

A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System (2001) - poppingtonic
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/archive/social-anarchism.htm

======
greenyoda
Having read _Disciplined Minds_ a while ago, I thought the link at the bottom
of page, which leads to the story of Schmidt's legal case against his
employer, was more interesting than the review itself:

[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/)

See also Schmidt's own site,
[http://disciplinedminds.com](http://disciplinedminds.com).

~~~
waterlesscloud
The chronology is fascinating and horrifying.

"Physics Today Editor Stephen G. Benka breaks up two conversations between
Schmidt and coworker Toni Feder after working hours. Benka bans private
conversations in the workplace, saying that all conversations between staff
members must be open to monitoring by management. When Schmidt asks Benka why,
Benka refers to the organizing activity that took place the previous year and
says he doesn't want that to happen again."

Geez, when you're at the point of banning private conversations among your
employees, you should really be thinking there's something seriously wrong
with what you're doing.

~~~
pjc50
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/responses/...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/responses/victory-
letter.html)

"While employed at Physics Today, Jeff led a contentious effort to force the
magazine to change its long-standing pattern of hiring and training only
whites as editors, and to live up to its claim of being an affirmative-action
employer. These actions were part of the expression for which Jeff was fired"

Maintaining a physics magazine as a whites-only environment is the kind of
thing that requires that level of employee repression. It's all about ethics
in physics journalism.

------
MarkL4
The book itself is excellent, one of my favorite books. It reads like Foucault
if Foucault were a physicist.

~~~
shoo
Having read _Disciplined Minds_ , I'll take that as a strong recommendation to
read Foucault!

~~~
nmyk
You might start with _Discipline and Punish_ , a history of the western (in
particular, the French) penal system, drawing many parallels to educational,
military, and medical institutions as they are all facets of an overarching
technology of power that has emerged over the past couple of centuries.

Be warned: it will illuminate White Collar Hell like nothing else.

------
javajosh
This is another good data-point for my lay-thesis that the dominant tension of
our time is between _principle_ and _loyalty_. Snowden is the ultimate
embodiment of this tension. Most other recent news can be seen through this
lens as well, particularly the problems with the US criminal justice system,
or the controversy over the release of the recent torture report.

The "loyalists" are ascendant (they usually are), and have terrible, strong
defenses; the "principled" are a fairly rag-tag bunch, have inherently smaller
organizations, although they do manage to organize themselves to some extent
(the EFF and the ACLU being good examples). Indeed, the biggest weapon the
principled have is to force the loyalists to actually (ab)use their
overwhelming power to the extent that they offend the public (who are only
loyalists within their own narrow context) and so swell the ranks of the
principled against them.

This paper is about the travails of being principled in a loyalist
organization. It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, and comes
at great cost. To those looking to minimize their personal stress, adopting
the loyalist viewpoint and the requisite willful ignorance of the moral
hazards and externalities it entails is the better, more rational option. Most
people in that position are principled at great personal cost.

This way of seeing allows us to make better sense an array of current events.
And indeed, we can come to realize that _everyone_ has both loyal and
principled aspects. To that end everyone should know _precisely_ how far their
loyalty goes. What actions could your organization take that so violated your
principles that you would take action against it? For example, if you are in
the Army or the CIA, would you torture someone if ordered? If you're a police
officer, would you stay silent if you saw your department bury acts of police
violence that you knew to be illegal? If you're a financial analyst or
regulator, would you change your analysis to suit your management? If you're
in the NSA, would you give evidence against Americans suspected of drug
trafficking to the DEA, knowing they will use "parallel construction" to hide
the source?

To hardcore loyalists, the answers to these questions are unequivocal "yes".
The reason is a mixture of indoctrination, rationalization, selfishness and
simple cowardice. But it's not "us" vs "them": almost everyone is a hard-core
loyalist within their particular organization, although this is particularly
true where there are no competing employers. It is almost impossible for most
people to risk their decades-long career over a matter of principle, no matter
how bad it gets. It's not right, but it's human.

What can save the day is that loyalty is _limited to personal context_ ; this
is good because it allows loyalists in one org to be principled about _other_
organizations' behaviors. In other words, there are CIA employees who are
disgusted by wall street's systematic, unchecked fraud, just as there are wall
street employees who descry CIA torture and cover-up, and that's good.

Culturally need to revere the people throughout history who've taken the hard
path, the one's who've said "no" to unprincipled action, which always comes at
great personal cost. If there was ever a "noble warrior" culture, let it honor
the ones who served Principle not because it was easy, but because it was
right.

Sorry for the long post.

~~~
analog31
>>>>> What can save the day is that loyalty is limited to personal context;
this is good because it allows loyalists in one org to be principled about
other organizations' behaviors. In other words, there are CIA employees who
are disgusted by wall street's systematic, unchecked fraud, just as there are
wall street employees who descry CIA torture and cover-up, and that's good.

Perhaps, given that loyalty and principle seem to be situational, it would
make more sense to describe them as behaviors rather than as traits.

~~~
javajosh
But it isn't situational. The key quality in that example "cross judgement" is
not the injustice-of-the-moment, but rather that the injustice was done by _a
different organization_. That is to say, mainstream workers are not prepared
to level accusations at their own employers over matters of principle, but
_are_ quite willing to do so at _someone else 's_ employer.

~~~
analog31
Ah, I get it now. Mark Twain summed it up in "Corn Pone 'Pinions."

On the other hand, cross judgement is a practical way to deal with the issue,
since the same accusations probably apply to both organizations if they are
both immersed in the same corporate culture (e.g., businesses of similar size
etc). If you watch my house and I watch yours, then both houses get watched.

------
michaelochurch
Ah, this. To be fair, I don't think the system is "soul battering" for most
people. A large number of people-- more than one would like-- are perfectly
happy to trade their autonomy and freedom for a bit of (temporary) security in
social status and income. That might be one of the more surprising (and
disturbing) realizations about white-collar hell: most people don't perceive
it as a hell. They're fine, they're happy, and while they're being drained of
the traits that made them interesting people when they were younger, it
happens so slowly (boiled frog) that they neither notice nor care.

What I think is a key insight in his work is on the politics of "not getting
political". Please correct me if I'm butchering the concept, but part of the
process of turning salaried professionals into obedient drones is to convince
them that it's undignified to "get political" at the workplace. The problem is
that the people in charge can easily define their position as the default,
apolitical one and any opposition as "getting involved in politics".

To me, whenever a hiring manager says that there's "no politics" at his
company, that's a strong sign of a toxic environment. I'd rather work for
someone who's politically aware and can help me navigate what politics exists
(there's always a political environment) than one who is delusional enough to
think that an organization of 10 or 50 or 200 or 20,000 people can have "no
politics". Too often, "there's no politics here" means "I'm in the in-crowd
and get my way, so 'political' decisions-- meaning ones that I don't like--
are rarely made".

This is how I feel about Silicon Valley "meritocracy". The only people who
believe in it are those who've been in the in-crowd for 20+ years and lost
touch with reality. They think that they live in a politics-free zone because
they're oblivious to their own privilege.

~~~
ryguytilidie
Your last line reminds me a lot of when PG said that most founders are really
nice people who are rarely "mean".

Why in the fuck would a founder even consider being mean to one of the most
powerful people in the industry? It just seemed to lack the self awareness
that founders probably treat him differently than the average person they
interact with.

~~~
michaelochurch
I'm working on a blog post about this. The people who tend to succeed in the
corporate world are (a) not needlessly mean, (b) rarely mean to those in
power, but (c) generally avoidant of close personal relationships.

A major element of whether one is selected for invitation into closed, snooty
clubs (or promoted into management) is whether there's a suspicion that you'll
invite too many (presumably not deserving) friends. People who are "sticky"
don't get promoted. People who might tip off their reports about an impending
layoff aren't made managers.

You have to be cold, for organizational ascent, but not a dick.

In environments of heterogeneity, warmth is actually an advantage because
people who are personable and giving tend to have a wider array of
connections, and that means more information, better ideas, and an easier time
staying up to date. The old Silicon Valley actually was that way, but for the
past 20 years, it's been functioning as one (however postmodern) corporate
organization.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save Silicon Valley is to
pass a law that makes investors liable for certain kinds of founder
misconduct, including sexual harassment. For example, a frat boy like Spiegel
would actually probably not get promoted in a larger corporation, if his true
colors came out, because he's an HR liability. But investors can fund people
like him and wash their hands of the cultural issues created by funding frat
boys. That's a real problem, and it ought to be fixed. Since founders _are_
middle managers in the VC-funded meta-company that now exists in the Valley,
it's only reasonable to acknowledge them as such, and pass liabilities up the
chain into the executive ranks (investors).

~~~
waterlesscloud
"founders are middle managers in the VC-funded meta-company that now exists in
the Valley."

I'm not sure I completely agree with this, but it's definitely a useful
perspective to keep in mind. A lot of things look very different if you switch
over to that way of thinking once in a while.

Both pieces of it, the founders are middle managers, and the Valley as meta-
company.

