Is calling my co-workers who are people of colour racial slurs a thought crime? Should I be fired for that, or should my employer tolerate it? Should I be allowed to make remarks about how evolutionary psychology tells me that women should be in the kitchen? Or that African Americans are predisposed to crime?
At what point does saying things stops becoming thought crime, and starts becoming 'creating a hostile work environment'? There has to be a point of crossover, somewhere, right?
If you said yes, you're an authoritarian stifling discourse. If you said no, then... Well, that's certainly a principled stance you can take.
To try to give a reasoned answer: there must be limits. And the limits will always be somewhat arbitrary. But the limits implied by Google's actions are clearly unreasonable in two ways:
1. I agree we should not allow racial slurs, or Nazi symbols, etc. We can do that because the vast majority of society disapproves of them. But the opinions in the document are not in that status: they are mostly rejected by progressives, debated by centrists, and mostly accepted by conservatives. In other words, Google has sent a signal of "you can't work here if you're not a progressive", and that's harmful on a societal level, because while we can have a functioning society after kicking out Nazis and people saying slurs, can we thrive if we have separate corporations for progressives and conservatives? No, we have to find a way to work together. Google's actions were a blow against such cooperation.
2. Saying that average group differences exist is a scientific fact (there are debates about where the differences lie, what they mean, what caused them, etc. but that some exist is long settled). And just acknowledging their existence seems to be what got this person fired, after others - including Google leadership - misunderstood average group differences to mean "one group is inferior to another".
>Is calling my co-workers who are people of colour racial slurs a thought crime?
Probably. Did the Google guy do even remotely that (or the sexist analogous)? No.
>At what point does saying things stops becoming thought crime, and starts becoming 'creating a hostile work environment'? There has to be a point of crossover, somewhere, right?
That would be relevant if I had said that there's no point of crossover.
But my "thought crime" argument wasn't that saying some things can't be "beyond the pale" (which I can agree with).
Rather it was that today some things can't even be discussed openly with rational arguments because people are not allowed to even touch them without automatically being labelled -- however good their intentions are and however sensical their arguments -- or how in accordance to science.
> At what point does saying things ... starts becoming 'creating a hostile work environment'?
Certainly well known, supported, and referenced scientific facts, are not creating a hostile work environment. The fact that he was treated that way suggests that it is in fact a "thought crime".
