Issues that directly impact me and mine at my workplace are considered “political” by those of more conservative mindsets.
That’s the really ugly flip side of this, and I know it’s been said elsewhere but: conservative politics in the US make some people’s entire existence political, full stop.
So you do a lot more than just cut out “distracting” conversations this way. You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth.
You can’t disconnect this from the current US political situation. They’re joined at the hip.
> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop
Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop.
It’s made quite clear that my only means of survival are to keep my mouth shut and present myself as entirely apolitical.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but experience tells me you’re perfectly happy if my existence is kept silenced for the greater good of allowing your political side to thrive and speak freely, but you’re not ok with both sides being silenced, or at least “toned down”, for the sake of promoting fairness, inclusion, and productivity.
> Perhaps I’m wrong, but experience tells me you’re perfectly happy if my existence is kept silenced for the greater good of allowing your political side to thrive and speak freely
But this isn’t what I’m saying: I’m saying that plainly anodyne workplace chitchat that anecdotally confirms that I am a gay man is coded as political speech by many people.
I don’t know if you misread me or not, but if you didn’t then it actually proves my point: you’re ascribing a political “side” to my speech when I’m just trying to say “gays are gonna get told to stop mentioning their husbands like we used to”. And that’s entirely my point: you’re coding my existence and participation in banal chitchat as political, and these policies make that much more dangerous for me.
I don’t think I misread you, and I think I fully understand what you mean - to some, simply saying “my husband and I” triggers the feeling that you’re shoving an agenda in their face. I get it, and I don’t disagree at all.
But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. Clearly, without any context, if ever a word were to be said about this hypothetical scenario, it would be inherently political, and you would already know from which side. So, clearly, you’ve also already ascribed politics to this anodyne chitchat.
But I also think it’s disingenuous to leap from “banning political discussions at work” to “the LGBTQ family has to pretend they don’t exist”. If culture is such that people discuss what they did with their significant other or family over the weekend, then setting an environment where everyone is welcome to discuss that freely falls on leadership.
Somebody finding fault with that is going to have to be dealt with by HR the same way you might deal with a person who constantly shames everyone else for eating sugary donuts every morning - an opinion they can keep to themselves, without attacking or threatening others.
I’m not saying the line is always easy to find, but it’s not nearly as complex as most make it out to be.
> But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody.
It’s not the only one, I suppose. But you’re painting it as if it’s not the primary one. It is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values. I understand the hair you’re trying to split, but I don’t feel it’s worth splitting. The fact that a handful of non-conservative folks might also find my existence offensive doesn’t really change the fact that mostly, it’s “conservative” identified folks.
> It’s not the only one, I suppose. But you’re painting it as if it’s not the primary one. It is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values. I understand the hair you’re trying to split, but I don’t feel it’s worth splitting.
Maybe in Afghanistan, but not in the US. The majority of Republicans support gay marriage. Out of those that don’t, few would find “the existence” of a gay person “offensive” even if they reject extending state sanction to gay marriage. For a long time many Americans opposed re-marriage for divorced people. That doesn’t mean they found the existence of divorced people offensive.
I don’t see the point in treating everything short of complete acceptance as equivalent to opposing someone’s “existence.” Some people in America don’t want, as a matter of government policy, immigrants like me coming to the US from Muslim countries. They’re not opposed to “my existence”—invariably they’ll leave me alone if I leave them alone.
Progress is also good, but it remains true that we aren’t exactly at “majority support” yet. And it’s not guaranteed to keep climbing either. I hope it does, obviously, because that’s a very good thing for me. We’re just not there yet.
I’m from a Muslim country, and among Muslim Americans same sex relationships are taboo. While Muslim support for same sex marriage crossed the 50% mark a couple of years ago, it’s completely rejected within the community itself. (Almost no Muslim Americans identity as LGBT, and virtually no mosques will perform same sex marriages: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....) But the many Muslim Americans who oppose same sex marriage don’t oppose the “existence” of gay people. They believe, consistent with their religion, that marriage is for procreation and government sanction should only be extended to heterosexual relationships. They are also probably ignorant on the issue of sexual orientation being an innate trait. My aunts don’t want to grant government sanction to same-sex relationships, but it’s unfair to say they’re a danger to the “existence” of gay people.
I want to commend you both for having a civilized conversation about something that can get very heated.
Speaking from my own (ex-Christian) upbringing, I got only the vaguest references to people being gay as a child/teen except that they were all sinners. I certainly couldn't have held a rational conversation about it because, aside from references inside the church I didn't know any gay people (maybe I did, who could know).
It wasn't until I reached adulthood and left that community behind that I began to realize the way LGBTQ* people are and were demonized within certain christian circles.
The argument that marriage is solely for procreation, and/or the property of religions doesn't really hold water. Christians I have come across, seem to think they invented marriage, which is just not even close to historically accurate.
As to procreation only, this is fraught with the way laws treat things like next of kin, power of attorney and tax benefits. None of those things, have anything to do with procreation and yet they're a big part of marriage.
On the positive side @drewbug01, over the course of 15 years I have gone from incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing (because of upbringing), to some of my best friends being from those communities. There is progress, and with any luck there will continue to be progress.
> On the positive side @drewbug01, over the course of 15 years I have gone from incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing (because of upbringing), to some of my best friends being from those communities. There is progress, and with any luck there will continue to be progress.
I'm happy to hear that; it is actually good to hear. I really do think things are getting better, albeit perhaps too slowly.
My own background is similar to yours (ex-Christian, not knowing LGBT people growing up, etc). What you said resonates with me quite a bit.
> While Muslim support for same sex marriage crossed the 50% mark a couple of years ago, it’s completely rejected within the community itself.
Honestly, this is one of the reasons I don't like to reach for statistics in this kind of debate - because of what you've highlighted here. The numbers on the survey say one thing, but they paint a rosier picture than reality.
> My aunts don’t want to grant government sanction to same-sex relationships, but it’s unfair to say they’re a danger to the “existence” of gay people.
I consider my relationship with my husband to be a core part of my identity (certainly not the only part, of course). It's a major part of who I am and how I move about the world; how I exist within it and relate to it. And this is what straight people do, as well - and for them, it's considered absolutely normal (and society even encourages it in some ways).
What's unfair, to me, is to say that my "existence" is only relegated to physically living - life is about a lot more than that. We're not talking about killing the gays, here. We're talking about people who'd like to force the gays back into the closet so that they don't have to hear about relationships that they think are an affront to their religion.
Your Aunts aren't calling for the extermination of gay people, and that's good. But we shouldn't pretend that "they can live" is tolerant.
---
As an aside, we're pretty far into the weeds with this, although I think what we're talking about is still important to discuss. My original comment, last night, was about how the policy can harm people, and how it can be abused - not so much about what we're discussing now.
It's frustrating to see the goalposts in these discussions move from "most of us agree the state shouldn't do anything to penalize same-sex couples" to "we should litigate what's in the heart of Rayiner's aunt".
It's quite hard when people keep hearing "and now I want your Aunt to accept gay people, fully, in her heart" when all I keep saying is "some people might use this as cover to harass gay people, because that's historically what they've done."
I also find the goalpost moving extremely frustrating, but we should be clear about who is actually moving that: the people reading calls for "acceptance" into discussion of a shitty thing that happens to LGBT people at work.
I would have a personal problem relating to or associating with anyone who held anti-LGBT beliefs in their heart, the same way I'd never work with anyone who believed Black people were in any way inferior to other people.
But this litigation of what's inside people's heads, when what they're publicly advocating for and voting for is the position we're asking of them in the first place, just makes me think we're surveilling for people to be angry at, because it gives us a dopamine hit.
We're not being asked to associate with anyone's aunt here and I think we should try to keep to the topic at hand.
> But this litigation of what's inside people's heads
Nobody is advocating that here, why do you keep bringing it up? This seems like something you feel is happening but that’s not what we are talking about at all.
> We’re not being asked to associate with anyone’s aunt here and I think we should try to keep to the topic at hand.
...you and other commenters brought up the Aunt. I don’t know if you’re confused, or what; but I didn’t bring the Aunt up in the first place. It arose spontaneously as a straw man up-thread.
You said that “objection” “to the very existence” of gay people “is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values.” I don’t think that fairly characterizes people with socially conservative values, such as my aunts. That’s not a straw man, that’s an example to address your core point.
> I consider my relationship with my husband to be a core part of my identity (certainly not the only part, of course). It's a major part of who I am and how I move about the world; how I exist within it and relate to it. And this is what straight people do, as well - and for them, it's considered absolutely normal (and society even encourages it in some ways).
> What's unfair, to me, is to say that my "existence" is only relegated to physically living - life is about a lot more than that. We're not talking about killing the gays, here. We're talking about people who'd like to force the gays back into the closet so that they don't have to hear about relationships that they think are an affront to their religion.
There's two senses of the word "existence" here - one is physically living and being present in the world (ie: not dead). The other sense is "projecting outward from yourself," as in interacting with others and having relationships with other people in your life, moving through and impacting the world somehow around you. The latter sense is what I'm talking about. It's philosophical, but important.
To move it out of the realm of your personal relationships and fully into mine, let's replace your Aunt with my Aunt. My Aunt has expressed to me that she doesn't want to ever hear about me being gay, to the point of asking me not to bring a significant other around her children, lest they know that I am not straight.
That's the kind of "opposed to my existence" that I'm talking about - they don't want to kill me, but they want me to be entirely muted and silent; present but not really participating as a human being. Preferably, they'd like me to pretend to be "straight" if at all possible, including therapy to change myself. It's not for my benefit, obviously.
That's what I'm trying to get at, and I still think it's fair to say that people professing conservative political values like my Aunt (maybe yours too, who knows) would very much like me to be "seen, and not heard" - back in the closet pretending the actual substance of my life doesn't exist because it's more convenient for their worldview, and changing myself to suit their narratives whenever possible. I very much see that still reflected in modern conservative politics - see the debates about whether or not cruelties like "conversion therapy" should be banned, whether or not trans people are allowed to live their lives openly, etc.
---
Please note: your Aunt only came up because you brought her up, but I'm not trying to bash on her repeatedly. We can talk about mine instead for a handy point of reference, or someone else entirely. Bringing family into this makes it a lot harder to talk about, and we can instead pick a different point of reference. Denigrating family members isn't what I'm trying to do here, and I hope that much is at least obvious.
Nothing about the policy seemed to suggest to me that gay people would have to conceal their sexuality at work or avoid mentioning it. I think you can read it as protecting conversations around gay people. Consider the following hypothetical:
You: "... my husband..."
Me: "You know, I don't think gay people should be married. Marriage is blah blah blah"
------------------------
By my reading of the OP "my" comment there would be prohibited. Now, I'm bringing politics (or religion - which I also feel is and should be banned at work) into things to talk about why I condemn you or oppose your marriage.
In other words, rather than explain exactly what political positions and discussions are permitted we should just not have political discussions at work. If you mention your husband, I shouldn't tell you my thoughts about marriage or homosexuality. Conversely, if I mention I attend a Mormon Temple, you shouldn't tell me your thoughts regarding Mormonism. Details (within reason) about oneself are fine, but political discussion based on those details are not.
Of course, it's possible I've misread the document, and if they do intend to silence homosexuals from letting slip any details about their life, or whatever, then I oppose their changes. I think all people should be equally free at work to talk about themselves and their lives where it is appropriate. This document is just setting the guideline that political discussions are not appropriate.
Bob: "... my husband..."
Fred: "oh"
Bob: "What?"
Fred: "nothing"
Bob: "Okay..."
Fred: "....i think i'll go finish my lunch at my desk"
Bob: "hey don't forget to finish that code review for me later"
Fred: <acts different in subtle and plausibly deniable way with Bob from now on"
Bob: "Hey, do you have a problem with me being gay?"
Fred: "DON'T MAKE THIS POLITICAL" etc.
It could, but how would a corporate policy that permits discussing politics help anything? If Fred is anti-gay and going to subtly be a jerk to Bob from now on, do you think that in the alternate reality where discussion of politics were permitted that things would be better? In this alternate reality do you expect Bob to have a quick workplace chat with Fred that convinces him to be cool with gay people?
That's the same argument people use against legalizing gay marriage or creating laws forbidding private businesses from discriminating against gay people. "You're not going to make anyone not homophobic this way!"
No, not immediately. But if you ban politics in this context then you are tacitly encouraging homophobic behaviour.
Bob: "Boss, Fred is being homophobic"
Boss: "What happened?"
Bob: <retells above story>
Boss: "Look, don't ask don't tell. He didn't force you to make it a thing. He didn't say anything. What exactly did he do wrong? He's right, you're the one that made it political, and we banned that at the office."
It's an exit valve out of difficult conversations.
> Nothing about the policy seemed to suggest to me that gay people would have to conceal their sexuality at work or avoid mentioning it.
You fundamentally misunderstand what I’m trying to say, though: it’s not that the new policy explicitly says “gays must hide again”. It’s that a large number of people think “being gay” is political; any mention that you are gay is inherently “throwing it in their face,” and so a policy banning “political discussion” gives significant cover to those who’d like to pretend gay people don’t exist. They can claim, legitimately in many people’s minds, that hearing about someone’s “sexual preferences” is political speech.
Of course it all feels contrived and silly, because popular opinion is legitimately (yet slowly) moving toward the position of “gay people existing is not political.” But we are far, far from that position today. The things I’m describing are not a fever dream, but things that actually still happen to LGBT people in the workplace.
I find about 50% of my coworkers offensive in one way or another. Doesn't mean I make it an issue or throw it in their face or try to sabotage their work or anything like that. A lot of people who would never be friends in their private lives work together in tolerance and cooperation at the office. Expecting everyone to approve of every aspect of how you live is unrealistic.
> Expecting everyone to approve of every aspect of how you live is unrealistic.
Who asked for that, though? This is precisely my point: my existence is being conflated with “approving every aspect of how you live.”
That’s the entire problem, right there. People can and will and do cause problems for LGBT people in the workplace just for existing, for saying boring things like “my husband and I went to the movies.”
Thank you for being less incendiary, I appreciate it!
Yes, the Republican Party has been more staunchly traditional with its views of things like gay marriage, but the premise of Republicans being “THE party of homophobia and hate” is disingenuous from MANY angles.
Fact is, this 2016 platform is barely distinguishable from the policies that the left enacted in the 90s under people like Clinton, and continued as late as Obama’s stance early in his presidency.
The left has evolved just as the right has on these issues. The parties have been a handful of years apart in this regard at most, but the left is allowed, with the help of the media, to freely shed its past with flimsy justification at best, while the crudest voices of the right are amplified and made to appear as representative of the entire party.
Even the linked NPR article admits that Trump is more moderate on these issues, and judging from the makeup of the most recent CPAC, the direction of the party towards social libertarianism with limited government involvement couldn’t be more clear.
But the media tries to prevent that progress from happening in the party, both by deceiving its readers into believing Trump is Hitler, by cherry-picking voices on the right that clearly differ from how the party has evolved, while also gaslighting its readers on the left’s own troubled past.
Secondly, the notion that every LGBTQ or other minority status must be a single issue voter hyper focused on their supposed minority identity is itself a bit offensive, yet pushed by the left.
If you face homelessness as a kid as a result of government policies, suddenly you don’t have the luxury of caring about whether you can legally marry.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually very grateful for the cultural acceptance that the left has helped push towards LGBTQ causes, amongst others.
But for all of the cultural acceptance they’ve helped achieve, they have their share of policies that I feel continue to harm.
For example, I have no interest in forcing a bakery to bake me a cake. My only interest is that I also be legally allowed to open my own bakery that openly supports everyone. But I’ve been co-opted into this fight, whether I like it or not.
Which leads me to my final point, which is the notion that every issue is so black and white that everyone neatly fits into the “good” box or the “evil” box.
Both sides have perpetrated this division for their own needs, but I refuse to play into it.
For as much as the left has helped the culture change to accept me, they have equally helped push the notion that I can’t have nuanced views of marriage, of a bakery’s choice of service, and of government assistance policies.
We’re all either marching in the parade, or we’re nazis.
This leads to the very statement you initially made - a clear, binary choice, with one side advocating for the elimination of my entire existence, and the other, a utopia of acceptance and love.
Which in turn leads to the kind of dehumanizing, violent rhetoric I hear regularly at work from the supposed side of tolerance, who remind me that it might be ok if I “came out” as LGBTQ at work, but make it abundantly clear that my job, and likely my own safety, would be at risk if I ever “came
out” as a Trump supporter.
If I take their “jokes” about re-education camps and forced sterlizarion and physical beatings seriously, that is.
Sorry, long winded response, but I have few outlets and I very much appreciate your efforts towards a conversation!
Why are you connecting "banning political discussions at work" to "being conservative"? Either here, or in general.
Any conservative who expressed any views like that at a company where political discussion was banned would certainly be violating the political discussion policy, at the least, and potentially also violating harassment policies.
I think we are in this mess because we are mixing up state and religion.
Marriage was a religious thing.
There is no reason any part of the state should mess with it.
But, for a while it so happened that it was useful for the state to rely on marriage to mean "two people living together" for whatever that should mean in tax codes etc. With that came the rules that followed the mainstream religion at the time.
Today that isn't the case any longer and it should be split.
Call the new thing what you want: around here it is something like "civil marriage" as opposed to "(implicit: religious) marriage".
The point should be to separate those two things:
- can you get the same tax benefits? Yes.
- can you throw a party to celebrate it? Yes.
- are people allowed to ask someone about it before hiring them or avoid hiring someone if they find out about it in another way? No.
- is it "religious marriage" so we can force every church to accept it? No.
Does this help?
FTR: I'm a practicing conservative Christian. I think a lot of stuff others do is wrong, and if asked directly I will have to keep silent or answer truthfully.
I do however appreciate my liberty to live my life as I want without neither the state nor anyone else interfering (coming from a non mainstream church this definitely hasn't always been the case, look up Hans Nielsen Hauge for easy access to examples of what I mean) and I want to extend that freedom to others:
If people aren't Christians I might think what they do is wrong, I don't want them to preach in my church etc but I leave them alone and hope for the favour to be returned.
Do you have sources to back that up? I'm genuinely curious. My understanding was that marriage was always a social contract, but that society and religion used to be more intertwined thus 'religious marriage'.
I don't disagree with the idea of separating the religious and civil/cultural aspects of marriage. But I think you'll find non religious folk resistant to calling civil/cultural partnerships something other than marriage. It's a deeply embedded cultural concept not just a religious concept.
> Call the new thing what you want: around here it is something like "civil marriage" as opposed to "(implicit: religious) marriage".
I think the major problem here is that most conservative Christians who propose it still want “religious marriage” to count as a “civil marriage.” Fundamentally separating the two isn’t actually a bad idea in my opinion, but in practice it seems like most people who suggested it (from the conservative side of things) didn’t actually want that. They wanted “separate but equal” in a sense, and they also didn’t particularly care if it actually happened or not - it was a delaying tactic here in the US.
There's usually no problem with a religious marriage counting as a civil marriage, except for edge cases like religions who accepts polygamy etc since all the rules that are needed for civil marriage (and more) are typically also required by mainstream religions.
And religions mostly have no problem with civil marriage as long as nobody forces them to bless it. Exceptions: I guess WBC and a few others.
I mean, for starters it’s a little insulting for people to say “Oh no, you can’t have marriage. Let’s go create a new kind of marriage and that’ll be the same thing.” To know that not only do they not want to bless it, they want to not even have it called the same name is just really a slap in the face, as far as bargaining chips go. Why settle for an insult?
But it’s not even just that - if the US religious right had honestly been fine with that, then why didn’t that come to pass? That would have been a much easier thing to do than to fight marriage equality tooth and nail at every turn. The fact that they didn’t really support this obvious easy way out is very telling.
Why are we pretending like the ones asking for the rights didn’t take some obvious logical, alternate path? LGBT folks largely supported “civil unions” which were explicitly unequal, doesn’t it stand to reason they would have supported something far more equal? The answer is that LGBT people weren’t the ones refusing to take some higher road here.
I’m pretty sure mainstream republicans are pretty onboard with accepting homosexuality, it’s the trans movement that is currently under scrutiny. Obviously we can find examples of members of the GOP that are against gay marriage, but the last four or five years has seen that toned down a bunch.
People change, conservatives pride themselves on changing slower, but it does happen.
> Obviously we can find examples of members of the GOP that are against gay marriage
The party platform is the official stance of the Republican party and it is against same sex marriage. It won't change until 2024. Republicans who support it are extreme outliers, not the other way around.
If I was in a same sex marriage I would feel very, very uncomfortable working at a company that "bans politics" when a large number of my peers thinks my spouse is "unnatural".
>If I was in a same sex marriage I would feel very, very uncomfortable working at a company that "bans politics" when a large number of my peers thinks my spouse is "unnatural".
What's especially important to remember though, is if a company were to limit political discussions, by your same statements/logic, that would also include opinions shared _against_ same sex marriage though, no?
Wouldn't that create a safer environment where 1) people are mostly insulated from people sharing their views against it, and 2) if someone were to share something about their same sex spouse, any publicly expressed opposition against it at the workplace would be considered breaking that workplace norm.
In the most theoretical sense, perhaps it could. But that’s not how it tends to play out in reality, and it hasn’t played out that way in the past.
I think a lot of people want to treat this as an experiment - “couldn’t it work?” - but a lot of people with lived experience are saying “this policy doesn’t work, because this used to be how workplace policies were, and they had really bad side-effects.”
I just think most of us are unwilling to run the experiment again just because it should work. In practice, it does not.
28% in 2014 to 49% today. Sorry I missed the majority by 2%. This is a huge change in a short period of time. Sure it’s slower than liberal acceptance, but it’s happening.
This is exactly why I don’t want these conversations in my company’s chat channels. I am not advocating against gay marriage, but I get downvoted because I say something to the effect of “hey maybe you might have an outdated view of many of your conservative voting peers”. This despite the fact that my personal views are probably more in line with yours than you’d expect. I’m just not willing to toss half the country under a bus before I even have a conversation with them.
>But this isn’t what I’m saying: I’m saying that plainly anodyne workplace chitchat that anecdotally confirms that I am a gay man is coded as political speech by many people.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Basecamp is not at all saying people should not reveal, let alone actively hide, their sexual orientation, gender identity, or anything like that.
I think anyone else at the company who considered such a thing political and tried to tell that person or the chat that what they're doing is political would be the only individual who's violating the "no politics at work" policy (perhaps in addition to other policies, too).
I understand your concern in general, here, but I don't see any reason why "gays are gonna get told to stop mentioning their husbands like we used to" is a thing that would start happening as a result of this policy change at Basecamp. I very strongly share your opinion that a conservative person who would do such a thing is deeply in the wrong, but I don't really think I see how it would apply to this particular situation.
I don't think "banning political discussion" at all carries the implications you're concerned about at most companies, and I think if it did happen at such a company it would be the thing that's violating the policy.
> I think anyone else at the company who considered such a thing political and tried to tell that person or the chat that what they're doing is political would be the only individual who's violating the "no politics at work" policy (perhaps in addition to other policies, too).
You'd think, wouldn't you? :)
This is the problem though: it all depends on who hears the complaint, and what biases they hold. There's nothing in the policy that's definitively banning this kind of harassment-labeled-as-politics, and so it could easily still happen.
And I'm so adamant about the possibility because I've seen this happen! It's not a hypothetical to me. It's really gross, but it still plays out this way today. The US has made a lot of progress in this particular area, but it's still not a given that your management will support you or that you're going to end up in a workplace where bias is the exception, and not the norm.
> Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop.
As someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum from you, I want to say - I respect your opinions, I can see some of the arguments for them, I'm willing to listen, and I would have absolutely no problem working with you, employing you, or hanging out. I'm really sorry it's come to this, and it is definitely my side of the political spectrum that is more to blame.
I never really get chance to say that to anyone, so there it is FWIW.
I agree here. I miss having loud good faith arguments with conservative coworkers (and ones more liberal than me) at lunch time and strongly disagreeing on some issues, and then just getting back to work talking about how much we hated Oracle databases. Mind you these were coworkers from all backgrounds.
I just miss high quality political debate. What we have how is just name calling and tribalism.
While I wish my work environment allowed me to express my views as everyone else does, I do genuinely appreciate hearing other side, and I’ve certainly gained valuable perspective on some issues this way.
As the other reply from atonse mentioned, I would love an environment where ideas can be discussed (and even disagreed with) but with mutual respect for each other as people with differing life experiences.
I think we mostly have more in common than most of us think, and I think we would all have a lot less hate, a lot more shared understanding, and ultimately better outcomes at work and at home.
I don't know your lived experience. I'm going to try not to doubt it. Maybe your coworkers are toxic and you are trying to talk to them about why low taxes are good because they encourage innovation, and that government-run agencies are not as efficient as private enterprises, and they are screaming the Communist Manifesto back at you.
But in my experience, that's not the kinds of opinions that I see the modern discourse have no tolerance for. Happy to be hear some stories otherwise and have my own mind be opened about the kind of discrimination you're talking about.
The kind of toxicity I’m talking about doesn’t even involve a conversation.
As an example, a couple months ago at the start of a dev meeting, my boss made a joke about a protest organized by business owners in the area urging our governor to open up businesses. It was covered as a largely conservative group.
Here’s roughly how that went:
Boss: “Doesn’t seem like a chance of this lockdown ending with all of those morons protesting this week”
Coworker A: “Yeah, it’s scary how many of them think the virus doesn’t exist”
Coworker B (imitating conservatives): “I’ll just shoot at the virus with my gun”
Everyone laughs
Coworker A: “The problem is they’re just not educated. If only we could steal their kids away and take them to some private education camp”
Boss grunts with agreement.
Coworker B: “Or they should just be prevented from having kids at all”
Coworker A: “Maybe it’s for the best that they’re the ones that will die off. Natural selection at work.”
Everyone laughs. Then the meeting starts.
It escalates so quickly, in an awkward “half joking” way, that at no point to I feel able to jump in and provide perspective that many of them feel their livelihoods are threatened. That maybe we’re lucky that we haven’t missed a paycheck. That maybe they’re protesting not out of ignorance, but rather perspective we don’t have.
Sometimes it’s simpler - my boss jokes that a neighbor put up a Trump sign and he “always thought they seemed like inbreds”, or a coworker questions why his friends daughter is dating a conservative who “hates women”.
Is that my cue to explain “actually, I’m a conservative but believe strongly in women’s equality” or “hey, just because I have strong feelings about the 2nd amendment precisely as a means for women and minorities to protect themselves doesn’t mean I’m a bigot or an inbred?”
To be fair, I have not outed myself as either a conservative or LGBTQ. Maybe they would think twice about what they say if I do. Maybe these are perfectly innocent jokes using a form of hyperbole that I’m just not getting.
But I’ve also had plenty of conversations with friends and family along the “I wish gay people would keep it to themselves” and “kids need a mom and dad”. In those cases I’ve always felt able to have a discussion advocating against their ideas without feeling like my tires would be slashed in the parking lot.
You're getting downvoted, but I upvoted you. That sounds pretty shitty, I'm sorry.
What you're describing is not acceptable, and frankly reeks of classism. Lack of education for large parts of the US is not a matter of choice, but a complete lack of access.
Eugenics was super popular amongst the liberal elite in the first half of the 20th century until Hitler took things too far.
I'm not going to pretend that I haven't done something similar amongst like-minded left-leaning friends. The conservative response to the pandemic has been absolutely horrifying. The anti-intellectualism and science denialism cannot be excused by the fear of livelihood loss. There are plenty of liberal small business owners too, and they're wearing masks.
But that's shooting the shit with close friends in a private space. This should not happen in a professional setting.
And, in the context of what we're talking about on this thread, it cannot be justified as discussion of politics. This is bullying behaviour.
I presume the downvote is from someone who similarly sees this as just a group of like-minded people making jokes.
But this same kind of talk would be considered unacceptable if made about anyone other than a political orientation.
And while you've had a very measured and respectful response, even your response is accompanied with labels of "anti-intellectualism" and "science denialism". I'm sure you don't mean this as a personal attack on me, and I in no way equate it to what my colleagues were saying in my provided example.
But if I have what I believe to be well-reasoned justification and context for my opinion that isn't being represented, being labeled as "anti-intellectual" before I even have my say doesn't feel too good.
The protest my colleagues were joking about, at the time, was about businesses being allowed to open at all, not about mask wearing or distancing. My boss, just weeks after this incident, in a moment of Zoom frustration, lamented that at some point "we just need to accept the risk and open up". His opinion is afforded nuance by his peers, but the "other side" is not.
I could just as well point to polling that showed that liberals significantly overestimate the likelihood of dying from COVID as science denialism. A NY Times article on this subject classified it as such.
I could point to people physically attacking a woman in a sparse park for not wearing a mask while jogging alone as anti-intellectualism.
Or to the woman who went to great expense to set up properly spaced outdoor dining who was prevented from opening her restaurant while a film crew across the street was allowed to host a jam-packed gathering inside tents as a perfectly justified reason for joining such a protest.
How does all this relate?
Because whether my colleagues use bullying language, or more reserved language like "anti-intellectualism", the result is the same - one group is marginalized as lesser and put into a position where attempting to come forward and join the discussion immediately puts them into a box that is seen not as just a difference of opinion with proper reasoning to support it, but instead as something that intrinsically makes them inferior and less abled.
Even though, I suspect, if an actual discussion were allowed to happen, and we could remove many of these labels, we would find ourselves largely to be in agreement on most issues, and could empathize with each other even where we disagree. I highly doubt you condone the crazier examples of the left, and I can assure you I don't agree with many of the fringe ideas on the right.
This leads back to the issue at hand - if political discussion is allowed, in the current climate, then it will quickly lead to bullying and marginalization of whichever group is in the minority. Dressing it up with nicer words doesn't really help - if one side is quickly painted as intellectually inferior without respect for their own life experiences and reasoning, then it will not lead to a productive or respectful work environment.
I'm still not sure banning all political discussion is the answer, but there is clearly something wrong with the way we see each other and talk about each other that has to change before political discussion can return to being as benign in the workplace as it probably should be.
I definitely didn't mean to accuse you of anti-intellectualism or science denialism, you've given me no reason to think either of those traits.
But I do have to paint "conservatives" for lack of a better word with that brush based on specifically mask and COVID vaccination responses.
I don't ascribe all anti-intellectualism to the right. Essential Oils, Vaccinations causing Autism, Healing Crystals, and Chakras are all anti-intellectualist science-denialism with a profoundly leftist tint.
But you have to admit that the people downplaying COVID, effectiveness of masks, and saying they are unlikely to take a vaccine are generally conservatives. And when this is the most prevalent subject of news in the world today, it ends up influencing people's perspectives.
> Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company,
What is a "straight white" liberal company? Are you saying you've asked all your coworkers their sexual orientation, or are you making assumptions based on heteronormativity. Dating people of the opposite gender doesn't necessarily make one straight.
As a not-entirely-straight man in tech, I have never discussed my degree of "straightness" at work, but I would be a bit taken aback by someone assuming this.
This sort of over-reaction to throwaway comments is a big part of the problem. Take the most generous interpretation - maybe they just mean "a company where I am in the minority politically", that's all you need to take to follow the point.
Stop being the language police or we'll never make any progress. Tolerance, generosity, always assume the best of someone.
>That's because most conservative politics is fundamentally opposed to the rights of any given minority group, pretty much via definition.
This is a common misconception of conservative views toward minority groups. I find it much more common that conservatives are totally down with the rights, but annoyed or put off by strong activism among minority groups; the preachy nature of advertising, comedy, and other entertainment; and the retaliation against differing views, whether that be job losses, deplatforming, or any other far-reaching (read: disproportionate) social ramifications.
What conservatives and those who want to have a nuanced discussion around identity are finding difficult is the idea that the previously harsh nature of church life with regards to "sin" and rejection by a religious body have now been championed by identity activists who are now doing the same thing, only in a secular fashion -- going as far as calling otherwise benign expressions and statements of differing views "hateful" when they really aren't, and calling for the social/career equivalent of burning the witch at the stake -- alongside it being widely popular and mainstream to criticize speech that barely comes close to offending anyone with an ever-changing standard driving acceptable speech.
Hence the common narrative in conservative circles being: "powerful people are telling you how to feel on behalf of minority groups with little to no consent or representation of the minority groups themselves", true or not.
Example: an all-white leadership at Nextdoor adds racism warnings before users post content, not considering that a Person of Color could be posting "all lives matter" and imposing that they should be offended by what they themselves post (fact: Black conservatives exist in DROVES and strongly oppose BLM):
Source -- https://notthebee.com/article/neighborhood-social-media-app-...
There are radical pockets of people in almost every subculture, but it is difficult to believe that minority groups are facing as many challenges as non-minorities say there are (that's key!) when each minority group is enthusiastically supported by the very most powerful government and private institutions. This is especially true, now that it has become commonplace, popular, and acceptable in public (government) settings and entertainment to be Anti-White, which is patently racist.
With that much support from the most powerful among us, what else is left? Some on the Left actively call for education camps and even genocide against conservatives. This cannot be proven differently.
> I find it much more common that conservatives are totally down with the rights, but annoyed or put off by strong activism among minority groups
Then why are we still debating, in the US, whether or not different groups should have equal rights? Why are conservative legislatures throughout the country still trying to roll equal rights back ?
This point can't possibly be true, in light of what conservative groups are actually doing. The actions highlight the truth.
Or, to put it Biblically, "ye shall know them by their fruits."
Funny, I feel like there is a healthy conservative movement in the US and you are literally surrounded by conservatives all the time. In fact I think 74 million of them voted in the last election. So please explain how being a white male makes you some kind of victimized under-class.
Kinda depends on what you do and say as a conservative I guess. I agree that in liberal circles there is a bias against conservatives, but that's also because many conservative views are intolerant.
Expressing "I'm a conservative" should be fine, but saying "I think homosexuality is gross. Oh by the way I'm conservative" is not. Unfortunately, the "conservatives" are often associated with the latter.
I also think it's ok to be intolerant of intolerance, and not all views should be equally freely expressed. Taking a more extreme example (and definitely not saying OP or all conservatives are like this), but I'm ok with a klan member feeling his only means of survival at a work place is to keep his mouth shut about his beliefs.
> You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth.
I don't understand how banning discussions on politics in official company communication channels leads to that. On the contrary, doesn't such a policy create a safe space for the people you're talking about to work together with other people who have different views?
Compare these two messages that might appear in a company’s casual chat channel:
“I’m getting married this weekend and I’m so excited!”
“I tried to get a marriage license today but the county clerk refused to give me one because we are a same-sex couple, which is really upsetting!”
Both statements involve the same event in a person’s life, and it’s an event that tends to be very important and is a very natural thing to share with coworkers. Only one of the statements happens to involve (and even take a stance on!) a political debate which was extremely prominent in US national politics 6 years ago and extremely divisive and highly-charged.
If a company has a policy like this, what should their response be to these two people? Should one, both, or neither message be allowed in the company’s casual chat channel?
The blog post specifically mentioned the work chat channel. Talk about whatever you want in other channels.
If you were in the middle of a meeting to plan a new product launch and suddenly announced "I'm getting married this weekend!" what kind of reaction would you expect? People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment and to get back to work. If you kept on trying to turn every discussion about work back to how it relates to your upcoming wedding, they'd eventually get annoyed and write you off as an obnoxious weirdo, and they'd be right.
“ No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. “
They banned it in all channels, and told their employees to chat on Signal:
“ People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can't happen where the work happens anymore.”
So - it’s not like what you asserted, at all. What you asserted is somewhat reasonable (even if I would want to nitpick at the edge cases) ... but they’re not saying anything close to what you’re saying.
The banned talking about politics, and my entire point is that my participation in idle chit-chat, when it indirectly confirms my sexuality, is coded as political and thus off-limits. And that this tends to get weaponized against disadvantaged groups.
I don't doubt that there are people who will try to claim that any mention of a same-sex relationship is political.
Based on everything Jason and DHH have ever said or done, do you think that their intent with this policy is to forbid people from mentioning their same sex partners?
Do you believe that they would take seriously any complaint in that regard?
There is definitely a spectrum of behavior contained in "political discussions". Do think there's not any part of that spectrum that should be discouraged at work? I think they made it pretty clear what area of the spectrum of behavior they're targeting and it's not "casual mentions of same-sex partners".
I have no idea who Jason and DHH are beyond this announcement, so I have no idea which political discussions they intend to prohibit in practice. But clearly there have been some political discussions there that they intend to prohibit now, so it’s not crazy to give same-sex marriage as an example of a prominent divisive highly-charged political topic in the United States. What’s a better example that you think these two people would intend to prohibit?
To me it seems very clear that merely mentioning the fact of a same sex relationship is not a political statement.
If person A mentions they are in a same sex relationship, then person B goes on a rant about how it should be illegal and how dare you bring it up, then to me person B is the one making the discussion political, not person A.
I do see how if person B is the boss, this would be a problem, but I don't think Jason and DHH are that person B.
As an example, here is a Twitter thread about another organization that dealt with an excess of "political discussion"
Theology-driven (in bio) person starts a "justice-orientated" non-profit while admitting in the same sentence that she knew nothing about "Critical Social Justice" or "Critical Theory". //This would be a little bit like starting a web hosting provider while "knowing nothing about DNS, or HTTP"
Gets a lot of criticism on her approach. //Unclear if this is fair or not. We don't know what they did and the criticisms she is describing are very vague.
Decides that because she doesn't understand the critics, it must be that they don't want to actually fix anything, they just wanted control of the organization.
Weaponizes the language that oppressed minorities use to carve out a semblance of agency in a discriminatory world in bad faith. //"Did you just assume my sexuality" is a 4chan-level troll, and as much of a cliche as her pinned tweet equating racism with talking about racism.
I could go on but the key point is this person's story is a Choose Your Own Adventure for Outrage.
If you already agree with her you read this and think "how horrifying, we must do everything possible to prevent this". If you don't, you stop reading the first time she uses the term "Woke" and realize there will be nothing credible that follows other than non-specific vague allegations of boogymen SJWs and cancel culture.
The word woke has been completely appropriated. Not a single "woke" person I know would ever describe themselves as woke anymore. It has been completely appropriated by bad faith actors who use it as a blanket statement for basically everything they disagree with. A bit like US Republicans saying the MLB moving the All-Star game is an example of "cancel culture".
> she knew nothing about "Critical Social Justice" or "Critical Theory". //This would be a little bit like starting a web hosting provider while "knowing nothing about DNS, or HTTP"
Critical Theory != Justice
Critical theory is a niche academic discipline that involves looking at certain issues in a specific way. It has its uses, but it is in no way the end-all, be-all last word on everything. It is not synonymous with every meaning and use of the word justice, and there are certainly many ways to pursue justice without it. It's absolutely nothing at all like running a web-hosting service without knowing about HTTP or DNS.
>If you don't, you stop reading the first time she uses the term "Woke" and realize there will be nothing credible that follows other than non-specific vague allegations of boogymen SJWs and cancel culture.
If you stop reading because of one word and then get mad at assumptions about what you think the rest says, you are not a person who should be taken seriously.
Actually and honestly: I do not know whether or not Jason and DHH would personally do that. I would caution that you never really know what biases people hold simply from reading their Twitter.
That said, I would be surprised if they took a complaint like this seriously. But what I’m saying is that people used to take this particular complaint seriously within the past 10 years; and that this complaint is easily generalized to a lot of other complaints that feel very relevant.
And moreover the even bigger point is now I have to worry because this has happened to me. Why wouldn’t I be worried it would happen again?
(And this policy is creeping in at multiple workplaces: Coinbase, Basecamp, and at least one other place I’m not at liberty to actually say - and the trend is very concerning).
I agree that you shouldn't have to worry about that.
I think people also shouldn't have to worry about losing their job or being pushed aside if they just want to do work and not kneel down with people, or raise their fists, or recite loyalty oaths to certain causes. Some people just want to come to work and do work and go home, and that should be allowed too.
I hope we can find a compromise where neither person needs to worry. I think that is what Basecamp is making an honest attempt at here.
If that’s the goal you want, I hope we agree then that this kind of policy isn’t a good way to achieve it because of the really large potential for collateral damage.
Like sure - you can kill an ant with a hand grenade, but is that the best tool for the job?
This announcement is discussing specific prohibitions based on the content of workplace discussions, not the specific timing or context-appropriateness of the discussion. Obviously there are times and contexts at work where outbursts or abrupt personal discussions are inappropriate regardless of their specific content, but I think it’s very clear that this is not what this announcement is talking about.
Note that the policy is not about "in meetings", but for all spaces of the company, and go back to tshaddox's comment about mentioning marriages in small talk.
> People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment
Have you never been in a workplace before? That is absolutely not what would happen, especially in HN's darling startup atmosphere.
No normal person, being told their colleague was getting married would brush it off and say it's not relevant to the work discussion, and nor should they. It's inhuman and gross. I'm not a robot. I want to celebrate with my coworkers. We spend a lot of time together, playing like we shouldn't get personal with our time is absurd.
Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, and it's destructive of what this site is supposed to be for.
The same sex couple message doesn't seem political because there are just sharing an experience. It would be political if they continued on about the law was unfair and needs to change.
I don’t think the line is nearly as complicated as most people make it out to be.
Somebody discussing their plans and related challenges may have political notions attached, but the “right and wrong” are not the focal point.
If someone responds with “good, gay marriage is wrong”, you’ve clearly crossed into political debate, and opened the line for personal attacks.
If someone responds with “everyone who’s against this is a Nazi”, you have also done the same.
If, instead, the response is centered around the person’s own experience (“I’m sorry to hear that, I know some family with a similar struggle”) then it’s fine.
It’s not terribly different if you’re discussing being disappointed that your insurance rates went up.
“Sucks that we have to pay $75 more a month” is fine. Adding that “it’s all because of Obamacare” crosses the line.
I don’t see the line being that difficult, it’s just that most people on BOTH sides take these statements as their cue to start engaging in their political debate, usually abandoning all subtlety and nuance while gathering the pitchforks and drawing warlines.
People forget how much diversity of opinion there is, from gay couples against marriage, to Christian supporters of gay marriage, to libertarians who don’t support any state recognized marriage at all.
Same goes for taxes, HUD approved appliances, EPA regulations, etc.
Name a political debate, and I’ll give you people I’ve met or worked with who don’t fit into the media-prescribed boxes.
Most importantly, people have seemingly forgotten that whether you agree or disagree with the cause, it’s entirely possible to just be supportive of your fellow humans for the sake of wanting them to be happy.
I've learned from experience that it's never a good idea to bring your personal problems to work, no matter what they are or how unjust they are. Work just isn't the place for it.
I think there's some level of "leave your personal life at home" that isn't completely bad. I don't talk about all of my personal problems at the office.
But the other side of "Work just isn't the place for it" is this: sometimes personal problems affect you so profoundly, that they then affect your work performance. Your colleagues (and management) deserve to know about those things, so they can plan and adjust accordingly (and offer any personal or workplace support that is appropriate).
To use a somewhat silly analogy - we understand that if someone is too sick to work, then they shouldn't come to work. We don't tell people "work just isn't the place for your illness," because we know that some illnesses really make it impossible to do any work. And, that if you don't go home and rest, the ultimate impact to the business will be worse in the long run because you can't recover.
I think some personal problems rise to that level. Getting cut off in traffic and being annoyed? I don't know, maybe not. "The cops just shot 3 more black people like me at traffic stops this weekend and I'm having a really hard time concentrating now" might be a "personal problem" that is highly relevant to bring up at work (and coded as "political," to boot). That kind of thing would understandably rattle you, and it takes time to heal from.
I guess my point is: we're not robots, and it's not possible to really "check it at the door" most of the time. It never really has been.
The Basecamp policy isn't going to stop people from bringing their personal problems to work, overall. But it'll silence black people and gay people from bringing their problems to work, because those are "political" problems to some people.
If something happening in society or your personal life is preventing you from doing your job, you don't have to explain it in the company wide channel. In fact, doing so probably won't help you or the company much. Most companies offer sick days and mental health days, for which you don't need to provide any explanation whatsoever. Many companies also pay for confidential mental health services. If your problem can't be solved with those benefits, disability insurance is also commonplace at companies and typically covers mental illness that would prevent you from doing your work. Companies should offer all of those things if they don't. I would go so far as to say that companies should be legally required to offer all of those things if they don't. But I don't think talking about personal or societal dumpster fires in the company chat will do anything to help the person affected, and will likely cause one person or group's problems to affect the work of the rest of the company without leading to any kind of resolution for anyone.
As a counter-point: one of the things I've found the most helpful during the pandemic was the meetings with my coworkers where we set the agenda aside, and just talked about our struggles.
The resources and tools you mentioned are useful and good, but there's something different about supporting each other directly.
While I wouldn't personally talk to my coworkers about my struggles, because I like to keep work and personal life as separate as possible, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing so privately, on your own time, and not in company-wide channels.
Why do you think your marriage is of such general interest that you bring it up in a company chat channel? Talk about it in person, with people who give a shit.
Oh, c'mon. You think he should never mention his spouse to his coworkers, even in passing? You can't think of any situation in which it would be totally ordinary to say something about "my husband" or "my wife" in a work channel?
Anyway, I need to get off HN, I'm working from home and my wife just told me that lunch is ready.
Neither of those messages should be posted in the workplace.
And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either.
Having recent returned to a corporate work environment I am amazed at how much time is spent focusing on these things instead of, you know, running the business and generating shareholder value.
But not if that involves gay husbands or racist police or housing policy. (And since housing is Topic #1 in SV that might prove a bit difficult.) Only the weather, who you saw dining together at the yacht club, and ... IDK. You can't even have a good old vim/emacs at Basecamp.
I mean, anonymous handles and no in-person (or zoom) chat might make that sorta possible, but you can’t get around the problem.
The real issue is that this is only a problem in one direction: nobody complains when someone says “my wife,” and some people definitely complain when someone says “my husband”.
It definitely gets made about sex, and gay sex specifically, by the people making the complaint. They’re the ones making it about sex and not leaving it alone as a conversation about one’s spouse.
Which is why it should all be avoided in the workplace. This is not a debate about the merits of gay or straight sexual orientation.
My coworkers have no need to know if I am in a relationship, have children, etc. If they ask I will (and do) tell them I am not interested in having that conversation and I will never ask them or engage further if they bring their partner/spouse/children up.
I'm there to do a job and leave as quickly as possible upon completing the days work. Everything else, in my opinion, is a distraction hampering that goal.
That's a principled and consistent stand, which I applaud you for maintaining. But I don't think that majority of the working world would take such a hard-line stance against sharing any details of their personal lives.
So - we have to deal with the world we have, which is "many, if not most, workers share some degree of personal information about their lives in the workplace." That's the reality we have to deal with.
I think it’s because it’s really just putting your fingers in your ears, ignoring the fact you simply redefined the problem instead of solving it. The next step is, who gets to decide what is and is not “political”? The answer tends to be the last people you want.
Your fundamental error is not recognizing the existence of the "tolerant bigot".
Most bigots are tolerant. Most people (in the US) who think homosexuality is a crime against God, a sin, wrong, or just gross are tolerant. They will keep their opinion to themselves and they can be friends, neighbors, coworkers with a gay person with no issues.
People are weird and complicated. It just isn't the case that someone who is against gay marriage is "against your right to exist". Tolerance is putting up with things you disapprove of not approving everything.
You're not really wrong, on any point. But you did make an interesting connection, that a lot of people are making: "Tolerance is [...] not approving everything."
It's honestly fascinating to me that this keeps coming up. I never asked for approval - the hypothetical I continually stick to is "this policy could allow someone to label me saying 'my husband and I ...' as 'political speech', and silence that aspect of my life." (And, specifically, that I have experienced this before myself and have seen it happen to others and that it's not all that uncommon).
But I'm not asking for approval - but you jumped there anyways. Why is that? To me, that reads as "asking for tolerance" is the same as "asking for approval," but that would contradict what you stated earlier.
There's a logical inconsistency there, and I don't know how you resolve it?
People, including me, are making the "tolerance is not approval" connection because we look at society and see a lot of tolerance and then we see lots of people who conflate tolerance with approval, sometimes explicitly, e.g. if someone says "I am very tolerant, I support gay marriage," they are using the word "tolerant" wrong.
Your argument is basically "my relationship is political because I am gay". I disagree. I think that reasonable people understand that your marriage is not political. Acquiring your right to marry was political, but exercising that right is not. If someone doesn't understand this and interprets you referencing your husband as some political statement, they are wrong, and I expect most HR departments would realize that if push came to shove.
> Your argument is basically "my relationship is political because I am gay". I disagree. I think that reasonable people understand that your marriage is not political.
My argument is "my relationship is political because I am gay" and part of why I make that argument is because people have told me they think it's political.
So - you disagree. About what, precisely? If you don't want to believe me that this has happened to me, and happened to others, that's something only you can decide and control.
But it would be nice if you could at least assume I'm telling you the truth about my own life and experiences, and engage in debate accordingly. Otherwise just be up front about the fact that you don't think I'm telling the truth about this, or that you think I'm wildly mistaken.
My point is not what has or hasn't happened to you. My point is that, if someone tells you your marriage is political, they are wrong. They don't know what politics is and the law is on your side. I don't see what else you can really ask for (besides approval).
Who cares if they’re actually right or wrong? The point of all of this is that if they want, under this Basecamp policy, they could cry to their management about “drewbug01 is being political and waving around his sexuality in my face and I’d like a politics-free workspace”.
And if that manager happens to also be jerk? Or even just not like me very much and want cover to get rid of me? They’ve got it.
It has nothing to do with whether or not you and I think it’s unpolitical. Enough people believe that it is so it is. This is the part that’s such a huge problem.
I mentioned it elsewhere, but saying “my husband and I went to [insert benign weekend activity here]” is now a potentially political conversation because there are people in modern, 2021 workplaces who thing that being gay at all is a “political” issue.
So again - not that I can’t work, but I’m unwelcome at work. Even if the company would never enforce the policy that way: they could, and I have to worry about it. And not too long ago, companies did enforce it that way.
(Just to continue with one specific example, I don’t think the problem is contained only to this one example)
If someone comes to me and reports anyone (of any gender) for using that sentence and claiming that it was political, they'll be first invited to repeat themself because I must have heard them incorrectly and then if that doesn't clue them in, I'll continue along the conversation until they realize that I don't believe that's the least bit political of a statement and if they continue to think that it is, they are only welcome to do that thinking at work with their mouth shut and away from their keyboard.
Yes, of course. I've seen that number decrease over the decades, but it's obviously not zero (and probably never will be).
It's not clear that the presence of those people on the earth requires official work channels to be a political discussion free-for-all. I spend time on a fairly small number of discussion sites. Invariably, the ones with the highest signal-to-noise ratio are the ones which ban gratuitous political discussion (including this one [Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ]).
Political discussion (like religious discussion) tends to generate more heat than light and I don't begrudge a company wanting to focus official work channels on, well, work.
I agree that political discussion generates more heat than light, and I agree that the company should be able to prohibit specific topics. At the same time, Basecamp’s definition of “political” is extremely broad (“every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant”) and I don’t blame people for worrying that anodyne statements would fall under its umbrella.
To take a few hot-button issues from today: what if you’re Black, and a police officer racially profiles you on your way to work? What if your trans child is taking puberty blockers, or playing sports? Forget taking specific stances — is it acceptable to even let on to your coworkers that these things are happening in your life?
I think they are. I also don’t think they are appropriate in #official, #work, or during the meat of a work meeting, which is what it seems like Basecamp is saying.
I think they are, too. But I also think Basecamp’s wording (especially before they changed it [1]) leaves a ton of room for interpretation. And I’m not confident that many of them people who jumped in to defend this would be on the same page as us.
These are things that you might bring up in personal conversation with friends at work. Airing your personal list of daily grievances, trials and tribulations on chat channels might get you some murmers of sympathy but most people will be rolling their eyes behind your back.
I think there a difference. A statement of indisputable fact i.e. "I went to the park with my husband" is different from an opinion or belief such as "I think x should be y", regardless of how accepted it is in the workplace or society as a whole.
I’m telling you though - that’s not how it plays out. This is something I’ve lived through - I’ve been asked not to talk about relationships at work because they aren’t heteronormative.
It’s not a hair-splitting thing, I’m explicitly asserting that there are people who will twist it this way; at least they have in the past and I don’t see how it’ll be different now.
Even if this policy were intended to be used this way, or winds up being used this way, (which I don't support), it still seems better than the alternative. If you reference your husband and somebody says "Aaah, political, can't say that" - do you want to be sharing personal details with this person? Would you prefer they engaged you in a debate about gay marriage or told you their anti-gay feelings? Prefer they sit in silence stewing with hatred of you?
If you have anti-gay coworkers who buzz you for anodyne references like this you could just not talk to them or buzz them for their references to wives, girlfriends, whatever. You could escalate to management or HR if you felt they were treating you unfairly.
If the corporate policy permits politics at worse, that would seem to make situation worse, not better.
> Would you prefer they engaged you in a debate about gay marriage or told you their anti-gay feelings? Prefer they sit in silence stewing with hatred of you?
I would prefer that corporate policy not give them this new, shiny tool to harass me.
The problem, in this instance, isn’t the banning of political speech per se - rather it is that the ban can be cruelly weaponized against regular speech you just don’t want to hear because it offends your own “political views.”
That’s going to remain true as long as anti-gay views are legitimately held by a mainstream political party here, which is very much still the case today.
You think that the statement “I think my marriage should remain legal” is significantly different from the statement “I went to the park with my husband”?
It's obviously different. And this is an example of why politics is a dangerous subject in the workplace. I haven't challenged your belief, in fact, I don't even know your belief and you're already on the attack.
If you say "I am married", that's a fact. If someone says they disagree with your marriage then they are stating an opinion.
> I mentioned it elsewhere, but saying “my husband and I went to [insert benign weekend activity here]” is now a potentially political conversation because there are people in modern, 2021 workplaces who thing that being gay at all is a “political” issue.
Well fuck them. Mentioning your partner is not political, it's conversation. They are the ones that make it political, not you. This borders discrimination in my opinion.
> Well fuck them. Mentioning your partner is not political, it's conversation.
Indeed. That’s why the policy is bad: it tilts the field in favor of someone acting like this. Because now we first must counter-claim “it’s not politics to mention my husband” and win that fight, and then move on to “and you’re harassing me by weaponizing the politics policy.”
If anti-gay views weren’t legitimately held up as political views by about half the country, this wouldn’t be nearly so bad.
I don't see the political part in this. If I was gay and somebody would respond to me like that, I would instantly ask "Do you have a problem with me having a husband? Where were you living the last couple of decades? Are you some muslim extremist or something?" Keep it light and funny, and tear the bastard apart.
It doesn't need to turn into a political debate, it needs to turn into a "you're a jerk" debate.
I think you don't see the political part because you're not a jerk, which is a fantastic thing.
I'm saying "a large chunk of people are jerks and have historically used these kinds of policies to be jerks to me and others like me, so it's probably a bad policy." The problem is that sometimes the jerks have support. Sometimes the managers are jerks as well. Sometimes their managers, too.
It happens. I don't like it, it shouldn't happen: but it happens.
Indeed, it is sad. But hey, progress does happen, even if it's slow. I'm not incredibly morose about it all the time, or anything - just cautious about losing some of that progress.
I’m sorry but I don’t quite get how company policy would impact this interaction with a coworker, in practice.
If they are showing prejudice or treating you unfairly it is them that should be reported. It must be a pretty fucked up workplace for the opposite to happen?
I think the GP comment is referring to LGBT people who are out, willingly or not, to their coworkers. Which bathroom a trans person uses, for example, is considered a political issue by some people.
But I also think that point can be generalized, to the boring but obvious conclusion that everything involving interaction between human beings is political, since those interactions occur within the context of a malleable political system. We could theoretically pass a constitutional amendment that makes being late for standup punishable by prison, couldn't we? Is it now political to be late for standup? You end up arguing over the degree to which something is political, which leads back to what everyone is complaining about: the enforcement of this policy cannot be anything but arbitrary.
Personally, I think that if the Basecamp folks want to ban a particular type of politics then they should grow a spine and say what they mean, instead of expecting everyone to read between the lines for them. If they did that then perhaps they could expect people to agree to disagree, but these guys clearly know what they want to say and the only reason they don't say it is because they know how bad it makes them look right now.
> but these guys clearly know what they want to say and the only reason they don't say it is because they know how bad it makes them look right now.
And as long as we continue assuming the worst in people that we disagree with, the problem of polarization will remain. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt and assume, until we have evidence to the contrary, that they just want to encourage a sane, low-stress work environment?
And, being current events, they're already being discussed in plenty of places. For people who find it stressful to discuss these things, it's good to have a place where you know they won't be discussed, where you can focus fully on something that you can actually do something about.
I think you're misunderstanding me. What I'm saying is that the act of adopting a broad "no talking about politics or society" rule, specifically right now, is itself a very political act. They are doing exactly the thing you say they're trying to avoid.
But isn't the place to discuss those issues, if they are impacting you at your workplace, with your manager, HR or your union? Not to start a thread on the work discussion forum?
I don’t think so, for a variety of reasons. But one of them is that managers and HR reps are often keen to just make a problem “go away” - so coworkers agitating over that problem is often required for any substantial change.
Notably, the US tech workforce is almost entirely in unionized, as well - so that avenue isn’t available.
I think you jumped to conclusions here by assuming bad intent. Perhaps implicitly the new policy assumes it is obvious you can mention your husband and anybody giving you problems because of that is violating the policy.
I do think the policy should be explicit about it. It doesn't help to say "We forbid X" if one side's prominent tactic is to redefine X as they see fit. By analogy, it is not enough to say "We forbid discussions about religious beliefs". One also needs to say "Theory of evolution is accepted here as true".
> I think you jumped to conclusions here by assuming bad intent.
No - just personal experience with similar policies at other places.
Specifically with regards to the gay/husband example I've been sticking to: I don't think they had bad intentions there.
But the problem isn't their intentions; it's what the policy enables. And I've seen what that kind of policy can enable, and it's not good.
> I do think the policy should be explicit about it.
I agree - when you start to stray into silencing speech, you should be explicit about what is silenced and why. Part of the problem with the announcement is that the policy (as described) is extremely broad and overly vague.
I think I agree with what you said about American conservatism; it's an interesting idea at least.
But what's an example of a political issue that would affect someone's work at Basecamp?
So you do a lot more than just cut out “distracting” conversations this way. You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth.
I can't think of many political topics that necessarily amount to uninviting someone from daily work conversation at a company like Basecamp.
It wasn’t that long ago that even in tech, you couldn’t mention same-sex spouses without backlash. And that’s still the case today in other industries (particularly ones that don’t have a sizable internet culture influence like tech does).
So like to apply that specifically to a work context: that’s saying “no watercooler chat about what you and your spouses got up to over the weekend” because your spouse existing is a “political” concept. And by extension, that employee isn’t very much welcome.
You can extend that metaphor in other directions though: company PACs supporting anti-gay politicians, benefits that exclude LGBT employees, etc. Now that’s all “political” too.
(There are other areas too, I think - this particular identity-based angle on it is relevant to me personally so I can see these examples clearly. I feel confident there are others.)
Another basic example: imagine working at Basecamp and being like "Can we sponsor Django Girls?" (whatever the Rails equivalent is) Like maybe you want to have a more diverse team and this is one way of trying to recruit for it.
Without these "oh politics is sin" things, the bosses saying no might require them to justify it. Instead they can now weasel their way out of this kind of stuff, and basically shield themselves from criticism on this front, even if people internally might want to change [0]
Lots of conservative ideology is around this, trying to turn some subjective defense of beliefs into like... some objective rules about not doing X/Y/Z (basically maintaining the status quo). I'm not saying the decision makers are conservative, but that's what the result is going to be here.
(tbh I think there are good reasons to minimize discussions about current events into places where people aren't forced to be exposed to them at work. I know I don't want to, just cuz I'm already exposed to it a lot. But there's a difference between banning politics talk and just asking people to keep it in certain areas IMO)
[0] https://basecamp.com/about/team they don't have the engineering/non-engineering split here, but 50-odd people and they have 3 Dans + 3 Jasons. There are definitely companies with more absurd balances and the people at Basecamp probably would like to see improvements! But this kinda stuff makes it harder.
Should I pay for recruiter fees out of my own pocket if I want to send a recruiter to an HBCU while I'm at it?
I'm not going to do a diversity spiel, but I have had the "would be nice for our team to have different kinds of people" discussion before, and part of solving that can involve more focused recruiting efforts (including stuff like sponsoring those kinds of events). It's totally a work-related thing. Why would I pay out of pocket to help my company hire?
Recruiting is different than public outreach. I think the strategy in recruiting is to hire the best people you can regardless of identity. “Best” is qualified by the tasks of the particular role
> "would be nice for our team to have different kinds of people"
so if you have a business case for recruiting different kinds of people (who currently don't get recruited), then that's not a political agenda. If you can point to evidence that the recruitment team is missing out on great candidates because of some systemic mis-identification.
But if you are suggesting that it would make the world a more equal place to hire those different people, even though they currently would not be hired, then that's not a great business case, and thus, becomes a political agenda.
> Django Girls is an international non-profit organization started to inspire women from all backgrounds to get interested in technology and to become programmers, offering a safe and friendly environment.
It's something that most tech companies would be willing to sponsor, not political at all.
It is political to sponsor an organisation attempting to correct for the disincentives women face in technical fields. Some people would prefer not to sponsor that, as they believe women are represented at their natural and correct ratios in tech.
Basically some people see affirmative action of any kind as anathema, and they get angry and insecure when these things are suggested, and people respond in turn. So I see how this could become a source of conflict.
To be clear: are you saying that corporations shouldn’t sponsor anything, or are you singling out Django Girls as a “political” sponsorship?
If the latter, you’re kinda proving GP’s point. Django Girls is an ostensibly non-political organization, politicized solely because it acknowledges an aspect of people’s identity.
Idk anything about django girls (or the org behind django) I was assuming it’s an example of a politically motivated public outreach. Seems to me company time is better spent making good products than doing outreach. Like I have my own politically-motivated community involvements, but they have nothing to do with whatever company I work for, and I’ll continue doing them when I change companies anyway.
Companies sponsor things all the time — as marketing, to help with recruitment, etc. So my question is, do you think all corporate sponsorships are inappropriate? Or just “political” ones?
I think /individuals/ should be political actors, not companies. Companies should focus on market operations: build product, provide service. Maybe that doesn’t directly answer the question but I’m not sure it’s a great question tbh.
My point is that some people consider my equal participation in that conversation to be inherently political. My point is essentially that anti-lgbt folk will dehumanize the conversation under the guise of “no politics”. Or at least that they could, and that it sure used to happen an awful lot, and it wasn’t that long ago.
It sure is. But “being reduced to a label” is one of the outcomes of such policies, and it’s exactly what I worry about when they’re enacted (because that’s how it used to work).
I’m not the one making it an identity politics / label issue; I’m saying “these policies are cover for mean people to reduce me to just a label and then weaponize that against me.”
> But “being reduced to a label” is one of the outcomes of such policies
I don’t really see how this can be the case because the very use of such labels as political categories is being removed. If the labels can’t be used then they can’t be weaponized
That’s not what they’re doing though - they’re not saying “we cannot say the word ‘gay’ any more because that makes the sentence a political sentence.” They’re saying you can’t talk about politics, and honestly specific words don’t even have to come into play. You can weaponize the policy easily without using specific words at all.
I worked in tech over twenty years ago and I knew multiple same sex couples back then. It wasn’t an issue at all. This was the Bay Area. May have been different elsewhere. It is still not an issue in the Bay Area.
The Bay Area has always been a bit ahead of the curve there - but my point isn’t just an LGBT thing... that’s the example most relevant to me personally. People of color could probably talk about similar issues related to this kind of policy.
Of note: Basecamp was at least until recently based primarily in the Midwest, in Chicago. Bay Area culture influences them in the same way it influences all tech culture, but they are certainly situated in a different culture than that of the Bay.
(Also of note is that while SF specifically was friendlier to LGBT people historically, this is a difference of degrees: LGBT folks in SF experienced plenty of discrimination over the years. And personally, it’s the only place I’ve been called a “faggot” while walking on the sidewalk - multiple times. Anecdote, but still.)
I mean we’re really getting lost in the weeds here, I think. Like it’s not just about LGBT issues, it’s just an easy, personally relevant example for me to use.
To your point though: Chicago is decent, but arguably less so than SF.
If you can't talk about the way your life is impacted by systemic racism or the way your healthcare is threatened due to your gender identity then you are being told you can't be yourself or talk about parts of your life at work. This is going to land much heavier on certain populations and therefore is giving preference to the people who benefit from the current economic and political structure.
> But what's an example of a political issue that would affect someone's work at Basecamp?
Let's say I work at Basecamp and believe that workers should be entitled to seats on Basecamp's board, just as they are in all large companies in Germany. Should I be punished for raising this?
This seems like something you would want to bring up with your boss / HR / higher-ups, instead of starting an open discussion/debate with the whole company, right?
“That seems like [a worker rights issue] that you would want to bring up with [the folks who usually don’t like the workers exercising their rights]” is how that sounds to me, when I read it.
Sure, yeah, you should bring it up with management, but bringing it up with your coworkers is essential to actually making a change happen.
That’s the really ugly flip side of this, and I know it’s been said elsewhere but: conservative politics in the US make some people’s entire existence political, full stop.
So you do a lot more than just cut out “distracting” conversations this way. You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth.
You can’t disconnect this from the current US political situation. They’re joined at the hip.