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A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

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Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#81

Post by ali0sha »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #70
ali0sha wrote: post #41

> Joining together for a common purpose ... is political. What is that purpose, why is it common, and how does the joining work - these are the fundamental political problems. > If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow. Yes. At work, you are a mercenary. Your safety, family, health, concern for the decent treatment of your fellow humans, ought to come before your produc…

> If laying down your belief that racism is harmful and wrong is necessary for you 'mission', then the mission is itself harmful and wrong, and no amount of 'fellowship' is going to change that. Absolutely! I did not see anyone at Basecamp questioning this.

Agree, maybe I should have been more explicit about the argument I'm trying to make:

- The OP's argument is irrelevant to bandcamp, since the antiracism at bandcamp was actually not directed at the 'mission' at all

- If we instead consider the hypothetical that OP is responding to - that being antiracist is in conflict with your 'mission' - then it was a bad mission anyway, and maybe you should change it so that it no longer conflicts with antiracism.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#82

Post by heinrichhartman »

ali0sha wrote: post #74
heinrichhartman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Joining together for a common purpose > ... is political. I think the author is referring to the mission statement of companies. While some missions statements have political elements, I can see plenty of mission statements that give a common purpose and are not political. Examples: "Accellerate the advent of sustainable transport" -- Tesla, "Build the best CPU" -- Intel (?). It is well known that a strong mission…

There's a genre of opinion that sounds like "I don't want politics in my videogames/workplace/church/facebook group", which stems from an idea that politics is exclusively a thing that politicians do in government, coupled with a (mistaken) sense that 'being political' is a bad attribute. In fact, 'being political' is non-normative - per wikipedia: Politics is the set of activities that are associated with making dec…

OK. I get your point, now.

You are using a broad definition of politics. And yes, a job is clearly also a vote for a purpose/values that is inherent to the business model.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#83

Post by spyckie2 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #55

> A fellowship is "a group of people that join together for a common purpose or interest". You're very explicitly not describing a job or a company here, as most of them exist today. For all the comparisons to the LoTR trilogy, almost none of us here are working on anything that impactful, or anything that important, and neither are our employers. Most of us are going to show up to work tomorrow and work on another e…

I think my point is that some lifestyle companies (basecamp’s one of the originals) want to be a fellowship because they see the ideological joining together in shared mission and culture as a valuable thing. I think it is valuable to people who want to experience more band of brothers in their work.

Most companies are mercenaries and most companies are okay with that. Also most individuals are mercenaries and are fine with it as well.

Upon more reflection I do think the ability for fellowship to suppress infighting via mission driven self sacrifice is more of a fantasy rather than a practical application in real world companies. That’s the function of pay and org structure in most other orgs.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#84

Post by ali0sha »

cblang wrote: post #50
clearcarbon wrote: post #24

Work is political - saying that people should get on with work without discussing "political topics" prevents them from discussing and solving the issues within their own work. Yes there is a need to make sure work that directly brings money into the organisation gets done but part of that work is making sure everyone everyone works equally. "There's no way the ring is getting to Mordor if Gimli is pushing for elf re…

> improving the material condition of disadvantaged people across society. The average modern activist in software organizations is well educated, underperforming in terms of actual code contributions and a master at forming committees, work groups and assuming power. This activist fights for keeping his/her own job while others are doing the work. Classic leftist/pro-worker policies have been extinct since at least…

This is a strawman, unmoored from evidence or reality.

Here's my read, based on your supporting the blog post and your two comments:

You've constructed this fantasy as a defence mechanism. You use the classification of those with earnest beliefs that you find threatening as worse at 'actual code' and obsessed with 'work groups', and on that basis you reject those beliefs without having to introspect.

As collaboration, design, and people skills become more valued as ways to produce better software alongside sheer lines-of-code output, you fear that the power you derive from skills is being diluted.

As the corporate world realises that people who aren't men or who aren't white might matter, need to be taken into account, and might have something to contribute, you fear that maybe some of what you got you didn't deserve quite as much as you thought, and the fear of being seen as privileged makes you want to cling onto your existing power all the more.

This is an opportunity for growth. You can choose whether to create resentful posts on HN, writing off anyone who cares as a leech, or you can engage with those underlying feelings and become a better human, and better at your job.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#85

Post by spyckie2 »

9dev wrote: post #80
pavel_lishin wrote: post #55

> A fellowship is "a group of people that join together for a common purpose or interest". You're very explicitly not describing a job or a company here, as most of them exist today. For all the comparisons to the LoTR trilogy, almost none of us here are working on anything that impactful, or anything that important, and neither are our employers. Most of us are going to show up to work tomorrow and work on another e…

I can’t comprehend why someone would submit themselves so hard to the American corporate rhetoric. A workplace is neither a family, nor a fellowship. It should not be the center of your life, and certainly not something to fully submit yourself to. In that sense, I like the mercenary analogy very much.

Lifestyle business is where you want to be to have band of brothers or fellowship ideology and rhetoric. DHH has always been a proponent of lifestyle business.

In the corporate world fellowship is rarely discussed and for good reason. I don’t believe most people are blinded by corporate rhetoric; some genuinely want to participate in missions and want to find others who think similarly.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#86

Post by ali0sha »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #34
tobr wrote: post #6

If you examine any two values that you believe in close enough, you can find a place where they rub against each other. That friction doesn’t mean one is “anti” the other, just that you sometimes need to find a way to compromise. A claim that pro-activism is anti-fellowship is only true if you are dogmatic and uncompromising about putting your fellowship first. Such a fellowship is otherwise known as a ‘cult’.

And activism is when you're pushing a competing cult.

Let's be clear, the 'activism' in question (at basecamp) is anti-racism. And if anti-racism is a competing cult, then you might want to switch sides.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#87

Post by spacemanmatt »

Veen wrote: post #79
spacemanmatt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you run a company with problems so deep that people have to turn activist about them, maybe the division didn't start with activists.

That assumes the activists are in the right. You’ve chosen a side. Would you say “the division didn’t start with the activists” if it was conservative activists advocating for modest dress codes or similar? Your position assumes that progressive activists are correct, justified in bringing their politics to work, and that if they have a problem it’s the company’s fault. But you have to work with people you might disa…

Activism for modest dress codes? I'll just excuse myself, here. That is a farce compared to the subject at hand.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#88

Post by StavrosK »

spyckie2 wrote: post #85
9dev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t comprehend why someone would submit themselves so hard to the American corporate rhetoric. A workplace is neither a family, nor a fellowship. It should not be the center of your life, and certainly not something to fully submit yourself to. In that sense, I like the mercenary analogy very much.

Lifestyle business is where you want to be to have band of brothers or fellowship ideology and rhetoric. DHH has always been a proponent of lifestyle business. In the corporate world fellowship is rarely discussed and for good reason. I don’t believe most people are blinded by corporate rhetoric; some genuinely want to participate in missions and want to find others who think similarly.

Certainly, but in the vast majority of cases where the company tells you you've joined a fellowship, that fellowship is very one-sided, and the company wants your loyalty while giving you none in return.

That's what the GP is cautioning against, and that's overwhelmingly the rule today. If you do find a company that treats its employees like a family and cares about them enough to keep them employed during (the employee's) hardship, that's a valuable thing indeed.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#89

Post by fpig »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #8

Obviously, we can't know the exact particulars of how every argument went down at Basecamp, and we have to intuit an awful lot from fairly limited blog posts by Jason, DHH, and tweets from (mostly ex)-employees. But it feels like there's a pretty clear pattern that this wasn't a case of a few politically motivated employees being a distraction and disrupting an otherwise harmonious environment. A third of the company…

I mean, reading this:

https://janeyang.org/2021/04/27/an-open-letter-to-jason-and-...

It does seem like it may have been a case of some politically motivated employees being disruptive. The part that is just irredeemable is:

> I thought about it through COVID-19, as HEY launched in the midst of a civil rights uprising and we toiled over the customer support cases of people who could afford to pay $99/year for personal email.

This sounds like the person is complaining that their supposedly privileged customers distracted her from activism. If she has a problem working for "people who could afford to pay $99/year for personal email" then she should probably find a different job where she will serve a demographic that is more palatable to her.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#90

Post by tpoacher »

ali0sha wrote: post #84
cblang wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> improving the material condition of disadvantaged people across society. The average modern activist in software organizations is well educated, underperforming in terms of actual code contributions and a master at forming committees, work groups and assuming power. This activist fights for keeping his/her own job while others are doing the work. Classic leftist/pro-worker policies have been extinct since at least…

This is a strawman, unmoored from evidence or reality. Here's my read, based on your supporting the blog post and your two comments: You've constructed this fantasy as a defence mechanism. You use the classification of those with earnest beliefs that you find threatening as worse at 'actual code' and obsessed with 'work groups', and on that basis you reject those beliefs without having to introspect. As collaboration…

and how's your strawman different than his? Bulverists everywhere ...
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