If this is true, there are three broad areas that constitute the killing fields of modern civilization: academia, the churches, and corporate practices.
For academia, read "Decline & fall: classics edition -- On identity politics in classical studies."
Well, this year, [Donna] Zuckerberg noted, the magazine would aim to make sure that “at least [at least] 70 percent of our contributors be women and 20 percent of our writers be poc,” i.e., “people of color,” i.e., not white. (But isn’t race merely a “social construction”? No, silly, that was last year.) And just how are those percentages going to be achieved? Well, going forward, Eidolon will ask people pitching stories for “demographics,” i.e., are you black or white? Male or female? “I have no interest,” Zuckerberg sermonized, “in providing bland and false reassurances that we only care about good ideas and good writing and not who our authors are.” Who would doubt it? And what about merit? “[A]ppeals to merit,” she said, are “often . . . white supremacist dog-whistles.” So: “If you’re white and we publish you, you will know, for maybe the first time in your career, that it was because of the merit of your idea and not because you’re white.”
We’d like to know if there are any cases of anyone anywhere being published in a classics journal because he (or even she) was white.The article's writer, btw, is not white.
For churches, "Why Social Justice Is Killing Synagogues and Churches -- Data suggests that the more a religious movement is concerned with progressive causes, the more likely it is to rapidly lose members."
Ultimately ... religions, including Judaism [and churches - DS], can only hope to thrive if they serve a purpose that is not met elsewhere in society. It is all well and good to perform good deeds, but if religions do not make themselves indispensable to families, their future could be bleak. [boldface added]For the business world, the account of an information-technology security engineer, no link, this was posted on a closed Facebook group, but I am pasting all of what he wrote (protecting his name).
Fellow Members,I posted earlier this excerpt from Victor Davis Hanson's essay, The Return of Ancient Prejudices.
I just experienced a disturbing couple of days with my employer that I would like to share with you.
I work for the security unit of one of the largest consultancies in the world. Essentially, I help companies to secure their websites.
Once a year, our entire organization gets together for teambuilding, planning, networking, and that sort of thing. I went to the same event this time last year, and I found it rewarding and inspiring. I came away with many ideas on how to do my job better, and many new relationships with peers.
This year was different. While there were certainly many of the same networking opportunities, the overriding theme of the two days was inclusion and diversity. Essentially, we just spent thousands of dollars to fly everyone to one place to spend two days learning how to be more inclusive and more diverse.
As I’ve mentioned here before, my organization has a goal of being 50% women by 2025. I can’t imagine how we can reach such a goal, given that university technology programs are not graduating anywhere near 50% women.
Don’t misunderstand me. People want to come and work for us, so we have added some great women to our organization. It’s been a pleasure to work with them. However, it seems obvious to me that we are going to have to begin to forgo some great male talent soon if we hope to reach this 2025 goal.
I shared with you a couple of weeks back that an internal recruiter was complaining to me that she now has a diversity goal for talent which she is struggling to meet. So, again, our goal is no longer to find the right people, but to find the most diverse people. Our company gives referral bonuses if you were for good people who are hired. That number is now doubled if you refer “diverse“ candidates.
I have managed technical people for nearly 30 years. I’ve managed people of different races, nationalities, sexual orientation - whatever. As a manager, if you can help me reach my goals, you can work for me. I have been a popular manager throughout my career, because I take care of my people.
However, this is different than adding people to my team simply because of their gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. Why the hell should I even care about their sexual orientation? What does that have to do with securing some company’s website?
About 50% of the two days was spent on exercises related to inclusion and diversity. I was given a spreadsheet, and asked to fill it in with the names of the six people I trust the most (other than family). I was then asked to check boxes when the attributes of those people were the same as mine. The attributes were age, race, gender, nationality, and sexual orientation. I was then asked to look at all the checkmarks and ask myself if I should “re-think” the list of the people that I trust the most.
My list was filled with my oldest friends in the world – guys I went to high school with. I’ve been lucky enough to maintain those friendships over the years. I value them as much as anything else in my life.
My employer just asked me to re-think those friendships, because my friendships are not inclusive and diverse enough, in their opinion.
The reason they gave me is that we hire people we trust, and we won’t hire with an eye toward inclusion and diversity if we only trust people like ourselves.
Well, I’ve never hired any one of my old friends. They are my friends. These are not professional relationships. I trust many people professionally of many races, genders, national origins, etc. Again, my litmus test is simple. Can you help me sell my software and delight my customers?
I’m proud to be a good mentor of people younger and less experienced than myself. I’ve trained many people to be better technically, and better with soft skills, such as public speaking. The people I have trained have included people of many races, genders, and national origins. Some I know to be gay, simply because I found out somehow. One woman who worked for me shared with me, over a beer, that she was gay. She opened up to me because, she wanted to tell me how comfortable she was working for me, when other male managers were uncomfortable with her. Frankly, I can’t imagine how anybody could be uncomfortable with her. She did a great job, and every customer loved her. It was her choice to open up to me about her sexual orientation, and that’s fine, but it had no bearing on my view of her. Had another event, I met her partner. This woman was as I have it a baseball fan as I am. We hit it off completely.
This person doesn’t work for me today, but we’re still in touch. She reaches out to me sometimes for career advice, and she has used me as a reference.
We had a number of other exercises, such as putting little shapes on our shirts and then grouping ourselves in any way we thought appropriate, to “prove“ that we naturally go toward people like ourselves. What it proved to me what is that, to get done with the exercise, we’ll go stand next to the people who are closest to us.
I had a funny experience right after this exercise. The exercise was right before lunch. There was a woman ahead of me in the lunch line. I had spoken to her for a while in a different breakout session, and I thought she was great. I made a mental note to keep her in mind for a future project.
However, in the lunch line, she suddenly became very angry due to the lack of a vegetarian option. I looked at the lunch selections. There was a large salad, including a great deal of variety, plus carrots, potatoes, and potato pierogies. Weren’t these vegetarian options? This woman threw her tray down in disgust and stormed off.
I couldn’t help but wonder if all of the inclusion and diversity exercises we had just completed pushed her out of her “teambuilding“ mode, and into her “identity” mode. It was night and day. She was like the guy in the Snickers commercial who turns into Betty White when he’s hungry.
Then, the part that really disturbed me. After the exercises were completed, a woman got up and explained that we were going to begin to have Ask Anything webinars. Executives would essentially be put on the hot seat, and lower level employees could ask them anything. Examples cited were sexual orientation and religion.
So, executives in our organization are going to be forced to go on webinars and talk about their sexuality and their religion? Really?
And, while you would not be forced to attend these events, you would get a “flair” on your personal page if you did. Remember Jennifer Aniston in that movie where she was a waitress, and she kept getting in trouble with her boss because she wouldn’t wear enough flair? This is the same idea.
I don’t want to hear about somebody’s sexuality or religion, so I would be unlikely to attend such an event, but now everyone in the company would be aware of my choice, simply due to the lack of flair on my personal page. Will this be career limiting for me?
Of course, I’ve probably reached as high as I’m likely to go in this organization, given that I’m a 55-year-old white guy. I don’t meet the current leadership criteria.
Frankly, I think this whole idea is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
I work with some great people, and we do great work for customers throughout the world. I came away from these two days concerned that leadership is going to destroy the great thing we have by this over the top focus on inclusion and diversity.
Doesn’t it make more sense to grow our organization by bringing in great talent without consideration for all of these other attributes?
Well, I guess that’s my unconscious bias talking.
What is behind the rebirth of these old prejudices? In short, new, evolving prejudices.Oh, my: "Why Diversity Programs Fail," at Harvard Business Review.
First, America seemingly no longer believes in striving to achieve a gender-blind, racially and religiously mixed society, but instead is becoming a nation in which tribal identity trumps all other considerations.
Second, such tribal identities are not considered to be equal. Doctrinaire identity politics is predicated on distancing itself from white males, Christians and other groups who traditionally have achieved professional success and therefore enjoyed inordinate “privilege.”
Third, purported victims insist that they themselves cannot be victimizers. So, they are freer to discriminate and stereotype to advance their careers or political interests on the basis of anything they find antithetical to their own ideologies. ...
And what fuels the return of American bias is the new idea that citizens can disparage or discriminate against other groups if they claim victim status and do so for purportedly noble purposes.
It shouldn’t be surprising that most diversity programs aren’t increasing diversity. ...To vast swaths of the Political Class, this is a feature, not a bug: "Millennial Males with Degrees are Getting Crushed in the Workplace."
In analyzing three decades’ worth of data from more than 800 U.S. firms and interviewing hundreds of line managers and executives at length, we’ve seen that companies get better results when they ease up on the control tactics. It’s more effective to engage managers in solving the problem, increase their on-the-job contact with female and minority workers, and promote social accountability—the desire to look fair-minded. That’s why interventions such as targeted college recruitment, mentoring programs, self-managed teams, and task forces have boosted diversity in businesses. Some of the most effective solutions aren’t even designed with diversity in mind.
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