zlacker

Anecdotal but my office is ultra-woke. There are endless internal emails about whatever-week, or veterans-this, or LBGTQ+-that etc etc. People have been hounded out and either quit or been fired for fairly minor "infractions" of the groupthink (...and also some people have rightly been fired for actual inappropriate behaviour).

And guess what all this talk about "toxic masculinity" and generally vilifying all men leads to? If you said "chilling effect" then you are bang on. It is a bloody minefield. Keep your head down, never talk about non-work stuff, refuse to provide feedback or do interviews, refuse to help people out unless it is directly your job' responsibility to do so etc and hope you don't get fired.

It genuinely feels like I have a target on my back.

>>mattlo+(OP)
If I ever get fired for not being woke enough, I am going to breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm 100% tired of all of it, to the point that I almost want someone to cancel me.

>>mattlo+(OP)
The only solution to cancel culture is to cancel those out of your life who would cancel you. I would be doing the same thing if I was in your shoes.

On the bright side, this is hopefully a healthy opportunity for us all to find some friends outside of work.

>>mattlo+(OP)
Now you know how the other side felt all along :).

Seriously, we are now asked to treat everyone with respect and that is a problem?

Edit: No I don't mean eye for eye. I am merely pointing out, this is a male dominant industry where women didn't even have a chance for a long time. The moment we face little uneasiness, we are complaining and throwing temper tantrums.

>>kumarm+M2
OP is perhaps suggesting that a system where nobody feels like they have a target on their back is possible. Such that we don't (as you appear to tacitly admit we do) simply creature a culture that is still toxic, but for different people.

So, no, it isn't a problem to respect everyone.

>>kumarm+M2
No, that's not the problem. It's that offense is easy to take at anything and companies erring on the side of caution will prefer to get rid so they appear to be doing something. Whether it is right or not doesn't matter by the time the truth is out the actions have been taken.

>>mattlo+(OP)
Document the hostile work environment in a journal, look for new positions, and quit when it becomes too much of a threat to your wellbeing. If you decide to quit or get fired, use your documentation of the environment as a basis for filing for unemployment benefits or if it merits it, higher levels of complaint/compensation.

The "progressive" cause is just as capable of doing wrong as the "conservative" cause; there is this general perception that being "woke" is the moral high ground and if you're against the "conservative" people who are jerks then you and your peers do no wrong.

In fact it seems like the conservative jerks and the "woke" jerks are doing the exact same thing - abusing groups of peoples and behaviors in order to show off their moral superiority.

A bunch of young people in the past generations left the church because they saw church people hating on folks who didn't fit their definition of "good people" and saw that definition distorted into abusing folks that deserved to be who they were. The exact same behaviors are showing up and getting stronger in the "woke" community, just with different targets. I'm still waiting for the popular backlash against the "woke" agenda - probably just the next generation of kids rebelling against their parents' ideals.

I have a target on my back too and occasionally am treated like a predator, but I also have the privilege that though it isn't harmless to me, I usually have the ability to get up and exit the situation treating me poorly. This is what everybody should try to cultivate - the freedom to quit a bad situation and not be a slave to a particular job, group of people, life plan, etc. When you can say "I would like to do this but I have other options" then it becomes a whole lot harder to be abused because when bad things happen you can just say goodbye.

>>kumarm+M2
You wrote 2 sentences and still managed to contradict yourself.

Either parent and 'other side' have been both victimised (by him now knowing how they felt) or parent isn't a victim but since you claim he is experiancing what 'the other side' did neither were they.

Maybe try listening for a change.

>>kumarm+M2
Every sense of morality transformed into abuse has at least some basis in what would be called real objective good.

You cannot simplify the problems of "woke culture" as "asking everyone to treat others with respect", because that is not what is happening on the dark side of "woke" and you can't pretend that the dark side doesn't exist.

>>jimbob+02
I'm usually against cancel culture. Except against those that partake in it. I'll admit I feel a lot of schadenfreude when those people get canceled themselves and they're held to their own standards.

>>sputr+K4
> Maybe try listening for a change.

Please omit personal swipes from your HN posts, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>>kumarm+M2
The problem isn’t to treat people with respect. The problem is that some few people are absolutely hellbent on interpreting any interaction through a lens of sexism or racism, and a large silent majority allows them for fear of drawing unwanted attention and/or harm.

This is not to say that sexism or racism isn’t or hasn’t been a large problem, but the correction pendulum has really swung way too far for some people and that is actually not at all helpful since it only builds up resentment among people who actually are supporters of the cause of equality.

>>kumarm+M2
Yes, that’s what it’s about. Turnabout is fair play. You should think through the long term consequences of that.

I wish you weren’t getting downvoted because I think your comment reveals so much.

>>kumarm+M2
What other side? This whole othering of people is just regressive tribalism.

>>jimbob+02
That's like fighting for freedom of speech forbidding those who are against it to speak.

>>mrxd+c6
Eye for an eye really isn't a great way to run a society.

>>mattlo+(OP)
I utterly adore that my workplace has a strict ban on using any company resources such as the email system for non-work related business. The one time in eight years someone sent a political email they were formally reprimanded.

>>Swenre+96
> The problem is that some few people are absolutely hellbent on interpreting any interaction through a lens of sexism or racism, and a large silent majority allows them for fear of drawing unwanted attention and/or harm.

A lot of people might not just be that good at what they do but manage to advance by way of their gender/race and scare away any negative feedback. Thus, given that their skills themselves won't save them, leveraging mob justice to do so is a viable strategy for them.

>>Darmod+g7
The important question today is what we would have done if Joseph McCarthy had been right. If (in some bizarre parallel universe) he was somehow right about Communists doing...Communist things and we all definitely agreed on this, would we have applauded his tactics?

The cancel culture crowd today seem to think yes. They look to him as an idol and see his only flaw as his unjust cause.

I don’t think I agree. Extrajudiciality should be shunned in all its forms even if it leads to bad people meeting bad ends.

>>mattlo+(OP)
I could not see myself working for such a company.

>>Causal+3b
This is more common than not in traditional enterprises and businesses. It feels like a unique trait of the Silicon Valley bubble (and places testing to emulate it).

>>jimbob+De
RFK and Nixon thought so and worked on his staff. So in 1968, running against each other, those two probably represented 95% of the electorate.