Clicked through some links in the article. Really mind boggling material. How did such garbage end up in top universities is really weird.
I'm a white upper middle-class dude, and there used to be a time where it was only guys like me that got into prestigious schools, and had a chance at landing influential jobs - while others would either get silently rejected, scolded for trying, or simply laughed out of the office.
So while the intentions for DEI were good, the reality might be that they've regressed back to initial problem. Should some people be rejected, simply because they're overrepresented? And must your workers write/sign a statement that basically says "I, [name], hereby agree that discrimination is good if it is for the greater good."
The intentions behind a lot of these things are good but the sensitivity of the subject has made it hard(er) to have a healthy discussion about these issues.
We're talking about large institutions adopting policies to shield themselves from potential lawsuits from protected classes.
What is this [0] then?
[0] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/can-job-postings-in-can...
It's more about this idea of being an advocate for the downtrodden - a good person fighting the racists on behalf of those without a voice. And because you're fighting the good fight, it's of course OK to make the oppressors uncomfortable or to bully them into submission.
Depending on your priors, this is either messed up, or it's messed up not to act and accept the status quo. Pick your poison, I guess.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
It ensures academic freedom.
But it also ensures someone has limited checks on their bullshit, until they retire.
For those unfamiliar with how org structures work in academia/tenure... (at least, assume this is still true)
Once attaining tenure, your promotion track focuses on faculty leadership positions.
These positions are selected by a combination of administration & faculty. It varies institute to institute, but strong candidates usually have backing from both.
These positions are almost always held by tenured faculty, as non-tenure is looked down upon for historical/political reasons.
Note: You only need to please 2 types of stakeholders: administration & faculty.
Ergo, the path to promotion becomes:
- Make tenure
- Politick with faculty colleagues
- Politick with administration
- Wait for someone to die
Perhaps it used to, however a tenured professor can easily be "cancelled" today if their academic research or writing strays too far from home base. Frankly, I am not sure it ever did. It seems like it might have always been used more as a threat (by retraction) than anything else.
No manager dares to refuse these initiatives because they'll be instantly named by the activist, with the help of journalist friends, and ensure they lose their job.
Hence by going one at a time, a small group of activists can change far larger organisations.
Of course, every action has a reaction. Enough resentment has built up, that made anti-woke a legitimate position to take in the public eye, with no longer much risk of losing the job. This makes all the previous tactics lose their power.
Also, the 'anti-woke' crowd is learning these tactics too. From congressional grilling of university presidents, to gamers explicitly documenting the DEI consultancy involvements, its all targeting and absolutely destroying individuals to cause a chilling effect on the populace at large.
Doesn't this feel very authoritarian ? Just replace manager with citizen and you have USSR.
This is more a leftist version of McCarthyism. Aka intellectual purity testing and purges.
If a minority can impose their will into institutions, destroying the life of anybody that opposes them, you need a quite messed-up conception of power structures to place that minority "down".
Each clique has it's own power structure.
Charisma, rule of law, pity, revenge, resentment, morality, resources, it's all a part of it.
No. People do whatever they can throughout history, and end up having to participate to larger changes. The only remedy we’ve found was Humanism, l’esprit critique, education for everyone, and raising awareness and allergy to all authoritarian acts, but see, in the last 50 years, I’ve seen younger people who aren’t even aware who Diderot is, let alone had enough literacy to read or write those books fluently if they spent the time, even in $130k jobs. Then we flooded each country with about 12% people who haven’t had those Humanism tenants taughts at school.
I’ll from using a stronger metaphor because it will sound cheesy, but by losing the teachings of logic, rhetoric and history, our civilization is not able to hold the pillars of democracy anymore.
I’m a tadpole in a huge lake. I have no influence over these likely illegal hiring decisions. And unless I’m just incredibly unlucky, these same conversations are happening everywhere at big companies.
There is a lot risk for a minor reward, especially if you don't actually care about the institution you are defending.
Maybe this also has to do with the general idea that it's not up to a government to do things, it's up to individuals, which to me is how Americans think. I would think that dealing with inequalities in society, ensuring everyone has equal opportunity and has their basic needs provided for (health, education etc.) would be the function of a government. If the government isn't addressing that then you have a vacuum. To me it's obvious that e.g. hiring policies or university acceptance criteria are not the right place to fix society but rather issues should be addressed upstream from those. By the government. But having government do things seem to be something Americans dislike.
The average SJW/Redditor/DEI advocate sincerely believes that slavery has existed in only one country in the world's history: In the United States, involving Africans. The etymology of the word "slav"? Brazil? Haiti? Guadeloupe? North Africans enslaving Europeans? Vikings taking thralls? Feudalism? Never heard of 'em.
Other countries have done worse, but they haven't done so as hypocritically as the United States.
>country was founded 248 years ago
>the "issue" stopped happening 159 years ago
I don't think an issue that lasted for barely 1/3 of our country's history and hasn't been legal for the entirety of this century, last century, or much of the century before that is the problem. I think people's addiction to being full-time victims is the issue, because if you're always a victim, you never have to be responsbile for anything in your life, you can always blame your imagined "oppressor". People do this, teach their children that they are also victims regardless of their actions, and maintain a long line of familial victimhood. DEI is a direct symptom of that.
Then reconstruction was ended due to a political backlash from the south.
Don't pretend this is all over.
Remember the term "SJW" (social justice warrior) from around a decade ago? That was wokeism and DEI before it got its current branding. The people who saw this coming were dismissed as crazy.