The Google memo and freedom of speech, part 1: The Left's "problem"?

The sacking a month ago of James Damore, the Google employee who shot to notoriety for his leaked anti-diversity manifesto, caused a storm of debate. Many people were of the opinion that Google was wrong to sack the 28-year old engineer, despite his having used company time to write and distribute a poorly argued tirade accusing his employer of being nothing less than an “Ideological Echo Chamber” and despite this screed having gone viral causing a massive amount of negative publicity for the company.

Because, well, didn't sacking him prove the guy's point? On this view – a view taken not just by alt-right nutjobs but also by commentators in respectable publications such as The Economist – the firing was incompatible with a decent respect for freedom of expression. Conservative commentators, such as Toby Young, writing in The Spectator, went further and treated the episode as evidence of the general intolerance amongst “the liberal left” for views that conflict with their own.

With so many hot-button issues in play it was not surprising the quality of much of the debate was poor. In writing this post, I wanted mainly to untangle the arguments so it's possible to see what in what (limited) respects Damore and his supporters/apologists are right and what respects (generally more important ones) they are being tendentious. I wanted to try, as much as possible, to do this in a sort-of Socratic way of highlighting the logical consequences of the beliefs that other people themselves hold, rather than imposing my own moral instincts on them.

There are three questions that I think are worth pursuing, in one one form or another.

1. Does “the liberal left” really have a problem with freedom of speech?

“No”, I will argue, on any perspicuous rendering of this question. I pose it first because consideration of some of the nonsense exposed in the process of answering it will help tackle the next question, namely...

2. Was the sacking of Damore an infringement of his right to freedom of speech?

“No”, I think. Nor is it so on the interpretation of the right to free speech that most of his apologists would actually subscribe to if pushed for a comprehensive account of their own views.

Finally, the question that necessarily comes last (because the correctness or otherwise of Damore's views shouldn't affect the question of whether his freedom of speech was violated) namely...

3. Was Damore's manifesto a valuable contribution to the debate on diversity?

Again, “no”, at least not directly – although it did indirectly lead to some reasonable good quality discussion of the relevant scientific evidence coming to the fore.

In this first post, I'll stick to the first of these questions and deal with (2) and (3) in a subsequent post.

(1) Does The Left have a problem with free speech?

Before we attempt to answer the question, let's convert it into a more perspicuous one. In fact, before we even do that, let's think a little about why it is weak question. It's weak because, so framed, it's possible to argue too much and with too much consequence over its terms. Does “The Left” mean everyone with leftwing views (even assuming we can reach tolerable agreement on what such views are), including (say) Labour voters quietly sitting at home not ostensibly firing or otherwise harassing anyone, or does it just mean prominent people (elites?) of that political complexion? Either way, what weight, if any, should one give to the fact that lots of people on The Left disagree with the very practices (no platforming, safe spaces, etc) that alt-right free speech proponents harp on about?

And what should we make of the word “problem”? It is very easy to identify the existence of a problem whenever there is any kind of controversy in social life. And it is then very easy to twist that identification into an aspersion on the group to whom that problem pertains. Consider the fact that Die Judenfrage was originally a neutral expression used within C18th&19th debates around Jewish emancipation to encapsulate the issues facing the Jews, as a non-territorially defined ethnic group living in a Europe gripped by rising ethno-nationalism. It was used in this sense by lots of Jews themselves, including Karl Marx. Later, of course, the Jewish Question was adopted as a central tenet of Nazi antisemitism, now meaning the problem that Jews allegedly posed by their very existence to Germany (this lot admit their existence is problematic, see?); it was the problem to which the Final Solution was the answer. A similar risk of conceptual slippage ought to be evident here. Free speech is inherently problematic: it throws up lots of difficulties all the time. Leftwingers are of course concerned with free speech. Hence The Left naturally does have a free speech problem. But, of course, on this basis, so does The Right. So does anyone with a political conscience. This then leads to a second reason why the question is a rubbish one. It is not clear where an affirmative answer actually takes one, because the real issue people are interested in – whether The Left is relatively better, worse or the same as The Right in this respect – isn't encapsulated in the question.

So let's try again:

(1) Does The Left have a problem with free speech? Quite simply, is one, in today's society, more free to express left-wing views than right-wing ones?

Of course, as any natural language formulation must do this still leaves room for debate over terms. But the position is now much improved. Sure, we still need to achieve some measure of agreement on the meaning of right- and left-wing. But we no longer have to augment that with an absurd charade of attempting to arrive at a definitive characterization, or personification, of the entire, diverse class of humanity (“The Left”) who might be said to satisfy the condition of holding such views. Nor does one have to grapple with the problem of determining when someone has a “problem” and what that means. And best of all, the question is fair. It puts right-wing attitudes to freedom of expression in the frame as well. In short, the new formulation captures what is surely the gravamen of the conservative complaint against the (alleged) culture of political correctness in the West, but does so without leaving any room for backsliding over implied baselines.

Let us concede to Damore that the views in his manifesto are right-wing ones. It would be easy to scoff at the little Political Theory For Dummies-style ready reckoner that he gives us on page 2 of the memo, with its three key “left biases” (“compassion for the weak”; “disparities are due to injustice”; “humans are inherently cooperative”)juxtaposed with corresponding “right biases” (“respect for the strong/authority”; “disparities are natural and just”; “humans are inherently cooperative”). But, hey, actually I think this tolerably well summarizes most people's understanding of what is encompassed by the terms left and right wing. And on this basis, as he admits, his views have a decidedly right-wing political flavour.

Let us also concede that Damore was sacked for expressing those views (as opposed to, for example, the snivelling, dickish way that he expresses them – but more on this in a later post) and that hence his sacking can be said to have a political dimension. Many will balk, I imagine, at such concession. They will say that the guy was sacked not because of the political content of his views, but because of what he said caused. Namely upset to his fellow co-workers by implying them to be inferior, embarrassment and harm to his employer, etc, etc. But the better view is that the two things are not mutually exclusive. If you are penalised for the consequences of saying something that is bad for business, and if that something also has the attribute of being a political statement, then to that extent your ability to make a political statement has been curtailed.

In other words, there can be little use here for special pleading around what counts as a political statement. If what we are concerned about here is political expression, and that seems to be the very issue, the fact that a statement may have perceived non-political consequences (eg harm to the bottom line), which consequences are what motivates action taken to inhibit the making of the statement, simply isn't enough to take the statement itself outside the realm of what counts as political speech.

And, crucially, that observation cuts both ways.

Suppose you are hired for a junior position at an investment bank. A few years into the job you decide to write, and circulate to your managers, a l0-page memorandum (which may or may not be entitled “[insert company name]'s Ideological Echo Chamber”) questioning the ethics of capitalist enterprise. Your memo straight up criticizes the firm for putting “profit before people” and for suffering from various conservative “biases” that have led it to assume that its market-based, buying-and-selling activities are worthwhile pursuits. It concludes with a call for the company to consider converting itself into a non-profit making, worker-owned cooperative.

Would you expect anything less than to be told in no uncertain terms that your suggestions were unwelcome?

Or suppose you are an employee at an oil industry consultancy, say one that advises large oil producing companies. You circulate an internal memo complaining that the entire fossil fuel industry is killing the planet and suggesting that the firm redirect its business to advising the wind industry. Suppose, then, your memo is accidentally leaked outside the firm and falls into the hands of one of your company's customers. The customer is outraged that its adviser's employees are expressing such views to one another in the workplace and it demands that the author of the memo is sacked. Your bosses comply with the request.

On those facts, would you have any real ground for complaint?

Given the points made above it would, of course, be outrageous for opponents of Damore's sacking to try to attempt to characterize these imagined anti-capitalist memos as non-ideological given the expansive notion of ideology upon which they themselves so heavily rely. The hypocrisy would be equally great if they were to claim that there would in those examples be no infringement of freedom of expression because the employer in each case would not be motivated by the content of the views but rather their consequences. Again, the same could be said of the Damore case itself.

One can think of many other instances/circumstances where sentiments that can only fairly characterized as right wing are the socially acceptable ones. In those case people who have differing views often have to bite their tongue. Consider attitudes to the (broadly popular) monarchy in Britain; attitudes to the military in the US; the use of French in France; attitudes to the competitive examination system in schools; attitudes to the nuclear family in political debate (think of the compulsory bromides “hard working families”: “the family is at the centre of everything we believe in...”).

And what about what one might call soft social norms: not attitudes to the big political questions but everyday attitudes and behaviours? Let's remember that on Damore's conception leftwing behaviours would potentially include any efforts aimed at aiding traditionalised marginalised groups – a conception which certainly agrees with the everyday usage of the term “politically correct”. Such a conception is broad indeed: it could cover everything from the taboo against the use of derogatory epithets for gay people, to moves towards installing unisex bathrooms, to efforts to translate information into minority languages... lots of things!

Fine.

So, by parity, our conception of rightwing norms needs also to be broad. It should include, for example, a preference for the enforcement of formal dress codes in the work place, justifications of which always end up with appeals to respect for people in positions of power or authority (albeit a bit of Socratic questioning is often required to prise out any justification at all: “why is it important to wear a suit?” / “because it's smart, obviously!” / “but why is it important to be smart at work?” / “it's just being about professional” / “I'm sorry, but it's not self-evident to me that professionalism involve entirely tokenistic acts such as wearing a particular type of clothing...” / “Look. It's about showing respect to the people who employ you and the clients who pay your bills.”

Such attitudes are, depending on the definition used, either political or they aren't. I don't care so long as we are working with consistent conceptions. If PC concern over micro-aggressions is political, then so is traditionalist affinity for formal dress. And that means that lots of people are subject to lots of conservative norms that they can't in practice speak out about, at least not within the workplace itself, just as they are subject to lots of progressive norms which are similarly difficult in practice to challenge.

So back to the question. Are we freer to express left-wing views than right-wing ones? I can't see how anyone can possibly give an affirmative answer without arbitrarily discounting the multitude of ways that progressive views are suppressed where they come into conflict with traditional orthodoxies.

Damore is, as we know, fond of identifying cognitive biases, and, in this spirit, I suggest a couple are in play here. One is the availability bias – the tendency of people to base their judgements preferentially on evidence that is simply easier to recall, for example because it has recently been in the news.

There are frequent reports – lots of them, indeed, if you read the Daily Mail – about people getting in trouble (fairly or unfairly) for falling afoul of liberal norms: using the wrong word for black people, not being sufficiently diverse, promoting gender stereotypes, etc. We've all seen these stories. They colour all of our understandings of what is meant by political correctness.

By contrast, instances of employees being sacked for persistent criticism of their management for failure to distribute pay more fairly, or being told off for looking scruffy, or suffering lack of social prestige for not having a high paying job, are not even newsworthy. Why? Because few people are surprised by the enforcement of traditional, long-standing social norms. Progressive social norms, by contrast, and almost by definition, are new and thus surprising. People are often shocked by their existence and upset by their enforcement. Hence the newsworthiness of a council sending out greetings cards celebrating the “Winter Break”, but the un-newsworthiness of a corporation retaining a board comprised of 90% men. In short, you cannot decide whether right- or left- attitudes are more ruthlessly enforced in society simply by bringing to mind news stories that you've heard about recently. That just doesn't work in this situation.

So next time someone tells you that political correctness is a left-wing problem because left-wing political correctness is what all the news stories are about, see if you can gently make the above point.

You might prefer, though, not to make the following point, which is a little harsher in its implications. This is that conservatives generally suffer from an additional bias, one peculiar to their mindset, namely an inability to see that the way things have long been done even requires ethical justification. That capitalist ventures should remain capitalist ventures is just the way the world is. That men should earn more than women is just “natural”. That one should cater for the majority religious sentiment is “common sense”. So if people are ridiculed (or worse) for challenging such norms, there is no oppression, no infringement of freedom of expression, nothing to get worked up about. Because there is, on this mindset, understood to be nothing ideological about such norms: they just represent the natural order of things. By contrast, to the traditionalist mind, innovations in social organisation (such as gender neutrality) require almost endless justification. They deserve to be picked apart, subject to absurd levels of scepticism. Those who flout them are, therefore, heroic iconoclasts rather than (as anti-capitalists are assumed to be) idiots who can't accept the world as it is.

Put in other words, if you refuse to perceive cast swathes of commonplace human behaviour as requiring ethical/ideological justification, then, yes, on that view, the only significant source of impingement of everyday freedom of expression in the West today is liberal activism. But possessing such an attitude involves a quite alarming degree of philosophic blindness. And it implies a bias more profound than anything that “The Left” has even been accused of in its (sometimes over-enthusiastic) enforcement of liberal social norms.