Freedom of Speech is not the same thing as Freedom from Consequences. Unless we decide that being "aggressively antisocial" should be a protected class, private companies should have every right to fire employees who they deem toxic for their culture.
If they put 'make america great again' or 'death to white men' posters up on the bulletin boards at work in the break room, yeah, they'll fire them too. It's against the agreements they signed when they got hired.
If you don't like it don't sign and go work somewhere else.
> "If they put 'make america great again' or 'death to white men' posters up on the bulletin boards at work in the break room, yeah, they'll fire them too."
Are you saying that supporting a presidential candidate is tantamount to "death to white men"?
Yes, the candidate in question is abhorrent, but come on. Those statements absolutely don't carry equal weight.
My point was, it's not a good set of examples, since they are so unlike each other. Unless you mean certain organizations actually consider them equivalent.
I think you would agree that your example is different in both scope and visibility than my (extreme) hypothetical examples, and the real example of this manifesto. Plenty of Google employees have expressed opinions similar to Mr. Damore's on memegen or G+ without being terminated.
This comment, forgive the pun, makes me very sad. I’m all for doing something to fight the ideas in this guy’s paper, but to advocate for personal censorship as apparently some sort of ideal is beyond my support.
Anyway, I think self censorship is an expected behavior in a peaceful society. For example: you don't bring up recently deceased significant others, comment on awkward physical characteristics of strangers, or mock the suffering of others, without expecting repercussions. People learn at a very young age that certain topics should be avoided for the sake of "keeping the peace".
50 years ago you could use the n-word in business meetings. Now, not so much, but for a long time many people were "self-censoring" themselves to keep the peace in their workplaces. Some still are, but I imagine that most people these days are happy to be in a workplace where n-words are not tolerated. Not just for their own "sensibilities", but also the knowledge that their black coworkers/friends can be in an environment that is actively less hostile.
What we're seeing is the continuing shift in standards for peaceful society. So far I think the track record on these shifts is pretty good, so I'm inclined to let this ride for a while, even if some people have to keep "self-censoring" some of the time.
This is the real world, people. Of course a company that needs its employees to be effective has to censor employees whose outspoken views make their teams less effective. The army kicks people out for all sorts of reasons. Coaches cut players who poison the locker room. I personally would hope people could talk and deal with it, but if it's a bunch of other people quit or this guy quit, an effective company has to act.
This clearly fails to grasp the concept of operability.
If we were to adopt this line of reasoning, constitutional rights go from being something that is clearly established and to be universally respected by all to a concept that is at the mercy of whichever angry mob would master the numbers big enough to topple all who oppose them.
By this line of reasoning, ethics and morality are just something based on strength in numbers rather than any other principle.
I agree that people with the wrong political opinions should not be allowed to work, and that it's up to corporations to be the ultimate arbitrator of what is acceptable political discourse.
Freedom of Speech is not the same thing as Freedom from Consequences. Unless we decide that being "aggressively antisocial" should be a protected class, private companies should have every right to fire employees who they deem toxic for their culture.
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