Quote of the Day

by

Helen Pluckrose, quoted in Spiked:

Despite what the backing of prominent institutions might imply, I think these woke causes are supported by only a minority of people. It is not so uncommon for society to work this way. Look at theocracies, where perhaps only five per cent of people are theologians who teach the core values, but they are accepted by wider society as a benchmark for showing goodness and virtue. People either accept it without really understanding it, or just refrain from arguing with it. There are definitely parallels between that scenario and society today.

Nowadays non-leftists hesitate to express non-leftist views publicly, either from fear of retaliation or because they don’t think it’s worth the hassle. Leftists probably feel the same way. However, the situation is asymmetrical because so many prominent institutions and big businesses are controlled by leftists or by people who are afraid not to make at least a show of fealty to leftist ideas.

8 thoughts on “Quote of the Day”

  2. Fear of being impolite is sensible but that a sensible culture does not believe firing someone for critical beliefs is acceptable.

  3. I have lots of opinions. I’ll allude to the equality between opinions and a certain bodily orifice. What I usually lack is any reason to believe that they matter to anyone else. Present company excepted, you’re so lucky.

    I may be living in some sort of bubble but none of the people I deal with daily seem that motivated by the cause de jure. Or it just hasn’t come up, and won’t from me.

  4. a lot of Americans are afraid to express their true beliefs for fear of retaliation:

    This is why polls mean nothing this year. 2016 was a year of “shy Trump voters” but I have no idea how this election will turn out. I think Trump will win but the fraud factor is unknowable. The deep blue states that have gone all in on mail-in votes are lost but don’t count. I live in Arizona which went all mail-in and which saw a lot of ballot harvesting in 2018. I guess we will see. I would like to see the RNC hire the lady from “True the vote” in Texas this year to manage the election but I’m not sure I trust the RNC.

  5. A particularly appalling case is that of the Boeing Aircraft Corporation, where the director of corporate communications was pushed out because of any essay he wrote for a military journal 30 years ago, when he was a Navy pilot. The essay argued that it was not a good idea to have women serving in combat…this was certainly the conventional opinion at the time, and the opinion of most military people. People will conclude that it’s not safe to express *any* opinions, even the most approved and conventional ones, because these definitions may change at some future time.

    It’s interesting that Boing moved with much more alacrity in suppressing this retroactive heresy than they did in analyzing and resolving the problems with the 737 MCAS system.

  6. Speaking of the Boeing 737,, I see that there is another FAA Airworthiness Directive out against these airplanes, this one having to do with engine bleed air valves that can corrode when the airplane goes for an extended period of time without being flown…’extended period’ being defined as 7 days.

  8. David,
    The contrasts you illustrate at Boeing are simply two symptoms of the same disease. Every dying organization goes through a stage near the end where symbolism and gesture replace accomplishment.

    The message it sends to people working for Boeing is that while they will protect fiercely the decision makers who’s misjudgements have cost hundreds of lives and billions of dollars and very possibly the company itself, anyone who violates today’s narrative, even in a completely inoffensive article written 30 years ago, will be ruthlessly expunged.

    They miss and will be most perplexed when others don’t, that this is exactly how they ended up with the 737MAX disaster.

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