One of the basic de facto rules of this bastardized-by-leftish-types form of "social justice" is:
Go out of your way to misrepresent the ideas/arguments of those who challenge the "social justice" orthodoxy.
Another de facto rule:
Make sure, as much as you can get away with, to replace fair argument responsive to what the opponent actually says, with shaming tactics.
Damore says that Google has institutionalized to some extent a culture of shaming and misrepresentation, and based on what evidence I've seen, he's exactly fucking right, and it's the leftish ones who oughtta be ashamed of themselves.
Let's take one example of what the culture at Google instills in its toeing-the-orthodox-line employees:
Former 'Googler' Yonatan Zunger considered it appropriate to chastise Damore thusly:
I’m going to be even blunter than usual here, because I’m not subject to the usual maze of HR laws right now, and so I can say openly what I would normally only be allowed to say in very restricted fora. And this is addressed specifically to the author of this manifesto.
What you just did was incredibly stupid and harmful. You just put out a manifesto inside the company arguing that some large fraction of your colleagues are at root not good enough to do their jobs, and that they’re only being kept in their jobs because of some political ideas. And worse than simply thinking these things or saying them in private, you’ve said them in a way that’s tried to legitimize this kind of thing across the company, causing other people to get up and say “wait, is that right?”
I need to be very clear here: not only was nearly everything you said in that document wrong, the fact that you did that has caused significant harm to people across this company, and to the company’s entire ability to function. And being aware of that kind of consequence is also part of your job, as in fact it would be at pretty much any other job. I am no longer even at the company and I’ve had to spend half of the past day talking to people and cleaning up the mess you’ve made. I can’t even imagine how much time and emotional energy has been sunk into this, not to mention reputational harm more broadly.
And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.
If you hadn’t written this manifesto, then maybe we’d be having a conversation about the skills you need to learn to not be blocked in your career — which are precisely the ones you described as “female skills.” But we are having a totally different conversation now. It doesn’t matter how good you are at writing code; there are plenty of other people who can do that. The negative impact on your colleagues you have created by your actions outweighs that tremendously.
You talked about a need for discussion about ideas; you need to learn the difference between “I think we should adopt Go as our primary language” and “I think one-third of my colleagues are either biologically unsuited to do their jobs, or if not are exceptions and should be suspected of such until they can prove otherwise to each and every person’s satisfaction.” Not all ideas are the same, and not all conversations about ideas even have basic legitimacy.
If you feel isolated by this, that your views are basically unwelcome in tech and can’t be spoken about… well, that’s a fair point. These views are fundamentally corrosive to any organization they show up in, drive people out, and I can’t think of any organization not specifically dedicated to those views that they would be welcome in. I’m afraid that’s likely to remain a serious problem for you for a long time to come. But our company is committed to maintaining a good environment for all of its people, and if one person is determined to thwart that, the solution is pretty clear.²
I’m writing this here, in this message, because I’m no longer at the company and can say this sort of thing openly. But I want to make it very clear: if you were in my reporting chain, all of part (3) would have been replaced with a short “this is not acceptable” and maybe that last paragraph above. You would have heard part (3) in a much smaller meeting, including you, me, your manager, your HRBP, and someone from legal. And it would have ended with you being escorted from the building by security and told that your personal items will be mailed to you. And the fact that you think this was “all in the name of open discussion,” and don’t realize any of these deeper consequences, makes this worse, not better.
Now, does this sound like a response appropriate to what Damore's manifesto was actually saying, or does it sound more like a lack of willingness to properly engage with Damore's context and replace it instead with strident virtue-signaling? It sounds a lot more like the latter to me. What it tells me is that the mentality displayed here is cultivated at Google to such an extent that what really happened is that Google exercised no due diligence/effort to explain to Damore how/where his ideas went wrong, how they present a potential danger of contributing to a hostile work environment, and how he might have the opportunity to correct his errors before it's determined that he and Google aren't a good fit. (It turns out they aren't a good fit, if the above response to a good-faith presentation of putative science and fact is more or less the "best" that Damore could expect from the company.)
In short: does it sound like this chastisement is written with the aim in mind of anticipating how Damore might respond, or is it basically a one-sided rant?
I recommend reading some of the comments that follow, particularly the quality and tone of those who applaud and pile on. Do they demonstrate a willingness to actually understand Damore's views, or are they really quick to conclude that he must have been promoting the loathsome ideas they attribute to him? Keep in mind, as you answer this, the general culture of the American left today when it comes to characterizing opposing views they don't like: are they more likely than not to misrepresent - sometimes blatantly and obviously - their opponents' positions? Are they more likely than not to jump to the conclusion that a debatable point is instead racist, sexist, etc. and therefore beyond the pale of rational argument?
Because that's the pattern I've been observing on the left these past few years now, and it's fucking disgusting.
Now, contrast the righteous rant from Mr. Zunger above with this comment (by James Gillmore), and see whether you think one is making more of an effort at dialogue, understanding and actual empathy than the other:
After having of course read the manifesto and responded to various comments, here’s my response to one of the comments:
“And the answer to the million dollar question is this [i.e. what the young man should have been told, i.e. what would have been far more helpful]:
“Historically [and currently basically everywhere that doesn’t have these policies], it’s been the other way around, where male-dominated work culture has led to a lot of unfair circumstances for female employees. We’re slowly improving, but we aren’t there yet. In an ideal world, such policies wouldn’t need to exist. For now, we’ve deemed the best thing we can do is offset the imbalance of power as best we can and create a welcoming environment as equally as possible for all. Yes, the policies are an unnatural construct for a larger even more unnatural construct: mega corporations, which can no longer be truly accountable for the people they bring on board. The best answer is JUST TO BE NON-DISCRIMINATORY, but since we are so focused on the greed of our ambitions of growth, becoming small and guaranteeing that is not something we care about. The cost is it leaves males wondering if they are now the ones at a disadvantage, and females doubting whether they earned their position. It’s an imperfect system in an imperfect world, but regardless you are here, and you competed against hundreds of thousands of others, so rest assured you’re more than worthy of your position; and if you’re a male, you’re male after all, toughen up, be a gentlemen and look out for the women in your group! You’re a technologist after all, it’s easier than ever to carve up your own path; if you don’t like it you’re free to go.
*the second to last sentence is an imperfect addendum in an imperfect world that will always be loose around the edges; I don’t think it creates any value to pretend it’s something it’s not.”
And a related response to another thoughtful commenter is this:
“My overall response to what you’re saying — and it’s not something I disagree with — is that the degree of response to this young man also must be just. It’s not just “about degree” — DEGREE IS EVERYTHING. What he’s been grappling with isn’t abnormal — and if the only response is over-reactions like what he received from the now-ex-googler who felt it was his job to bring down the hammer, I don’t think we’re gonna make any progress evolving humanity.
“Here’s the thing: when wrongs or violence (real or imagined or virtual) are acted upon someone, you are more inclined to feel for a victim who is a friend. That’s how empathy is developed. But if everyone is enemies (like Zunger just declared), both sides won’t see each other as friends and will have no motivation to understand each other. That’s why this young man doesn’t understand the pain women have gone through in the workplace, and it’s why women and men like Zunger don’t understand his. Not the pain he’s been through likely as a social outcast, and not the obvious pain of being virtually executed as he has been today. It’s shocking that people can’t put themselves in the shoes of said young men, and instead rejoice in his summary execution — especially when that’s exactly what they are asking of said young man. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, if this was a relationship and real life (not just a blog article Zunger can distance himself from), it’s usually the person who overreacts that ends up being far more in the wrong and having to clean up the mess (if she/he is a brave well-intentioned individual). If you’ve been in any sort of fight with your significant other and overreacted, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
“With no room for dialog, there is no understanding, and no evolution of viewpoints. Things absolutely can’t be black and white. Similar to good music and art being all about nuance to create a mood, to have any sort of effect, nuance and degree are paramount.
“Some people say “well, the line has to be drawn somewhere.” Definitely, there are cases where fighting back to avoid extinction is the only option. This isn’t one of them. Not the way Zunger handled it. And such circumstances are truly rare at the end of the day.
“The young man wrote a manifesto after all — that means he was open to dialog. In the above link I propose what he should have been told. Catch-22 or not [i.e. the commenter I was responding to pointed out that the manifesto writer put Google in a position of a catch-22, for if they now fired him, that only proves his point that Google isn’t truly inclusive], he can be assertively told why things are the way they are — and actually, there is no catch-22. There’s a reason these policies exist. I agree that a giant cancerous mega corp needs them. So they should simply be able to explain it to said young man. If they can’t, or their unofficial representatives can’t, without overreacting, that’s a problem. If they don’t understand how young males may struggle getting it, that’s really on them and a problem that may in fact be bigger at this point in time.
“Overall I didn’t find Zunger’s response very well thought out, but just a way to jump in a pool of automatic validation and be the hero where one wasn’t really needed — since after all Google does have these policies in place and is willing to act on them; I’m sure said young man will be fired. And no, I don’t think that the young kid or man deserves this sorta smackdown. It’s not right. I’m sorry, it’s just not. No matter, if it’s some manipulative catch-22 ploy by said young man [because said young man is struggling in the workplace because of his actions toward the opposite sex and the negative response from his superiors, and was manipulating to flip the script in his favor, as the commenter I responded to was guessing].
“If Google can’t come up with something to do with him, they’re lacking in imagination and just proves my point that giant centralized corps are on the outs. The young man isn’t Geoffrey Dommer and instead requires guidance. That level of engagement unfortunately is something you rarely find in society. What you get primarily is asshole patriarchal figures like Zunger Games. Keep that in mind when you think of young men — it’s not like the world is brimming with guidance for how to be a “modern man,” while the world is still figuring it out. [in essence, empathy is required at all levels to live up to the pursuit of inclusivity]
“Just take a moment and imagine this was your son. All of 23 years old and possibly social awkward. Imagine him younger, say 10 — where do you draw the line? Now, imagine he’s on the spectrum — after all, we are all on some sort of spectrum as nobody is a master of every circumstance. Would a profile picture that shows he clearly is autistic or has aspergers change things?
“What would you allow to be said to your son in this situation? Imagine your son is 10 and comes to you and says: ‘Mommy/Daddy, why do the girls get to go to the free after school tutoring program, but I don’t and I’m the one who’s failing?” What would you tell him. And at what age does it become unacceptable for him to even ask? Too much power has been given to said young man. He’s likely an insecure young man who just arrived in a workplace with these policies (even if that was 5 years ago), and has known no other. To cast him out as a social reject is bad policy. He will act out like a child you don’t truly engage.
“He’s not alone in the question he had — even for man in their 20s or 30s. Lots of men are wondering this same thing, especially as the world does evolve to incorporate these policies. We aren’t talking Don Drapers coming from a place of status like Zunger. We aren’t talking the scary men in positions of power that women feel psychological acts of violence from. All of this must be considered to have the most effective biggest picture thinking, and grow young men of the future who truly and innately get it. Who don’t feel an entitlement to the workplace over women. Who view women as equals.
“We’re creating the world as we speak, and there are no hard and fast rules (at least not on a public stage). So it’s detrimental that we’re as inclusive and cooperative as possible in ALL circumstances, rather than assume our point of view is so right that it justifies enacting virtual/psychological acts of violence towards another. That’s precisely the pain women feel based on previous work conditions (and current). If nothing else, Zunger made it ok to treat people like that when you feel justified.
“People every day feel justified in actions, only to either realize they’re wrong, or for everyone else to realize it. That’s the “catch-22” of allowing for such harsh over-reactions — you’re not always going to be “right.” If there is a “rule,” it should be that you should always leave room for error and to be wrong. Degree is important, process (how you go about things) is important. I’m sorry, this isn’t the process. It’s just not.
“Let me know your thoughts on what I proposed the response should be. Perhaps we can craft that together.”
So that’s the latest. I urge everyone to think with as big of a picture as possible when discussing this. This isn’t somehow some easy obvious topic, like Zunger indicated, conveniently allowing him to skip over it. If it was, this wouldn’t be happening. Manifestos wouldn’t be going out, you wouldn’t be hearing about it all year in the tech press. The policies wouldn’t exist in the first place. This is an opportunity for the tech world to really champion some challenging issues while showing the world both sides can come to a collective solution.
Lambasting either side isn’t the way. It makes zero sense for said young man to write the most thoughtful assessment he could come up with, and to be shutdown so harshly with zero explanation, given what I’ve pinpointed out about growing understanding men of the future. He truly doesn’t get it. And the other side truly doesn’t get that he doesn’t get it. Nobody gets anything because there is no communication. Everybody is enemies. Nobody is friends. Nobody has any natural motivation to empathize with the other side and understand their pain.
That’s all it would take for said young man to get why the policies are in place, and not end up writing a manifesto that frames women as less fit than men in the workplace. And if not him, at least the next young man.
Doing what Zunger did, as heroic as it might seem, just perpetuates a world where nobody is motivated to understand each other. What he has done creates enemies. And yes, there’s a place to draw the line, but degree is absolutely everything. I suggest to people who side with the young manifesto writer to seek to understand the psychological violence women feel is and has been enacted upon them throughout history by men assuming they are unfit, and I suggest to the women and men who don’t seem to understand this young man to recognize he’s not coming from a place of power like a CEO, he’s likely insecure, young, introverted and the only work world he has ever known is where there are policies which seem to put him at a disadvantage. (And also think of him as if he was your struggling child and Zunger just did this to him). In other words, he doesn’t recognize his own power/value. Neither side does.
Just maybe this young man could be a convert if he was talked to another way.
Lastly, the problem of the people of planet earth is simply that they retaliate too easily. If we don’t evolve past that, we’ll destroy the planet. Especially given how fast technology has evolved in the recent stint of peace that we take for granted.
Now, this comment sounds like basic common sense, i.e.: what about Damore's context? Should that be taken into account a lot more before firing him? And is it Google & Zunger's assumption that Damore is not amenable to correction where that may be warranted? And is such an assumption an honest one?
I think the linked medium thread captures in a nutshell, at the level of metadata as it were, the way the left-ish quasi-egalitarian SJ/PC/D&I [sic] crowd tends to conduct itself in (sorry excuses for) debates. The pattern repeats itself all over the place in the news. They smeared Prof. Wax as a racist for her "bourgeois values" argument. They smear Trump and his supporters all the time as racists, sexist, etc., and most often where they have no clear warrant in doing so. I think it's all quite fucking shameful and anti-philosophical. Now, are they open to correction wherever that is much warranted? Well, there's the free-will answer - they ultimately have it within them to stop being such epistemically-unjust pieces of shit - and then there's the "what is the prevailing culture of leftish doctrine and practice nowadays" answer - i.e., they seem pretty steadfastly committed to remaining epistemically unjust pieces of shit for the foreseeable future, alarm bells ringing and all.
I think that if indeed it's Mr. Zunger's post more than Mr. Gillmore's (the latter's) that represents the mentality in Google's HR, then Google deserves every PR hit from this that it gets. Zunger's rant may have the surface appearance (to the less discerning) of being solution-oriented, but it's not. Whatever benefit Damore might have gotten from it is drowned out by the negativity of it and the jumping to various conclusions about him that have the actual function of being mean-spirited and destructive rather than constructive. Gillmore's post is quite clearly more solution-oriented.
So basically the gist of today's leftish so-called 'diversity and inclusion' movement amounts to this: if you don't toe the line and accept the orthodox assumptions, if you challenge those assumptions (pointedly or otherwise), if you speak your mind as classic rules of free and open dialogue would encourage while presenting what is not obviously bad evidence that runs counter to the orthodox narrative, if you are basically intellectually honest in the process . . . that's not going to help you. You are likely to be misrepresented, shamed, canceled, unplatformed, smeared, piled on, and generally treated with epistemically-unjust disrespect. If you're a white male, you're likely to be told that you're coming from a standpoint of privilege and that you fail to empathize with those less privileged, and those telling you that will see no irony in any of this.
One of the virtues that many people see in Trump is his willingness to treat this horseshit for what it is: to call out those who engage in it as the ones who should be shamed for their dishonesty. When Trump says he has no time for political correctness (sic), what he's actually saying is that he has no time for a culture of systemic dishonesty masquerading as being politically correct. Damore wasn't being dishonest or disrespectful. I can't say the same for Google or Zunger.
And that's really what all this comes down to. Is the predominant intellectual culture of today's left (especially the further left you go) honest and respectful? No, it is not. It encourages scumminess toward those who don't toe the line, whatever their reasons for not assenting. The pattern repeats itself so much and so often as to be unmistakable. To bring up yet another example on top of the gobs of them already linked in this blog's postings: David Horowitz, ex-New Leftist. Did his leftist former friends and colleagues treat his 'apostasy' with honesty and respect, or with malice and logically-slipshod/lazy or outright groundless shaming? The latter(, of course).
But let's not forget about the source of what Google HR, the Demo-rats, the mural-erasing San Francisco school board, the Rand-bashers, the Sowell-ignorers, the Title IX kangaroo court managers, the 'diversity and inclusion' hypocrites, the rent-controllers, the race-hustlers, the #MeToo abusers/Swetnick-believers, the biological-males-in-women's-sports activists, CNN/MSDNC/NYT, the illegal immigration incentivizers, the suspiciously eager gun-grabbers, and the rest of the sorry bunch & enablers have been up to: All of this is egged on and made possible by the fundamentally, systemically dishonest Academic Left who've squandered every benefit of the doubt by this point. (Let's not forget the hubris that leads them to the notion that those who disagree with them are invariably intellectually and morally inferior - and to their tailoring their response to uncomfortable triggering arguments/ideas accordingly, typically by characterizing them as worse than they are or were ever intended to be.) If you suspect that someone like Damore is much more a victim than an offender in this affair, you would possess way more common sense and decency than this bunch of loathsome losers.
[Addendum: Is there a case in all fairness to be made for the defendant? Well, how about this for fairness: Google gets just as much of a fair hearing as they gave Damore - which is to say, jack shit. Got a problem with that? How about this to boot: its CEO is a doubletalking, chickenshit appeaser who damn well oughtta know better what is required of treating people with basic decency and respect, as opposed to giving into blatantly obvious illogic and smears. Treating Zunger and Gillmore even so much as on par with one another = Asshole. [Alternatively: the cases for the defendant and plaintiff were already pretty much made by Zunger and Gillmore, respectively. In the linked thread Zunger was cheered on by lesser, sloppy minds even though it's clear to any careful and honest observer which of the two had the upper hand in justice. Zunger's case is roughly about as "good" as we can expect from the Google side (and note how one-sided it is while purporting to be fair-minded), and under Gillmore-like scrutiny the Google/Zunger case is despicable - and deep down every person of justice knows it, which is why so many are alarmed and pissed about this. The NLRB having made an Orwellian-style determination in Google's favor changes none of this; it is out of its depth on the fundamental matter of justice/fairness here and it's sad to see "social justice" illogic spread into taxpayer-supported agencies.]]
[Addendum #2: Heterodox Academy carries out an analysis of the data/studies about the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis that the powers that be at Google were too cowardly, dishonest, and PC-whipped to conduct. And to further contextualize, this critique of Damore's argument tries to be fair/charitable, and for the most part it is, but I don't think entirely. (It's definitely better than Zunger's anti-charity bullshit.) But whether it's entirely fair is pretty much neither here nor there in this context. What this critique represents is something that Google didn't seem to even attempt before firing Damore without further inquiry, i.e., actually present a substantive critique. And while this critique isn't presented in a format that gives the critique-ee (Damore) a chance to respond, revise, reconsider, relent, etc., Google certainly had a moral obligation to give him that chance, in the spirit of fair and honest dialectic or exchange of ideas in the common pursuit of truth, but can one reasonably conclude that Google did so? Or is the reasonable conclusion that it was being chickenshit, dishonest, etc.? You have my verdict on that.]
