We live in a world where we are more connected then ever. Social media, once a tool to help friends and family keep in touch with each other, has slowly morphed into a social control paradigm. Whereas in time past one could have opinions and beliefs that existed outside of the political and social positions of their employer and those could be expressed openly in non work related settings, we now live in a world where you are not only expected to contribute your time for money but you must in essence merge with the social positions ones workplace endorses as well.
This oneness an employee is expected to have with their employers belief structure is not an adult to adult one either, it is akin to an adult to child relationship. While employers claim that their employee cannot participate in political activities in the workplace, often the employer themselves actively participates in political activities with the expectation that employees will willingly (or not) follow suit. Those that follow can reap all sorts of awards and recognition for this. Accelerated promotions, work retreats, paid travel, monetary awards and more. However the employee may not care about diversity, equity and inclusion and may simply want to go to work to complete tasks that have little to nothing to do with social justice but soon find themselves in a seminar on privilege or unconscious bias.
Being required to take part in these political activities can be confusing and even demoralizing because the employee didn’t sign up to take part in those activities. They signed up to do their core tasks and earn a paycheck. Yet should the employee react in a way that opposes these measures, they may soon find themselves in violation of an arbitrary code of ethics and values. The employee, who may be excellent at their job, now faces a few choices.
Resign and try to find work in a work world increasingly captured by one sided political ideology.
Comply and slowly rot inside as they take part in a system they have fundamental disagreements with
Get fired and lose post employment benefits.
For many they choose option number two. However, one can only fake acceptance of the political ideology for so long. What ends up happening is often people end up living a sort of dual life. At work they will participate in the mandatory political activity of their company while outside of work they try to live life by their values and may be more vocal or open about their own belief structure. These views are often expressed on the employees private social media accounts, with family, friends outside of work and colleagues that have the same views as them.
Employers have honed in on the social media aspect in recent years. New employee background checks often involve a check of one’s social media accounts and renewal of professional licenses or Security Clearance will often necessitate additional social media screening. Some professional associations also require annual renewal which may include a background check of the persons social media. Yes, your employer wants to know what you’re getting up to on your free time under the guise of ensuring that you are supporting the “core values” of an organization. Often these values have little to do with meritocracy, excellence, hard work and motivation. Taking an adult to child approach to employee relations because they demand you fall in line with their ideological disposition. Employee 123039 must not only do the work but they must buy into a political ideology that’s been perversely rebranded as “workplace culture”.
One could surmise some type of ‘cultural workplace mantra’ of,
In this factory we believe that love is love, no one is illegal, colonial systems are opposed and the planet will be saved”
The employee asks, “How does this help us build car parts?”
“Car parts?” Management asks incredulously.
Social Media as a tool of control
Employers have found a way to use social media as a control mechanism to get other members of the public to report on the personal behavior of their staff, to be HR for free 24/7, 365 days a year. By incentivizing the discipline and consequential removal of people through codes of values that employees are expected to follow in their personal lives, employers have forced people who want paying jobs in the field of training, knowledge and pursuit to sign onto policies that bind them. This is notoriously overused in the Public Sector, where employees are instructed to be non-political, especially in behavior that would call into the question the ruling party. Yet often these workplaces overlook or downright encourage behavior that sides with one side of the political isle. The fact is, there are very few topics these days that are not political. Culture and politics have blended together, yet the lie remains that they remain separate in Canada. This has seen a rise in the usage of anonymous accounts. People want to speak out but they know if they attach their names to what they say in opposition to the ruling party they could court a band of screeching hyenas who will find out where they work, go to school and what organizations they are members of, in a bid to seek removal.
It’s a tactic that has worked in genuinely bad behavior cases that has slowly slid down a slope to companies being so adverse to having people, often who don’t even use their product, complaining about trivial things that ending employment is a preferred go to method instead of just ignoring the gnashing of teeth online. A particularly insidious method of control is the mandatory use of some social media platforms where anonymity is seriously compromised. Some companies have made the use of LinkedIn mandatory for employees to promote the company, seek job promotions and engage in corporate training. The trade off of the “ease of use” of these platforms is that someone’s work history and location are exposed for everyone to see. This is for the employers benefit of control as now if someone were to stick their head above the crowd they can be more effectively targeted for a cancellation. I see it every day on Twitter/X, someone posts something dumb and gets called out on it and before you know it someone has found their work profile on LinkedIn and is commenting, “this you bro?”. The screenshots and phone calls to the employer start and soon the account is locked and/or deleted followed by the termination of employment. This types of corporate snitch culture is insidious as it deputizes the public to police the content of others with simply different political opinions.
It is in the end usually a one way wrench. If you went online and began posting that capitalism is evil, UBI is great, men can become women and call for protests in the streets for the left leaning cause of the day causing someone to take offence and report you, there would be no consequences because these are supported and celebrated positions. They are political but they match the DEI profile that companies endorse. Yet, should you go online and say the opposite of these things you would be told that you are being political and violating value codes of an employer and either reprimanded or if the noise was loud enough, even let go. Despite the fact that these are mainline stances held by many people and political factions that are not extreme in nature.
Consequences for Corporate Control Over Belief
This of course is untenable in the long term and we are already seeing consequences that are having a trickle down effect on our society. While big corporations double down on enforcing self censorship for employment, people are pushing back. In Canada people are voluntarily leaving the work force in companies and Government agencies where the workplace culture has been more fully captured by woke ideology. These organizations are short hundreds to thousands of people who have left and taken that corporate knowledge with them as the company you were employed with doubles down to appease the woke population that would never join them to begin with.
To counter this, the people who remain with these companies and work hard are expected to take on larger workloads, pledge even deeper allegiance to “The Message” and many sit through the DEI workshops slowly counting down the days until they can retire, or browse the internet looking for alternate employment that is comparable to their work. Companies are also using foreign labor as a means to artificially prop up these critical roles. Requirements for entry have been loosened up to the point that non-citizens can be employed in critical public safety roles in military and policing duties over Canadian citizens. This may have a temporary net positive for the organizations but ultimately lead to continued net negatives as trust dwindles. The people they hire often don’t stick around once they get what they want and move on to other ventures as they don’t agree with the policies either but will grit their teeth or participate fully until it is time to move on.
This Corporate control over ensuring this sort of group conformity in the private and public sector is also having serious economic impacts as well. People who leave the work force and cannot find work in their fields are uprooting their families and moving to friendlier countries, resorting to working in areas they are not specialized in, spending less in the economy itself and at worst removing themselves from the economy and instead taking up social services to make ends meet which is supplemented by the people who are still working. There is some evidence as well that these societal outcasts are taking part in a more parallel economy as a means to not only make ends meet but to also protest against the Government and Corporations. The more people that utilize alternative economic means the more it will drive the capital from the Government and big corporations, it’s a type of punishment for these groups but the Government never runs out of money and these corporations have deep pockets. It also gives these people a social network and organizational capacity. These economic impacts compound more as the censorship regime cracks down, further enforcing corporate hegemony and raising the stakes higher for people who choose to buy in and for the people who leave. In the end though, the parallel economy doesn’t usually dent the primary one.
Final Thoughts
How do we get through this? I don’t have an answer and the future doesn’t look bright in this regards. In the end we all have to make personal judgements on what is best for ourselves, our families and our lives. Many are going to continue to plug away, keeping their thoughts and beliefs a secret which, in my opinion, will open them up to mental illness, addictions and nihilism. The best we can do is work to actively support people who are being struggled, to let them know that they aren’t crazy. Financially supporting them is also an option but can be difficult as the cost of everything increases. The system that has been built, has been built on a foundation of sand and over time it will crack and eventually crumble. I think many of them know this and are trying to squeeze as much capital out of it as they can before the scheme collapses onto itself. Until that time, we’re just going to have to go along for the ride.
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This is an excellent article, you have comprehensively nailed what is a genuine problem.
When I started my career in the late 1980s it was understood that personal political opinions were not discussed in the workplace, and that the workplace itself did not promote political opinions. Now, there WERE management fads that came and went, and indeed if you wanted to rise in their bureaucracy it was always clear you needed to get on board with those ideas. Generally they were not socio-political philosophies, they were about management and/or quality techniques, etc. But no one tried to tell you what to think.
35 years later this has all changed. Pretty much every organization today (especially the ones that are not productivity oriented like academia etc) ACTIVELY attempt to tell employees what to think. That is what this DEI stuff is all about, its basically a personal opinion that the employer attempts to force onto everyone.
Its a real tragedy for society, this kind of coercion.