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> It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing

> It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change. I've heard people say something similar, about how they were left-wing when they were young, but found themselves right-wing when they were older, without changing their politics, because the next generation had moved the Overton window, but it's surprising to hear of an environment where the shift happened in the space of 18 months. I think that many people on the right imagine that identity politics is the true form of left-wing politics, and that it was invented by Karl Marx for some reason, but experiences like Tara Henley's suggest that identity politics is more like an aggressive meme that takes over the brains of some subset of people who happen to gravitate towards left-wing politics, and it perhaps has a disingenuous astroturf form which appeals to people on the right as a way to shield themselves from left-wing criticism.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
The article didn't say what happened. Did they turn over everyone but her in the 18 months? Or did everyone but her change their position? Or did everyone but her decide that they had to look and act like they changed their position in order to fit with new directions coming down from on high? She didn't say. I wish she had; I would like to know what drove the change.
- golemotron 5y ago
  Elite overproduction leads to society-wide purity spirals.
- nick__m 5y ago
  I blame the federal government that ties funding to "diversity and inclusion" to the detriment of everything else. It cause ridiculous situations like the one described in that article https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/minority-professor-denied-grants-because-he-hires-on-merit-people-are-afraid-to-think/ar-AAR4KHE https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/minority-professor-den... So if the funding for the CBC is allocated on similars concerns, her colleagues are probably scared. That would also explain why they produced this mostly absurd list of banned words https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/words-and-phrases-commonly-used-offensive-english-language-1.6252274 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/words-and-phrases-comm... , a list that include violent words like brainstorm, lame, grandfathered and tribe. The CBC used to be a bastion of integrity and reason, now it is a novlang factory.
_zzaw 5y ago
I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who’s increasingly convinced that what she’s describing is the true form of left-wing politics, at least right now, and I’m saying this as a leftist. I think at its core, true workable leftism is about compassionate pragmatism: trying to make the world better for as many people as possible. What disturbs me most about the ultra-woke brand of leftism is that it isn’t pragmatic at all, to say nothing of compassionate. I believe you’re correct that what Henley describes is very similar to a meme: it’s simplistic, reductive, and easy. You can feel like you made a difference without having to do the hard work of actually making a difference. That’s what bothers me so much about it. It’s an approach that’s primarily self-focused: venting one’s rage, posturing for the sake of boosting one’s social status. It's not really about helping other people—any more than the moral codes of right-wing religious fundamentalism are about actually being a decent person—and it definitely isn’t close to realistic as far as effectively changing anything.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  It’s easy to be high minded when you don’t have power. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh sounded intelligent in the early 90s. His successors have devolved to “fuck you” as a political slogan. High minded ideals fall to power. It’s easy to see at the local level, when black and LGBT voting blocs put the Mayor in power, the political spoils get divvied up. As time goes on you get conflict between the various stakeholders, and everyone forgets about the ideals and focuses on the street fighting. That’s why you need competitive elections.
- Aloha 5y ago
  It's the "required pieces of flare" problem. You can be left as all get out, but if you don't speak in the stilted expected movement oriented language, and swallow the whole enchilada - and sign on to every policy no matter how worthy or good, you don't have the required pieces of flare - and even though you want the same things and would vote for 95% of the things they support, you're thought of as at least suspect if not outright as one of the enemy. Like I have a focus on broad based poverty reduction, but because I'm not focused on poverty for urban poor people, or BIPOC people, I'm suspect in their head - I support broad based poverty reductions because they create durable electoral coalitions, just focusing on one group or another does the opposite. I have other similar "problematic" perspectives. Outrage politics works great for winning social credit on social media, but it does very little to solve actual problems.
therein 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please keep this sort of shallow, menacing flamebait off HN. It leads nowhere interesting. We want thoughtful, curious conversation instead. Among other things, that means conversation where people listen to each other across differences. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. We ban accounts that post slurs, including veiled ones.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    Check out all the murdered replies. Can the hivemind be trusted with this power?
    - dang 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you're referring to, but you're assuming your conclusion by using a word like 'murdered' in any case. In general, there's a lot of space on HN for arguing contrarian or minority views, as long as you're actually using the site as intended, i.e. for curious, thoughtful, respectful conversation. Most accounts that I see complaining that they've been suppressed haven't been doing that to begin with.
      - swayvil 5y ago
        I'm referring to the numerous replies in this thread that have been rendered "dead" (thus "murdered".) via the HN voting/flagging system. Duh. So you think the hivemind makes a good conversation-dictator? I don't.
        dang 5y ago
        What are some flagkilled comments in this thread that haven't been breaking the site guidelines, such as by calling names or posting flamebait? You're breaking the site guidelines yourself here, btw, including the one asking you to avoid snark ("Duh") and the one that asks you to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says ("So you think"). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

The article didn't say what happened. Did they turn over everyone but her in the 18 months? Or did everyone but her change their position? Or did everyone but her decide that they had to look and act like they changed their position in order to fit with new directions coming down from on high? She didn't say. I wish she had; I would like to know what drove the change.

golemotron 5y ago
Elite overproduction leads to society-wide purity spirals.
nick__m 5y ago
I blame the federal government that ties funding to "diversity and inclusion" to the detriment of everything else. It cause ridiculous situations like the one described in that article https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/minority-professor-denied-grants-because-he-hires-on-merit-people-are-afraid-to-think/ar-AAR4KHE https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/minority-professor-den... So if the funding for the CBC is allocated on similars concerns, her colleagues are probably scared. That would also explain why they produced this mostly absurd list of banned words https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/words-and-phrases-commonly-used-offensive-english-language-1.6252274 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/words-and-phrases-comm... , a list that include violent words like brainstorm, lame, grandfathered and tribe. The CBC used to be a bastion of integrity and reason, now it is a novlang factory.

_zzaw 5y ago

I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who’s increasingly convinced that what she’s describing is the true form of left-wing politics, at least right now, and I’m saying this as a leftist. I think at its core, true workable leftism is about compassionate pragmatism: trying to make the world better for as many people as possible. What disturbs me most about the ultra-woke brand of leftism is that it isn’t pragmatic at all, to say nothing of compassionate. I believe you’re correct that what Henley describes is very similar to a meme: it’s simplistic, reductive, and easy. You can feel like you made a difference without having to do the hard work of actually making a difference. That’s what bothers me so much about it. It’s an approach that’s primarily self-focused: venting one’s rage, posturing for the sake of boosting one’s social status. It's not really about helping other people—any more than the moral codes of right-wing religious fundamentalism are about actually being a decent person—and it definitely isn’t close to realistic as far as effectively changing anything.

Spooky23 5y ago
It’s easy to be high minded when you don’t have power. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh sounded intelligent in the early 90s. His successors have devolved to “fuck you” as a political slogan. High minded ideals fall to power. It’s easy to see at the local level, when black and LGBT voting blocs put the Mayor in power, the political spoils get divvied up. As time goes on you get conflict between the various stakeholders, and everyone forgets about the ideals and focuses on the street fighting. That’s why you need competitive elections.
Aloha 5y ago
It's the "required pieces of flare" problem. You can be left as all get out, but if you don't speak in the stilted expected movement oriented language, and swallow the whole enchilada - and sign on to every policy no matter how worthy or good, you don't have the required pieces of flare - and even though you want the same things and would vote for 95% of the things they support, you're thought of as at least suspect if not outright as one of the enemy. Like I have a focus on broad based poverty reduction, but because I'm not focused on poverty for urban poor people, or BIPOC people, I'm suspect in their head - I support broad based poverty reductions because they create durable electoral coalitions, just focusing on one group or another does the opposite. I have other similar "problematic" perspectives. Outrage politics works great for winning social credit on social media, but it does very little to solve actual problems.

therein 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Please keep this sort of shallow, menacing flamebait off HN. It leads nowhere interesting. We want thoughtful, curious conversation instead. Among other things, that means conversation where people listen to each other across differences. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. We ban accounts that post slurs, including veiled ones.
- swayvil 5y ago
  Check out all the murdered replies. Can the hivemind be trusted with this power?
  - dang 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you're referring to, but you're assuming your conclusion by using a word like 'murdered' in any case. In general, there's a lot of space on HN for arguing contrarian or minority views, as long as you're actually using the site as intended, i.e. for curious, thoughtful, respectful conversation. Most accounts that I see complaining that they've been suppressed haven't been doing that to begin with.
    - swayvil 5y ago
      I'm referring to the numerous replies in this thread that have been rendered "dead" (thus "murdered".) via the HN voting/flagging system. Duh. So you think the hivemind makes a good conversation-dictator? I don't.
      - dang 5y ago
        What are some flagkilled comments in this thread that haven't been breaking the site guidelines, such as by calling names or posting flamebait? You're breaking the site guidelines yourself here, btw, including the one asking you to avoid snark ("Duh") and the one that asks you to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says ("So you think"). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html