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I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

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Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#31

Post by opendais »

baddox wrote: post #28
opendais wrote: post #6

I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 ] An example relevant to HN is: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 "HN is fucking obsessed with me lol. what is wrong with you little boys? mad cuz i'm cute and would NEVER talk to you or know you ex…

> Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? I certainly don't agree with that logic in general. If the offense was valid (which I don't think it is in your specific example), I am fine with offenders reporting other offenders. For example, I am fine with a murderer turning in another murderer.

Did you miss the edit? I was trying to avoid changing it to avoid confusing what I was trying to say further :/

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#32

Post by tedks »

epochwolf wrote: post #9
tedks wrote: post #3

This isn't the decline of agency, it's feminism and anti-racism creating agency for oppressed people. Traditionally, if a woman or ethnic minority is being harassed in their workplace, they are unable to speak out against it for fear of being fired by their bosses. In this sense, capitalist hierarchies (as the author identifies) are used to enforce gender and race hierarchies. Now that it's become unacceptable to be…

This is arguing the ends justify the means. Allow me to quote a relevant section of the article as to why this is a bad idea. > Appealing to capital to enforce one’s political agenda (no matter how noble that agenda might be) implicitly places that agenda as reliant upon and subject to capital itself. It’s just plain bad politics. > ...it sets a terrible precedent. It expands the role of the employer to managing the…

This rings very hollow to me. When I was in school we were constantly reminded that employers would mine our social media and that we need always police ourselves to ensure we were maximally employable. This xkcd reflects that sentiment: http://xkcd.com/137/

I would also point out that virtually all liberal activism is an appeal to some authority to enforce political ends. All electoralism, even, conservative or liberal, is an attempt to appeal to an authority to enforce political ends.

The author doesn't seem like enough of a radical to be able to make the claim that political action should be entirely self-contained direct action; if he is he's misguided for thinking that tactical use of capital or electoral resources makes the political movement in any way subservient to those resources! Resources are resources and anyone with political (or indeed any) goals should use all those available to her.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#33

Post by tedks »

sqrt17 wrote: post #21
tedks wrote: post #3

This isn't the decline of agency, it's feminism and anti-racism creating agency for oppressed people. Traditionally, if a woman or ethnic minority is being harassed in their workplace, they are unable to speak out against it for fear of being fired by their bosses. In this sense, capitalist hierarchies (as the author identifies) are used to enforce gender and race hierarchies. Now that it's become unacceptable to be…

There is a slight difference between name-calling and oppression. Oppression can only be done from a position of power, and it stabilizes the power of the oppressing. Namecalling can be done by any person who wants to do it, because it does not presuppose or enforce any kind of power relation. Pure namecalling can be differentiated from libel/slander (saying things that are discreditable), abuse of employees (which p…

> There is a slight difference between name-calling and oppression. Oppression can only be done from a position of power, and it stabilizes the power of the oppressing. Namecalling can be done by any person who wants to do it, because it does not presuppose or enforce any kind of power relation.

A man using misogynist slurs against a woman seems to be oppressive by any reasonable metric.

Based on the rest of your comment, it seems you are confused as to what oppression is, if you think men are somehow oppressed by feminism. Awakening as a feminist is the most liberatory action I have experienced in my entire life as a man. It has made every aspect of my life better and if you are a man and continue to be a reactionary and an anti-feminist I genuinely pity you. I hope you have enough sense to stop holding the proverbial fire hose on the civil rights protest. I hope you can find it in your heart to let go of privilege, whatever the benefits to you personally might be, in favor of tolerance, love and respect for your fellow humans, and forward-thinkingness.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#34

Post by fleitz »

opendais wrote: post #19
fleitz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.

To what? Pointing out a troll's hypocritical behavior seems to be the only one that is effective with both trolls and rational people.

I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is...

Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish?

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#35

Post by gress »

aidenn0 wrote: post #29
gress wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agency is not zero sum. That's why you couldn't use it to make your argument and had to switch to using the word 'freedom' to construct a straw man.

Plese educate me on the difference, as (at least in this context) they seem to be interchangable. [edit] To clarify, consider a hypothetical total autocracy, where the autocrat makes a decision, and everyone's behavior is altered by various means. By my reasoning, the autocrat has collected everyone's agency to themself. Maybe it's not a perfect zero-sum, as you have inefficiencies in the system, but it does seem tha…

Your example of the autocrat who has a magical means to alter everyone's behavior is totally artificial and has no corollary in the real world, and therefore isn't relevant to the real world concept of agency.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#36

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tedks wrote: post #33
sqrt17 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a slight difference between name-calling and oppression. Oppression can only be done from a position of power, and it stabilizes the power of the oppressing. Namecalling can be done by any person who wants to do it, because it does not presuppose or enforce any kind of power relation. Pure namecalling can be differentiated from libel/slander (saying things that are discreditable), abuse of employees (which p…

> There is a slight difference between name-calling and oppression. Oppression can only be done from a position of power, and it stabilizes the power of the oppressing. Namecalling can be done by any person who wants to do it, because it does not presuppose or enforce any kind of power relation. A man using misogynist slurs against a woman seems to be oppressive by any reasonable metric. Based on the rest of your com…

I think many bristle against feminism for exactly the reasons you give: they want tolerance and respect instead of blame. The blame-language is endemic to the feminist literature - e.g. men are 'privileged' when they exercise ordinary rights that women would like to share.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#37

Post by gress »

tedks wrote: post #25
gress wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agency is not a zero sum game. We don't have to reduce the agency of 'privileged' people. We just have to resist oppressive behavior.

You're right that agency is not zero sum, but in this case we can see privilege as having enhanced agency in some areas (ability to call women names on social media with impunity, ability to command higher salaries, ability to get into better schools, etc.) and oppression as not having agency in those areas. Resisting oppressive behavior is limiting the agency of privileged people to oppress others. You can construct…

You are conflating agency and privilege. In the case of resisting oppression, the available actions are unchanged, but the consequences are different.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#38

Post by jacalata »

opendais wrote: post #6

I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 ] An example relevant to HN is: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 "HN is fucking obsessed with me lol. what is wrong with you little boys? mad cuz i'm cute and would NEVER talk to you or know you ex…

But that's basically saying "all employers should have exactly the same standards for when to fire someone" which is silly.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#39

Post by lsaferite »

Honest question, how does a comment like this get you fired? I mean, beyond the person calling for your head.

Since when do personal statements translate into firing offenses at your place of work?

I'm from the "I May Not Agree With What You Say, But I’ll Fight For Your Right to Say It" camp and things like this honestly confuse me.

To clarify, I think what he said was morally wrong.

Re: I'm Telling: Employer-Tattling and the Decline of Agency

#40

Post by calibraxis »

lsaferite wrote: post #39

Honest question, how does a comment like this get you fired? I mean, beyond the person calling for your head. Since when do personal statements translate into firing offenses at your place of work? I'm from the "I May Not Agree With What You Say, But I’ll Fight For Your Right to Say It" camp and things like this honestly confuse me. To clarify, I think what he said was morally wrong.

The article omits a lot which might cause people to disagree with it.

For instance, @zivcjs aggressively harassed her, retweeting attackers calling her "animal" and I believe "psychob---h". He also deleted many of his tweets.

Furthermore, such harassment campaigns generally cause an increase in the violent threats they already normally receive. It contributes to an environment where women are terrorized and chased out of the industry. And imagine a woman having to work with this harasser.

As for economic oppression, he crows about "Non-stop phone calls" with so many job offers that he's "struggling to remember who sent what." (https://twitter.com/zivcjs)

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