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New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

ethicalsystems.org

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Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#101

Post by kevingadd »

olivermarks wrote: post #10

'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 th…

What do you mean by "the new segregationists" and "genderisation of everything"? Are people stomping in and replacing gender-neutral workplace restrooms with separate ones for specific genders? Is racial (or otherwise) segregation being put in place at your place of work? Are gender-neutral pronouns like "they" being replaced in company prose with "he" or "she"?

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#102

Post by mr_toad »

hilbert42 wrote: post #69

"In the United Kingdom, most people don’t feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. For two-thirds of the population, talking politics sincerely, on the job, is uncomfortable." I don't live in the UK but have been there many times including having worked there and I believe this view is reasonably commonplace elsewhere, especially so in all Anglophone countries. I've always been a highly political person…

> 'gay' had a completely different meaning to what it does these days. And as for the subject itself, being completely taboo it was never discussed

> If one looks at the problem globally, speaking one's mind in public nowadays is fraught with dangers. No wonder that so few actually do so.

You don’t see any irony?

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#103

Post by luckylion »

throwawaysea wrote: post #50

This is definitely not just a British phenomenon. American workplaces have little to no viewpoint diversity these days, and no psychological safety for anyone who is moderate or conservative. Corporations have adopted numerous political stances that are right in the middle of the culture wars - support for Black Lives Matter, support for trans activists' stances, support for affirmative action (racially discriminator…

With regard to why it wasn't confined to Google etc, I'm under the impression that a lot of it is just fear of media coverage. If you have very progressive activists in the large media companies (or have the large media companies often cover/follow the activists), you'll automatically get corporations wanting to insure themselves against attacks.

I do believe that it sorts itself out in the long run, as more and more consumers will drop activist media products and they lose their relevance (who's afraid of having a hit piece about their multinational corporation published in a local school paper vs the New York Times).

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#104

Post by CyberRabbi »

While I think it’s wrong for people to be generally afraid of being penalized for their political beliefs, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with a lack of “viewpoint diversity” at the workplace. By “viewpoint” I’m taking them to mean political and political beliefs just aren’t very relevant to the majority of jobs.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#105

Post by zxzax »

insert_coin wrote: post #97
zorpner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be neutral on a moving train. If you're not fighting against it, you're for it.

And just by chance you decided what ‘it’ was.

How? Most people who ride a train didn't also build that train.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#106

Post by anitil »

zorpner wrote: post #95
ineptech wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption that the world can be divided in to "progressive activists" and "racists" probably has a lot to do with the reason people don't want to express diverse political opinions at work.

You can't be neutral on a moving train. If you're not fighting against it, you're for it.

Only the Sith deal in absolutes

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#107

Post by arka2147483647 »

pasabagi wrote: post #98
livinginfear wrote: post #80

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 i…

> 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 d…

In princible, the progressive left supports free speach.

In practice, disagreement is met with explanations and accusations of ”shifting overton window”, ”new normal” and ”normalization”.

Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#108

Post by dx034 »

Thorentis wrote: post #70
olivermarks wrote: post #10

'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 th…

People with, shall we say, radically progressive views, are more than comfortable to share them openly in the staff rooms, kitchens, before and after meetings, etc. without anybody contending with them. Anybody with more centrist, or God forbid conservative views, saves them for the pub afterwards or for their private gatherings. The Overton window seems to shift weekly.

That's the case if the majority of people hold progressive views. I've encountered enough conservative companies where people had no problem sharing openly conservative views (some to an extreme that led to open racism).

In those companies, no one would've dared voicing progressive views. Doing that was the easiest way to become an outsider.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#109

Post by tdeck »

jollybean wrote: post #79
wpietri wrote: post #13

Funny that they don't mention what "certain, commonplace views" people "stay silent" about. That might put a different spin on things. As I mentioned [1] about the Basecamp debacle, you can't get full "viewpoint diversity" and full "identity diversity" because some viewpoints are hostile to some identities. Given our society's long history of those viewpoints being endemic, and given the slow movement away from ident…

The most newly contentious formerly 'commonplace view' is the position that 'we should treat people for who they are, not for their race, gender' etc.. This is actually the fault line between classical progressives and newer groups. CRT hinges on the notion that groups are marginalized in a million unseen ways, in which case, one simply cannot ignore anothers race, rather one must make assumptions about that person's…

Somehow the legacy of MLK has been reduced to just that one quote, even though he wrote a a book ("Why We Can't Wait") that advocated for affirmative action programs for black people. His legacy has effectively been sanitized and "abridged" to be less challenging to persistent and harmful power structures.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#110

Post by goatlover »

zorpner wrote: post #95
ineptech wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption that the world can be divided in to "progressive activists" and "racists" probably has a lot to do with the reason people don't want to express diverse political opinions at work.

You can't be neutral on a moving train. If you're not fighting against it, you're for it.

You either call it freedom fries, or you're with the terrorists.
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