communist propaganda (if you don't agree with this I'd consider researching cognitive dissonance). I experience this on a regular basis, and it usually leads to me completely losing respect for that person purely due to the lack of awareness that person is showing.
The other dynamic, and what the leftists don't realize (or can't process), is that the left's arguments are primarily things that sound good in practice, but don't add up in theory. It always sounds good when someone says they want to help someone else, no matter who says it. This allows them to go crazy in public giving one liners about the surface level of their political policies ("everyone should have world class health care!", "everyone should have lots of money!", "No one should ever shoot someone else with a gun!"...all because they sound good (even to conservatives). Conservative policies take a bit more explaining to get their point across, and are much more focused on the logical and realistic side of things. No one likes to say "someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts"...but it makes logical sense. That kind of talk doesn't exactly sound as good around the water cooler. Also, the time horizon for conservative viewpoints is often much longer (think about generations in the future and the impact today's decisions will have down the road). Compared to the left's policies that solve shallow issues today while mortgaging the well-being of future generations.
The simple fact is that conservatives have an easier time seeing where the left is coming from as a result of the left's primary policies being shallower and less thought out. These aspects also make it easier for the left to create snarky comments around. Conservatives however, simply don't agree and think it's all a pipe dream. They see the shallowness that the left is not able to. The left on the other hand, not only doesn't understand the right's overarching viewpoints...they also aren't even willing to try to understand where the right is coming from.
> My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now.
By who? Rosa Luxembourg, for example, was a free speech fundamentalist, and she is still far left of many left wingers today.
Free speech is a value that is often adopted, nuanced, and discarded by political projects from all over the spectrum - and it's naive to think that one side of the spectrum has a monopoly on its defense or denigration.
I have a few (really lovely) conservative friends who have expressed to me that they feel they can't express their political opinions outside of close friends and family because of the social risks involved with doing so. While I hold some "controversial" political opinions they're mostly related to fiscal policy rather than social policy so I've never personally felt like I couldn't express myself if I wanted to -- although I prefer not discussing politics in work environments.
However, last year I decided to start promoting conservative views I don't necessarily agree with that my friends hold to see what the consequences of this would be. I think people would be surprised at how open most people are to be honest. I've expressed conservative views on immigration, trans-rights and Trump as if they were my own and had very little push back outside of Twitter. I can contrast this with the fact that I've seen some people over the last few years express left-wing positions at work and have had at least equal push back. I especially remember one guy who expressed how he felt we should remove statues of historical figures who did things we wouldn't approve of today and got a very strong negative reaction in my office.
I wonder if the real problem here is that people who are conservatively minded are just naturally less comfortable with social conflict. I know my progressive friends are in all regards much more opinionated and seem far more comfortable with conflict, where as my conservative friends tend to be the types of people who avoid conflict.
Perhaps it's an age thing too. Older people who are generally more conservative and perhaps also less interested in getting into a heated debates on Twitter or in the office about some slightly controversial political position they hold. This difference in willingness to enter into social conflict may explain why conservatives feel they are in a minority despite making up about 50% of the population.
All I can say to those who feel oppressed is that as a bullied kid something I learnt from a young age is that it's hard to look myself in the mirror if I start trying to adapt my behaviour to please others. I much rather be myself and hated than try to conform at the expense of my identity. Be proud of who you are and never feel afraid to express yourself. If you're hated for that, so be it. It's better to be yourself than a coward.
I'm also a politically informed person and, unlike you, I am politically active. What can I say? It's my hobby. People go skydiving on weekends, I engage in left-wing politics. But I'm quite afraid of the possible consequences. What if a prospective employer sees me handing out flyers? What would by colleagues think? Well-paid developer and activist, how does that even work? Aren't they all unemployed and living with their moms? Fact is, many people (certainly a large number of bosses, and those are the ones whose opinions matter) think that you can't work at a private bank if you think private banking shouldn't exist.
At every workplace I've been at, liberal (as in right-wing) views have been omnipresent and shared widely. I've often had to bite my tongue. If your coworkers celebrate tax cuts because it gives them more money in their wallets you are a downer for expressing doubts on its consequences for society. Don't argue with people expressing anti-immigration views because you will be labeled a "virtue signaler".
I have no problem working with people who do not share my views. I briefly worked with someone who was a member of a Nazi group once (he didn't know I knew). It worked fine.
I think in terms of politics, discussion today doesn't really matter and won't convince anyone. It's about identity, not opinions or facts, they don't really matter so when you are trying to argue with a conservative, he is right not to listen to you.
They may know that their worldview is all wrong, and they aren't fighting for it because it's right, but because there's nothing in for them in the alternatives: they need to preserve their black-collar workplaces for as long as they can, ideally till they retire (so they reject global warming and other concepts that definitely threaten them), they need value of their houses to stay or increase, or again they will never be able to retire, so they reject any multi-unit housing, affordable or assisted housing etc projects, and so on and so forth. They don't fight for their conservative ideas because they think they are right, but because they have vested interest in them being upheld at least for a while.
This is also why in Europe, politics is a lot less divisive. Because most people own nothing and have no vested interest in anything[sarc on], they are already on the hook of the Big State[sarc off]
> Only nine percent of the British adults we surveyed described politics as “very important” to their sense of identity, and only 22 percent had shared any political content on their social channels in the previous year
> When it comes to speaking their minds at work, one of these tribes—home of the “Progressive Activist”—is not like the others. “A powerful and vocal group for whom politics is at the core of their identity,” as More in Common describes them.
i see this more and more. the loud few make a lot of noise, the majority just want to do their jobs. companies have to cater to everyone... but at some point there’s too much virtue signaling at work
'For two-thirds of the population, talking politics sincerely, on the job, is uncomfortable. People who hold certain, commonplace views, stay silent believing that expressing those views will carry penalty not reward. '
This sounds like a recipe for disaster for any company. When I worked in the UK no part of my job description was about 'talking politics sincerely' or sharing my 'commonplace views'. I did that in the pub afterwards.
'Ethical Systems' appear to be a great way to stir up rancor and division with the usual cocktail of racialisation (the new segregationists) and genderisation of everything. I can't see how this would help productivity or enhance people's work lives in any shape or form. It reminds me of the first frame of a Dilbert cartoon.
Progressivism is the new Christianity, taking over the pagan landscape.
It used to be that politics (in the UK) was class based. You are this or that based on your background. Two people from different classes would understand why the other did not support the same political party. That was how it was, and nobody felt the other should not exist. Everyone felt the other had a place in society. These progressive ideologies are different. Everyone can be part of them. You can be a pauper progressive and also a billionaire progressive. Secondly if you are not one of them, you are the enemy, and you do not belong in society, and the aim is to eradicate you.
This is what changed.
No conservative in the 1970s would have thought, everyone in Britain should be a conservative. That would not make sense. They would not have felt that was something reasonable to demand, or even at all possible. But now you got progressives who think that is indeed what should happen. Everyone should be progressive. If you are not you need to be exterminated.
And paradoxically, they want to include everyone in their ranks, but they also stand for very little. When you have all kinds, within your ranks you cannot accomplish much of substance without upsetting your own comrades.
I might be one of these progressive activists, and this is interesting to read and reflect on. I am quite vocal about culture, hiring, compensation etc, though I would definitely not say that I feel "confident being vocal" - it actually feels very exposed and quite vulnerable (in part because others don't necessarily share their own views). The reason I'm still vocal about it is that I care, I would feel much more satisfied if I can look back on my working life and feel like I was able to introduce structural improvements than if all I see is that I did what I was told and grew my bank account.
I am very worried about inequality and climate change causing massive issues down the road and the current system does not seem sufficiently equipped to address this - the "short term productivity" signal seems unlikely to lead to a solution by itself. So I guess fear plays a role as well.
What I would definitely not want is a mono-culture where everyone thinks like me, or large scale central planning, or anything of that kind. But I am desperate to find a feasible gradual path from where we are now to something more sustainable - if we don't find something gradual, I'm afraid change will be sudden and uncontrollable.
I know there is a lot of frustration about cancel culture, political correctness, virtue signaling, social justice warriors, etc. I think the issue here is mainly one of polarization and lack of effective discourse - it's easier to call people names than engage thoughtfully (which goes both ways). I hope we will find a way to get better at this collectively.
This happens in American workplaces, too. In my experience, most people at tech startups think the same, especially non-product people (anyone who isn't in engineering, design or product). If you want to unconditionally love the mission of your company, chances are you have to set aside your own personal opinions.
It is statistically very unlikely that your personal viewpoints are exactly parallel to the company's. Nobody wants to hire someone who thinks for themselves. Which is a bit ironic, because the best people are the ones who don't give a shit what other people think and are willing to call bullshit on their own product and even their own co-workers if they have to. Seen a lot of groupthink in SF tech especially, and it gets old. SF tech is like fight club -- everyone knows it's cult-like, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Nobody wants to be the one misfit who rains on the parade, even if the parade is headed off a cliff. In my experience, VC money makes smart people less smart. Having an outsider's viewpoint is going to be extremely valuable in the coming years, but it's currently out of fashion.
Personal politics has absolutely no place in the workplace unless you’re working in politics. Nothing good can come of it. Leave it to the pub and Hacker News.
My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work.
“Bring your whole self to work” is a flawed goal unless you live to maximise shareholder returns.
I am so tired of constantly hearing about politics at my workplace. Politics have already made their way into the tv shows, music, video games, and online forums that I enjoy. At least let me disconnect from that outrage-fuel at work. It also affects team cohesion. I can easily collaborate with just about anyone when I don’t know their political beliefs. As soon as I find out someone holds opposing views on a topic I feel strongly about, I can’t help but dread my interactions with them. I would strongly prefer to not know what my coworkers think about (most) non-work related topics.
I don't trust this article. The phrase "Losing viewpoint diversity" is of course crafted to make it sound like a chilling trend. Pretty clear what they want you to think about it. But if you drill into what that's referring to, whether you think it's a bad thing is entirely up to what you think of how the viewpoints are changing. "Fewer racists than ever" also maps to "less viewpoint diversity" but is totally a good thing.
I don't know anything about politics in the UK, but in Australia one of the big things correlated with conservative politics is growing up outside a big city. Rural and regional communities are under-served in everything from healthcare to transport to job growth. Coming from a working class background can also make it hard to keep up with the euphemism treadmill and know what's politically correct, even if you're on the left.
I also don't think outright racism is the only taboo viewpoint. Example contributions could be "I think male and female should be the most prominent gender options because my grandma wouldn't know how to use this device if she had to scroll through our current alphabetised list", or "do we really want to stick a gigantic Black Lives Matter banner on our website when 37% of our customer base supports Blue Lives Matter and will hate us, and 40% have no strong opinion"? If someone is skeptical about a political message, they'll be able to notice problems that the less skeptical don't.
You’ve gone straight to the implication that everyone who doesn’t want to hear politics from the noisy few is racist, despite the article not mentioning specifics. This is exactly the kind of chilling effect it’s about. I.e. “You’re not shouting as loud as us, you must be one of THEM”
I don't really care about the article, but I've noticed a very real trend of "unconditionally believe in the product, don't second-guess or ask why we're building what we're building". To me, that's what viewpoint diversity should be about. Businesses always suffer from "but we're already profitable" bias.
I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article for this phenomenon -- where you are making profit and therefore lose the desire to question the product or improve it significantly because you want to continue on your current trajectory.
It's possible to simultaneously be profitable and be doing bad work. The problem is that it is very hard to convince people that they're doing bad work when they are profitable, especially considering that most people are slaves to their equity and salary.
The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales said this very elegantly[0] "it's very hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it". This to me, is the enemy of viewpoint diversity. Success is a double-edged sword and makes people dumber than they actually are.
For many progressives, workplaces are inherently political by their very structure and processes. In this perspective, to ask a progressive to "not bring politics to work" is telling them that the established political norms shall be victorious (without debate). It's not like conservatives don't do virtue signaling: there are catch phrases like "respect for capital" and "work hard" that are just as prevalent in the workplace, it's just that those phrases may not be seen as being political.
In my opinion, there is room for many political perspectives in the workplace, moreover, they can all be correct at the same time. In particular, once people stop talking in abstract generalities, but in concrete actions regarding concrete challenges, many of these perceived differences melt away to reveal far more consensus than political posturing might indicate.
In my experience, the best way to handle political speech in the workplace is to ask the speaker to contextualize their perspective into a concrete action that they'd like to be taken, taking into account all of the moving parts and stakeholders. At this point, the ones who have a serious point to make have an opportunity to present a process improvement, or be educated about considerations they are not thinking about.
Many "progressive" activists are like Soviet apologists a few decades ago. Totally sure of their righteousness, blinded by their ideology, unable to accept differing viewpoints.
I sure don't want to work with those who bring their hateful ideology to the workplace.
I'm neither old nor experienced enough to back this with even anecdotal evidence, but I can't imagine this is a new development; surely most workplaces have always been hostile to viewpoints at odds with contemporary business norms. It's just the norms themselves that have changed during the shift to a globalized economy that favors knowledge work.
Despite the "progressive activist" moniker applied in the article and allusions to radical-left-cancel-this-woke-that blah blah blah from even more sensational sources, the prevailing ideology of the professional class runs in lockstep with global neoliberalism. Having anti-immigrant/Euroskeptic views is a surefire way to draw ire from your colleagues/manager/HR, because you're gumming up the gears of the way business is conducted in this day and age. But you know what else is equally unacceptable in the eyes of most companies? Genuinely progressive stances on labor organization, public ownership, and anti-imperialism. For the same reasons.
Most "activism", especially from within a company, is just cheerleading for the status quo.
If you select for diversity in everything except viewpoint, which (in my experience) has increasingly been the case over the last ~20 years of my career, is it surprising that you end up with little diversity in (expressed) viewpoint?
If you live in the uk you’ll realize the only place you’ll probably hear honest viewpoints aired in public is small village pubs.
The only place I’ve heard people vocally support Brexit or say anything other than support for the Labour party is when visiting relatives and going to the pub while there. I’ve never met a single supporter of Brexit or Tories outside of that.
What you generally hear on the street, in media and in the workplace clearly isn’t reflected in the voting booth.
One of the most depressing/irritating things in modern political and current affairs discourse is how standard it has become to say things like “X group is stopped more frequently by police” with the implication that the expectation is for equal rates of stopping. Basically the entire point of the entire discipline of statistics is that there are covariates, and substructure within a population, that cause expected rates to differ, even in the absence of the sorts of bias that are the focus. I wouldn’t want my children to think that sort of content was anything less than stupid since if they did not, they would be unable to think rationally about data.
Is there a way we can detect these people and not hire them? It takes enough restraint to refrain from commenting on rampant virtue signalling on LinkedIn and I often fail. Having to deal with it at work would be a step too far.
I find it far easier to get along in work environments by never discussing sports, religion or politics. Sports, because I don't care; religion and politics - because I want to get my work done and go home. I have worked with people who wore both on their sleeves all day long and found them to be uniformly unpleasant to work with.
Why on Earth would I feel comfortable 'bringing my whole self to work'? I don't want my colleagues to know about my hobbies, I don't want them to know about my personal life. I certainly don't want them to know my views on big-tech monopolisation, taxation, and intellectual property law. Choosing to present this as a bad point is doing it to create a springboard into the real point, complaining about other's politics. Which Hacker News is gladly leaping from.
[+] [-] livinginfear|4 years ago|reply
I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions in the workplace for fear of potential repercussions. One thing that particularly upsets me, is how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace. I regularly hear woefully uninformed diatribes on geopolitics and American domestic politics (I do not live in America) in the workplace. Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense. As a result, I do not enter into such discussions.
I feel as though I am more open-minded than many others. I am always ready to be corrected if I am wrong, and I am always willing to discuss my views with people subscribing to other political ideologies. However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind. I also feel as though many politically active people are not acting in good faith. I feel that the safest option I will not regret is not to engage.
[+] [-] hilbert42|4 years ago|reply
You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and informal debates on many topics but without my opponents becoming annoyed or offended (as so often they do nowadays). These days it seems almost impossible to debate any subject without upsetting someone.
I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. For instance, I remember Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge and A.J.P. Taylor and many others and it was wonderful and exciting television.
What so many people fail to realize these days is that one can learn so much from discussions and debates of this kind.
Incidentally, such discussions always remind me of the wonderful formal debate between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus in Book One of Plato's Republic on the topic of justice. It's so good that every time I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my back.
[+] [-] Tycho|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|4 years ago|reply
Everything devolves into tribalism without philosophy. It looks like people are discoursing, but they are really just signalling.
[+] [-] heresie-dabord|4 years ago|reply
This is modern anti-culture. It's a climate where "opinions" matter more than knowledge and consumerism matters more than democracy.
There are many employers. I am an employee, but I am first and foremost a citizen in a Democracy... If I have the courage to defend it and the will to learn/educate.
An educational system worth the title should provide understanding of society and democracy.
[+] [-] read_if_gay_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] switch007|4 years ago|reply
This resonates deeply. I'm at the point where "I'm entitled to my opinion!" is a great signal to change the topic, never to return to the topic of politics with that person ever again
[+] [-] SonOfThePlower|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shkkmo|4 years ago|reply
I am worried we are in a positive feedback were perceptions of polarization lead to self-censorship among the less polarized, which further drives the perceptions of polarization.
[+] [-] Underqualified|4 years ago|reply
"Taking offence is an act of aggression"
[+] [-] giantg2|4 years ago|reply
"Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense."
I was stupid enough to do this too. People were discussing the gender wage gap the way the TV reporters do - that a woman in the same job as a man, with all things equal, makes 80 cents on the dollar. So I brought up the BLS study that shows that the 80 cents number is about an aggregate comparison of all men and women in the workforce, and that the main driver of the discrepancy comes from the types of jobs that men and women are in. I wouldn't be surprised if I get downvoted on here for this comment too.
[+] [-] jcadam|4 years ago|reply
A large number of employees are in a "quiet seething" mode and are becoming increasingly disengaged from workplace culture (i.e., "I don't want to get to know any of you. I just want to do my work and clock out").
On the bright side, remote work helps with this.
[+] [-] yerwhat01010|4 years ago|reply
This is so true.
I've seen polling showing that large numbers of people believe that the number of unarmed black men fatally shot by American police every year is in the "thousands" or even "tens of thousands". And the further to the left the media people consume, the higher they're likely to believe the number is.
The actual number of unarmed black men shot dead by American police in 2019 is thirteen.
Regardless of what you think about racism and police violence, this is a fact. People who think that "thousands" of unarmed black men are killed by police every year are not only numerous, they are wrong - so absurdly, wildly wrong by so many orders of magnitude that if you tell tell me that the number is in the thousands, I'm going to assume you're deeply uninformed on many other things, not just this one number.
Yet in the current climate I'd be afraid to even correct people on this enormous, inarguable factual innaccuracy.
(And good luck explaining to people that "unarmed" isn't synonymous with "innocent" - you can be unarmed and still give a cop a good reason to shoot you, for example by attacking the cop with your fists.)
Is it really too much to ask that we leave this stuff out of the workplace?
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|4 years ago|reply
Is the problem (in your company and the world at large) that open respectful political debate has not got a common set of rules / words? If there was a phrase "I respectfully disagree - I understand that ..." was a phrase used by every TV host, Politician and Facebook poster, would prefacing your words with that make others more open to receiving it?
[+] [-] marrs|4 years ago|reply
Of course you never know if you’re going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, but I don’t go to work to make friends and I certainly don’t go there to be intimidated by bullies.
I can count the number of unreasonable people I’ve had to deal with on the knuckles of one finger and they all skulked away pretty quickly when they realised I was standing up to them.
I’m not trying to downplay what you’re saying. I think there is a culture of fear and I think it’s been stoked deliberately to a certain extent, but I also think it’s a lie. Most of the people you work with are probably like you. That may also explain why you don’t notice them ;)
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|4 years ago|reply
But the consequence is that the other side becomes less open minded too. They've tried arguing with someone who Just. Will. Not. Listen, who Just. Will. Not. Think. And when they run into the same arguments from someone else, they are less likely to be willing to listen themselves.
It's hard to stay open minded in the middle of this. It's a battle. There are areas I just don't want to talk about any more. So I guess I'm losing the battle, at least to some degree.
[+] [-] gameswithgo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dustinmoris|4 years ago|reply
This is how every open and critically minded person feels nowadays.
There is a clear line between two groups:
1. People who think the best way to learn, educate and explore other people's views is by having an open discussion, saying uncomfortable things and having an ear to be corrected and showing mutual respect.
2. People who think that saying something uncomfortable during a discussion is an act of offence itself and therefore must be muted even if it takes some form of aggression by one or many people in order to mute that person. A discourse is only allowed if people immediately subscribe to a specific ideological idea and people are not allowed to get to that point through saying or asking the wrong things but must somehow be born with those views or otherwise need to be extinguished by the mob.
Unfortunately the 2. group is getting increasingly more violent and aggressive in their approach which makes the 1. group increasingly more aware that they are in fact in danger to just be themselves and learn about life through sometimes tough discourse or mistakes.
[+] [-] Matrixik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] js8|4 years ago|reply
It's quite normal as we grow up we become more conservative, especially successful people - we want to continue the success that was based on values we grew up with. That's why conservativism is associated with belief in authority - you need authority to enforce the values of the past.
So when you grew up, you perceived freedom of speech as a good value because it meant freedom, and now you perceive it as a good value because it was there when you grew up.
However, liberals moved on, and found other issues that concern human freedom, which were neglected before. So for instance, there is freedom to have a different sexual orientation, and be able to express it. Conservatives disagree with that value because it simply wasn't part of our culture in the past.
(Progressives - or perhaps socialists would be more fitting name - are based on another value, namely inclusion in the community. They are distinct from liberals.)
[+] [-] jb775|4 years ago|reply
I'd say I'm a mix of conservative/Libertarian and this kind of blows my mind over the past few years. It seems like I constantly hear people on the left openly voicing their political opinions around crowds of people, and always speak in a way that they genuinely believe everyone around them agrees....and often have a condescending way of saying it. It amazes me how they seem to have absolutely no idea where the right-wing people are even coming from. I think this recent over-confidence is mostly due to them not realizing the major media outlets are essentially feeding them communist propaganda (if you don't agree with this I'd consider researching cognitive dissonance). I experience this on a regular basis, and it usually leads to me completely losing respect for that person purely due to the lack of awareness that person is showing.
The other dynamic, and what the leftists don't realize (or can't process), is that the left's arguments are primarily things that sound good in practice, but don't add up in theory. It always sounds good when someone says they want to help someone else, no matter who says it. This allows them to go crazy in public giving one liners about the surface level of their political policies ("everyone should have world class health care!", "everyone should have lots of money!", "No one should ever shoot someone else with a gun!"...all because they sound good (even to conservatives). Conservative policies take a bit more explaining to get their point across, and are much more focused on the logical and realistic side of things. No one likes to say "someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts"...but it makes logical sense. That kind of talk doesn't exactly sound as good around the water cooler. Also, the time horizon for conservative viewpoints is often much longer (think about generations in the future and the impact today's decisions will have down the road). Compared to the left's policies that solve shallow issues today while mortgaging the well-being of future generations.
The simple fact is that conservatives have an easier time seeing where the left is coming from as a result of the left's primary policies being shallower and less thought out. These aspects also make it easier for the left to create snarky comments around. Conservatives however, simply don't agree and think it's all a pipe dream. They see the shallowness that the left is not able to. The left on the other hand, not only doesn't understand the right's overarching viewpoints...they also aren't even willing to try to understand where the right is coming from.
[+] [-] youngtaff|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pasabagi|4 years ago|reply
By who? Rosa Luxembourg, for example, was a free speech fundamentalist, and she is still far left of many left wingers today.
Free speech is a value that is often adopted, nuanced, and discarded by political projects from all over the spectrum - and it's naive to think that one side of the spectrum has a monopoly on its defense or denigration.
[+] [-] kypro|4 years ago|reply
However, last year I decided to start promoting conservative views I don't necessarily agree with that my friends hold to see what the consequences of this would be. I think people would be surprised at how open most people are to be honest. I've expressed conservative views on immigration, trans-rights and Trump as if they were my own and had very little push back outside of Twitter. I can contrast this with the fact that I've seen some people over the last few years express left-wing positions at work and have had at least equal push back. I especially remember one guy who expressed how he felt we should remove statues of historical figures who did things we wouldn't approve of today and got a very strong negative reaction in my office.
I wonder if the real problem here is that people who are conservatively minded are just naturally less comfortable with social conflict. I know my progressive friends are in all regards much more opinionated and seem far more comfortable with conflict, where as my conservative friends tend to be the types of people who avoid conflict.
Perhaps it's an age thing too. Older people who are generally more conservative and perhaps also less interested in getting into a heated debates on Twitter or in the office about some slightly controversial political position they hold. This difference in willingness to enter into social conflict may explain why conservatives feel they are in a minority despite making up about 50% of the population.
All I can say to those who feel oppressed is that as a bullied kid something I learnt from a young age is that it's hard to look myself in the mirror if I start trying to adapt my behaviour to please others. I much rather be myself and hated than try to conform at the expense of my identity. Be proud of who you are and never feel afraid to express yourself. If you're hated for that, so be it. It's better to be yourself than a coward.
[+] [-] bjourne|4 years ago|reply
At every workplace I've been at, liberal (as in right-wing) views have been omnipresent and shared widely. I've often had to bite my tongue. If your coworkers celebrate tax cuts because it gives them more money in their wallets you are a downer for expressing doubts on its consequences for society. Don't argue with people expressing anti-immigration views because you will be labeled a "virtue signaler".
I have no problem working with people who do not share my views. I briefly worked with someone who was a member of a Nazi group once (he didn't know I knew). It worked fine.
[+] [-] anovikov|4 years ago|reply
They may know that their worldview is all wrong, and they aren't fighting for it because it's right, but because there's nothing in for them in the alternatives: they need to preserve their black-collar workplaces for as long as they can, ideally till they retire (so they reject global warming and other concepts that definitely threaten them), they need value of their houses to stay or increase, or again they will never be able to retire, so they reject any multi-unit housing, affordable or assisted housing etc projects, and so on and so forth. They don't fight for their conservative ideas because they think they are right, but because they have vested interest in them being upheld at least for a while.
This is also why in Europe, politics is a lot less divisive. Because most people own nothing and have no vested interest in anything[sarc on], they are already on the hook of the Big State[sarc off]
[+] [-] foolfoolz|4 years ago|reply
> When it comes to speaking their minds at work, one of these tribes—home of the “Progressive Activist”—is not like the others. “A powerful and vocal group for whom politics is at the core of their identity,” as More in Common describes them.
i see this more and more. the loud few make a lot of noise, the majority just want to do their jobs. companies have to cater to everyone... but at some point there’s too much virtue signaling at work
[+] [-] olivermarks|4 years ago|reply
This sounds like a recipe for disaster for any company. When I worked in the UK no part of my job description was about 'talking politics sincerely' or sharing my 'commonplace views'. I did that in the pub afterwards.
'Ethical Systems' appear to be a great way to stir up rancor and division with the usual cocktail of racialisation (the new segregationists) and genderisation of everything. I can't see how this would help productivity or enhance people's work lives in any shape or form. It reminds me of the first frame of a Dilbert cartoon.
[+] [-] mustafa_pasi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samvher|4 years ago|reply
I am very worried about inequality and climate change causing massive issues down the road and the current system does not seem sufficiently equipped to address this - the "short term productivity" signal seems unlikely to lead to a solution by itself. So I guess fear plays a role as well.
What I would definitely not want is a mono-culture where everyone thinks like me, or large scale central planning, or anything of that kind. But I am desperate to find a feasible gradual path from where we are now to something more sustainable - if we don't find something gradual, I'm afraid change will be sudden and uncontrollable.
I know there is a lot of frustration about cancel culture, political correctness, virtue signaling, social justice warriors, etc. I think the issue here is mainly one of polarization and lack of effective discourse - it's easier to call people names than engage thoughtfully (which goes both ways). I hope we will find a way to get better at this collectively.
[+] [-] anonytrary|4 years ago|reply
It is statistically very unlikely that your personal viewpoints are exactly parallel to the company's. Nobody wants to hire someone who thinks for themselves. Which is a bit ironic, because the best people are the ones who don't give a shit what other people think and are willing to call bullshit on their own product and even their own co-workers if they have to. Seen a lot of groupthink in SF tech especially, and it gets old. SF tech is like fight club -- everyone knows it's cult-like, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Nobody wants to be the one misfit who rains on the parade, even if the parade is headed off a cliff. In my experience, VC money makes smart people less smart. Having an outsider's viewpoint is going to be extremely valuable in the coming years, but it's currently out of fashion.
[+] [-] jl6|4 years ago|reply
My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work.
“Bring your whole self to work” is a flawed goal unless you live to maximise shareholder returns.
[+] [-] phroobster|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajkjk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strken|4 years ago|reply
I also don't think outright racism is the only taboo viewpoint. Example contributions could be "I think male and female should be the most prominent gender options because my grandma wouldn't know how to use this device if she had to scroll through our current alphabetised list", or "do we really want to stick a gigantic Black Lives Matter banner on our website when 37% of our customer base supports Blue Lives Matter and will hate us, and 40% have no strong opinion"? If someone is skeptical about a political message, they'll be able to notice problems that the less skeptical don't.
[+] [-] Neil44|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonytrary|4 years ago|reply
I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article for this phenomenon -- where you are making profit and therefore lose the desire to question the product or improve it significantly because you want to continue on your current trajectory.
It's possible to simultaneously be profitable and be doing bad work. The problem is that it is very hard to convince people that they're doing bad work when they are profitable, especially considering that most people are slaves to their equity and salary.
The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales said this very elegantly[0] "it's very hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it". This to me, is the enemy of viewpoint diversity. Success is a double-edged sword and makes people dumber than they actually are.
[0] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jimmy-wales/
[+] [-] briefcomment|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarkevans|4 years ago|reply
In my opinion, there is room for many political perspectives in the workplace, moreover, they can all be correct at the same time. In particular, once people stop talking in abstract generalities, but in concrete actions regarding concrete challenges, many of these perceived differences melt away to reveal far more consensus than political posturing might indicate.
In my experience, the best way to handle political speech in the workplace is to ask the speaker to contextualize their perspective into a concrete action that they'd like to be taken, taking into account all of the moving parts and stakeholders. At this point, the ones who have a serious point to make have an opportunity to present a process improvement, or be educated about considerations they are not thinking about.
[+] [-] nanagojo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kewrkewm53|4 years ago|reply
I sure don't want to work with those who bring their hateful ideology to the workplace.
[+] [-] jim-jim-jim|4 years ago|reply
Despite the "progressive activist" moniker applied in the article and allusions to radical-left-cancel-this-woke-that blah blah blah from even more sensational sources, the prevailing ideology of the professional class runs in lockstep with global neoliberalism. Having anti-immigrant/Euroskeptic views is a surefire way to draw ire from your colleagues/manager/HR, because you're gumming up the gears of the way business is conducted in this day and age. But you know what else is equally unacceptable in the eyes of most companies? Genuinely progressive stances on labor organization, public ownership, and anti-imperialism. For the same reasons.
Most "activism", especially from within a company, is just cheerleading for the status quo.
[+] [-] M2Ys4U|4 years ago|reply
I don't understand what this even means.
Is it that people think that there is too much reporting on politics?
Does it mean that people think that journalism is too biased towards political ideologies?
Does it mean that people think every story is excessively told through a political lens?
Without knowing what these people mean by that it's a completely useless statistic to use.
[+] [-] alvah|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|4 years ago|reply
The only place I’ve heard people vocally support Brexit or say anything other than support for the Labour party is when visiting relatives and going to the pub while there. I’ve never met a single supporter of Brexit or Tories outside of that.
What you generally hear on the street, in media and in the workplace clearly isn’t reflected in the voting booth.
[+] [-] da39a3ee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] callamdelaney|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivingmenuts|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrwyoilarticle|4 years ago|reply