RandoDave’s Take: Google Fires #ManifestoMan for Having the Wrong Opinion
Everyone by now is likely familiar with this story. Last week, a male employee at google (lowercase intentional) wrote an internally disseminated “manifesto” that went viral, which essentially argued that (1) google had become an increasingly ideologically-monolithic echo-chamber, and had adopted extreme positions as a result (e.g., that all differences in the relative representation of race and gender within the workplace are due to discrimination); and (2) that as a result of these extreme positions the company was engaging in increasingly misguided actions, such as imposing unconscious bias training upon employees (of unproven utility), and providing opportunities only to certain individuals of certain races or genders (i.e., not white males). At the conclusion of the document, the writer made a call for greater ideological openness at the tech titan.
I for one thought the manifesto, which appealed to reason, history, and scientific study in support of its propositions, was fair in its treatment of the above issues, and was not extreme.
But while the main thrust of the writer’s arguments seemed totally reasonable to me, a conservative free speech advocate — within Silicon Valley’s ideological bubble, the story was totally different. Unsurprisingly, it was seen as intolerable heresy to many, and a predictable social media backlash ensued following its full publication on Gizmodo.com.
Given the above mentioned atmosphere in Silicon Valley, it was also unsurprising when the individual who had written the memo, identified as a senior engineer James Damore, was unceremoniously given the boot. Google’s CEO then issued a statement following the firing, which explained the reason that Mr. Damore could no longer keep his position:
[P]ortions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace… To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.
Well then.
I really don’t have much to say about that, other than that Scott Greer has written an excellent piece on this latest act of purging, which also discusses the larger context of the troubling turn that Silicon Valley has taken as a whole — as large technology corporations have repeatedly pitted themselves against individual dissenters in order to squelch viewpoints they deem intolerable. I highly recommend that everyone read it, but I also have a couple of additional observations of my own on this latest episode which I would like to add.
My observations pertain to, and are basically limited to why such firings are so pernicious. In situations such as these, people are apt to say, “Well, what google did was legal, so what’s the big deal?” To which I will remind them that “Not everything that isn’t illegal isn’t a big deal”, and “What about these two reasons?”:
Reason #1: Firings Such as this One Move the Organization Closer to Ideological Purity
It should be noted here that the practical effect of firing an individual within an organization for their political speech is to deter opposing political viewpoints from being expressed within the organization (and without the organization, since with large, visible institutions such as google, there can be reverberations to employment practices among larger society) in the future.
Thus, opposing viewpoints are stamped out — as workers within the organization fear reprisals from google as the precedent has been set. And potentially workers outside the organization may also fear that their own organization may also choose to act similarly to google, the world’s largest and most successful company as noted above.
In addition, such purges impel current workers with the same point of view to consider quitting from their organization, if they value having a forum in which their views may be expressed (an added benefit to the enforcers on the left). And it should also be noted that the firings may also deter potential workers who hold the same unwanted point of view from even applying.
Thus, in sum, the overall effect of such a firing is to move the organization closer and closer to complete ideological or viewpoint purity.
It hardly needs saying why this would not be an ideal situation for many of the major corporations such as google that power our economy to be in.
Reason #2: Ideological Firings Make a #SocialJusticeWarriorDeathSpiral More Likely for the Company
It may now be obvious that ironically, by google’s actions, the very echo-chamber which Mr. Damore lamented is perpetuated. As a result, the company becomes more and more ideologically driven with each purge, making future firings of divergent viewpoint-holders — even less “extreme” (note I use scare-quotes) than Mr. Damore — more and more likely. In other words, the Overton Window within the company is narrowed. Thus as these cycles potentially continue over and over again we are left with an increasingly ideological organization in the throes of a snow-ball like phenomenon which I will now dub the #SocialJusticeWarriorDeathSpiral.
Hopefully such a fate will not come to pass with google, which as I mentioned is the largest company in the world, however, there are ominous signs here, and it appears that this is the unfortunate direction that most of the tech industry is moving in. Please see Scott Greer’s piece referenced above.
But I really hope google snaps out of this authoritarian leftist thinking at some point — it hardly needs mentioning how much beholden to google we all are, and how much private information it likely has on all of us. Thus, as Powerline’s Steven Hayward and TownHall’s Kurt Schlicter both mentioned relative to this controversy, perhaps it is high time that the Justice Department start looking into potential anti-trust actions against this massive tech conglomerate. Or, perhaps we should all just start looking for potential alternatives to google products (list courtesy of Powerline.com). Not really sure the latter is possible, but it’s something to consider. At any rate, thanks for reading (although I wish the topic was something a little less depressing), and have a great day.
Sincerely,
