Business Gets "Woke"
The craziness from campuses -- the crackpot po-mo neo-Marxist intersectional victim Olympics hoohah -- is seeping into the workplace.
Toby Young writes at The Spectator:
Part of the reason is that their twentysomething employees are importing this culture into the organizations, having been immersed in it at university. The strange thing, though, is how willing their bosses are to do their bidding when they demand 'safe spaces' and gender-neutral toilets. Credit Suisse, for instance, has a 'Reverse Mentoring' scheme whereby recent graduates are encouraged to take older employees under their wing and coach them about diversity issues -- presumably their 'heteronormative privilege' and so on. At some large firms the atmosphere is reminiscent of the 'struggle sessions' that took place during China's Cultural Revolution in which gray-haired professors had to sit quietly, heads bowed, while angry students lectured them on how to comply with Maoist ideology.
More:
Government is often vulnerable to forms of political madness. But what's new is the behavior of corporates. The infection often enters the system via their HR departments, whose staff now parrot the theoretical gobbledegook that originated in trendy university departments -- gender studies, queer studies, whiteness studies etc. They have convinced themselves it is their moral duty to eliminate 'white privilege'. And so off they go, zealously spreading the gospel of wokeness. The accountancy firm KPMG used to content itself with giving money to charities working with disadvantaged children, but not any more. It is currently advertising for an 'Inclusion, Diversity and Social Equality Manager'. That's right, 'social equality' -- an odd priority for a company that advises firms on how to minimize their tax burden.The recruitment website Jobbio, anxious to advertise how on board it is with this new agenda, has included a page entitled 'What happens if toxic masculinity goes unchecked in the workplace?' Apparently, 'toxic masculinity' revolves around outdated 'masculine norms' like not crying when you're upset, drinking heavily and valuing 'strength and endurance'. Such values place women and minorities at a competitive disadvantage, according to Jobbio. But fear not: help is at hand. The HR consultancy Jaluch advises its clients on how to combat 'micro-aggressions' like claiming to treat everyone equally -- which cannot be true, obviously, because we are all in the grip of 'unconscious bias'.
'Diversity training' designed to reduce 'unconscious' or 'implicit' bias is an $8 billion a year industry in the US -- Starbucks recently sent its 175,000 employees on a 'bias training' day - and a growing sector in the UK too. Unfortunately, there's little evidence that having been on one of these courses reduces discriminatory behavior. On the contrary, a 2015 paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Psychology found that people who'd undertaken bias training were more prone to racial and gender stereotyping, not less. According to Lee Jussim, professor of psychology at Rutgers University, there is lots of evidence that mandatory bias training backfires and makes things worse.
Lee Jussim's fantastic. Here's one of his Psych Today posts on the "bias training," the Implicit Association Test (IAT):
Almost everything about implicit bias is controversial in scientific circles. It is not clear what most implicit methods actually measure; their ability to predict discrimination is modest at best, their reliability is low; early claims about their power and immutability have proven unjustified. And yet colleges and corporations have been rushing to institute "implicit bias trainings" in (misguided and unlikely to be effective) attempts to reduce discrimination.
It's the "Do Something!" mentality that causes people to buy into this, along with it being the right flavor. "Diversity!"
What nobody wants on any campus, of course, is diversity of opinion, meaning (EEEK!) any professors who are Republican in the social sciences, so this crapthink gets churned out unquestioned.
And it's actually not something to shrug off. For example, as Lee writes:
The overselling of implicit bias has, in my view, along with several other wildly oversold concepts (microaggressions, stereotype threat, white privilege), contributed to the toxic environment on many campuses and in some corporations in which speech is considered "violence," and in which if you say the wrong thing, you can be denounced, ostracized, and even fired. And by "wrong thing," I am not talking physical threats or sexual harassment. I am talking about making intellectual arguments against affirmative action, acknowledging the evidence that biology contributes to some demographic group differences, or even simply showing a debate regarding Canadian speech laws.
Personally, I consider taking the IAT to be a form of psychological abuse, as it basically accuses people of being racist (via the results), yet does not predict how they will act in real-world situations...whether they will act in racist ways.
In other words, "woke" business is bad business -- for anyone who is against racism and for not treating people like baby ducks who need to be set in an incubator all day, lest anyone cause them to faint when they overhear a dirty joke.
We're done.
"Beijing is clearly bent on Making China Great Again–as why should it not? Meanwhile America focuses more on transgender bathrooms and whether Bruce Jenner is a girl than on its endless and draining wars. China sends its brightest to the world’s best technical school while America makes its universities into playpens for the mildly retarded."
This is the natural progression of the establishment of victim status for monetary gain. Newspeople sell fear, politicians sell fear, and the public buys the idea they can do nothing without being medicated by those who clearly know better.
Radwaste at April 27, 2019 3:52 AM
As long as we focus our economic and intellectual energies on social engineering and not on economic activity or technical innovation, we will continue falling behind those countries don't waste their energy on creating unnecessary fissures in their social fabric.
On a side note, while my nephew attended a football camp at a California university a few years back, my wife and I joined a parents' tour of the campus. Did the tour guide show us the wonderful education our state's progeny would be getting there with tours of the library and science buildings? No. We toured the brand new (and very expensive) student life building with its indoor track, modern workout space, smoothie bar, and rock climbing wall; because that's why parents are sending their progeny to university , right, to get smoothies and a good workout?
Perhaps we are as not one parent asked about the library or the science buildings.
Conan the Grammarian at April 27, 2019 6:07 AM
It's worse that being done. Yes, we are done. But sooner or later someone is come along and fuck us up real good.
We may end up making Somalia look like a well run country.
I R A Darth Aggie at April 27, 2019 7:01 AM
That, than, whatevah.
I R A Darth Aggie at April 27, 2019 7:02 AM
I'm not as down as you guys, but I also mainly work with small businesses. The smaller the business the less you can afford this kind of silliness. The big companies have slack, and hence this kind of stupidity tends to take them over until they fail.
And it isn't just woke stupidity that takes companies down. I spent some time at Baker-Hughes, a fairly large company and now a GE subsidiary. At Baker accounting was king. Everything had to be counted and it had to fit in a box described in an accounting text book. Or you are fired. All production man hours exactly matched the estimated man hours for every product. How did that miracle happen? (anyone who has worked in a factory knows that is impossible) It is simple. If one job finished fast you saved that job number and used those hours on a job that was taking a little too long. Most places I've worked using time from one job on another was a fireable offense. But at Baker it was mandatory. This made the accounting very easy. All the numbers lined up. It also ment the accounting was worthless. None of the numbers ment anything. And that is why the third largest drilling company now belongs to GE.
Being big doesn't mean you can't fail.
Ben at April 27, 2019 7:26 AM
If someone is going to accuse me of being racist because my ancestors owned slaves, when they were in Europe at the time, I am going to consider them both evil and idiots, which will not make me like them. Even Coates in his book admitted that he looks nervously at young black men on the street and that the only assault he ever experienced was from young black men (as is also my white experience). So if people in an association test give the wrong answer, maybe they have a reason.
Years ago we attended a fad 360-review seminar in a company known for brutal top-down regimented management. We all knew it was bs and no one spoke when asked for your feedback. Sure enough, vanished like smoke. That was fairly harmless but this woke stuff is not.
cc at April 27, 2019 10:23 AM
This kind of nonsense isn't "creeping" into the workplace; it isn't "new" in corporate America.
It has been quite the norm at several places for well over a decade now.
Ben: "Being big doesn't mean you can't fail."
True, but, being big means that the government might/most likely will bail you out.
So, we all pay for this garbage. Some of us pay for it at our workplaces in person, the rest pay for it through tax dollars being used to prop up failed businesses.
charles at April 27, 2019 10:25 AM
"being big means that the government might/most likely will bail you out."
Not really Charles. It definitely increases your chances. But it is still a long shot. GE has largely built their business on that goal. They are more or less unprofitable. Instead they are focused on politics. Google and Amazon are heading that way too. Being near DC was one of the big requirements for the Amazon new headquarters. But if you look back there are lots of companies that tried the same thing and ended up vanishing in the dust. Basing the survival of your organization on the whims of random bureaucrats is not a path to success.
More significant is who is the biggest guy always around? The government. Who is the most infected with wokeness (and other stupid fads)? The government. You don't have to worry about paying for this stuff indirectly. Your tax dollars go directly to it.
Ben at April 27, 2019 1:00 PM
I love this one:
https://www.wweek.com/news/2018/11/07/a-transgender-powells-employee-says-the-bookstore-refused-to-designate-a-gender-neutral-restroom-in-its-corporate-office/
"Brewer is transgender and nonbinary (meaning Brewer was assigned the male gender at birth but identifies as neither male nor female, and prefers to be referred to by the pronouns "they," "their" and "them")."
"When Brewer arrived at Powell's in July, they sensed their new co-workers in the accounting department were uncomfortable using the pronouns "they," "them" and "their," or even having Brewer around. "People were so afraid to misgender me they would avoid talking to me altogether," Brewer says."
Naturally, THEY filed a lawsuit.
Kevin at April 27, 2019 1:10 PM
How much of this stuff do you suppose comes from true belief among corporate policymakers, and how much is due to fear of retribution from regulators, lawyers and customers (especially if the government is among the customers) if the company is insufficiently "inclusive"?
This is not a rhetorical question. I'd believe any answer that's backed up by evidence.
Rex Little at April 28, 2019 7:58 AM
Toby sees this as a combination of risk management, public posturing, and an appeal to Millenials. But there is another big advantage conferred to companies that profess their wokeness - they can fire people with impunity and prevent them from working for competitors, and that threat can be used to keep their employees in line.
This is something that a few civil rights and employment law experts have tried to warn about in response to the summary firings from #MeToo and the James Damore incident. While private companies have a wide latitude to dismiss employees, they need to provide a legitimate reason and verification when terminating for cause because of the harm that causes the employee. But that is not happening in these incidents. Rather the company terminates for cause by claiming the employee has been accused of acts so offensive to humanity that their presence can no longer be tolerated. The accusation itself is the cause regardless of whether those claims are true or violate any established justification for the firing.
The incentives for these companies are manifold. They avoid the cost of severance and often future royalties on IP, the fired employee can now be treated as hostile in any future litigation, and the charges endorsed by their firing are likely to keep them from being hired by competitors.
mormon at April 28, 2019 12:13 PM
"How much of this stuff do you suppose comes from true belief among corporate policymakers, and how much is due to fear of retribution"
I think it's neither. A lot of large corporations these days (notably in the areas of finance and tech) see themselves as arms of the government. They're doing their bit to support Team Left. And by doing so, they're getting accolades from the activists, their markets are protected from competition, and sometimes they get subsidies.
Cousin Dave at April 29, 2019 7:34 AM
If they (the policymakers for those corporations) genuinely see themselves as arms of the government and members of Team Left, that's what I mean by "true belief".
Rex Little at April 29, 2019 8:47 AM
Point taken, Rex. Although I think that part of it is a combination of narcissism and cynical team-picking, like some New York baseball fans who will follow the Yankees when that team is doing well, and then switch their loyalty to the Mets when they are doing better. It's that I-want-to-be-on-the-winning-team-whatever-it-is mentality.
Cousin Dave at April 29, 2019 12:09 PM
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