… or conformity in diversity.

This is an extract from Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber:How bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion, by James Damore, July 2017: 

I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).

It is, as the extract shows, an intelligent discussion of the ideas with which it is engaging. The author’s conclusions, of which the extract is a part, seem to us to be straightforward common sense.

The complete text may be found here.

James Damore was an employee of Google. His memo criticizes Google’s insistence that all its employees hold unquestioningly a certain set of opinions – all of them ideas of the Left – having to do with “diversity and inclusion”.

A set of opinions requiring unanimous unquestioning acceptance, is an orthodoxy.

Damore challenged the orthodoxy.

But orthodoxies by definition do not allow criticism.

A challenge to an orthodoxy is blasphemous and heretical.

With the publication of his criticism, Damore became a blasphemous heretic.

So, of course, he was fired.

Is it a wise policy for a commercial company to require religious conformity of its employees? Would it harm the business if some employees held different opinions?

The company directors’ answer to those questions is plainly “yes”.

What is delightful about this story is that the Google executives want conformity of opinion on the desirability of diversity.

Could a connoisseur of irony find a better collector’s piece than that?

Well, yes, actually. There are some at least as good – in the universities:

Interviewed by Professor Jordan Peterson, James Damore said:

Google is run like a religious cult. Conform and carry out the rituals, and you’ll be rewarded and praised; ask any uncomfortable questions or offend the wrong people, and the threats and public shaming will be swift and ruthless. The religion in this case is a kind of intersectional feminism, its central tenets are Diversity and Inclusion, its demonic enemy is Bias, and its purifying rituals include humiliating forms of “training” that resemble Maoist struggle sessions.

This might sound crazy to a lot of your readers, but college students should understand, since it’s a similar culture.