The Right to a Nonconsensus Opinion

>Self-censorship is reaching all-time highs across the globe. It is unpleasant, and by preventing free discussion, it is inhibiting progress. We need to stop it.

Don't see any evidence of this. I grew up in a small conservative town. Dying your hair the wrong colour, being gay or not showing up at church could have been a social death sentence.

Today expressing non-consensus opinions is easier than ever, because of social media. In the past there was no social media, so random people expressing opinions at all wasn't possible, so it's not a meaningful comparison.

Today there's much more freedom to express what one wants, of course, if people amass large audiences it's also easily possible to create a two-sided shitstorm. That has nothing to do with not being able to express opinions though.

Also writing non-discrimination into law because of opinions people express is in itself a serious overstep of government. Opinions (in contrast to race, sex and so on), are neither innate and often highly relevant when it comes to the job at hand or the fit on a team. No company should be forced to say, endure a civil war in the office because they can't fire someone with extreme political opinions who constantly stirs up cultural wars.

This essay doesn't give any examples of someone expressing a non-consensus opinion and being fired.

Given the current political context, it's impossible for me to read that without thinking that it's an argument in support of letting people express racist, sexist, homophobic, and other vile statements without risking loss of employment.

(Eg, Amy Cooper - "New York 'Karen'" - the white woman who wanted to use the police as a weapon against a black man who asked her to follow the leash laws, or Anthony Brennan III, the white man who attacked a group of young adults posting flyers on a bike trail about protests related to George Floyd; both were fired once their bigoted actions came to light.)

With that in mind, this essay comes across as cryptic support for bigotry.

To give an example of why there needs to be examples, the author writes "Positions that were, 10 years ago, mandatory are today fireable offenses." Homophobic expression which might have been acceptable 10 years ago and even mandatory [1] might now not be acceptable. Without examples, this essay comes across like the author is trying to give hidden support for homophobia.

But let's take it at face value.

The proposition is "We can fix this by making employment discrimination against non-consensus views illegal."

This would eviscerate civil rights laws which lead to workplace protections against hostile environments.

The consensus opinion is that black people, women, etc. should be able to have jobs. If every day at work I tell my black co-workers that they don't deserve to be there, simply because they are black, then under current US and state laws that can be seen as contributing to a hostile environment, and management is obliged to stop me.

This may include firing me or other types of employment discrimination.

I support those civil rights laws, so reject this proposition.

[1] Consider that federal support for gay marriage is only 5 years old.

I was sympathetic with the thrust of this article right up until the proposed solution of making it illegal to fire people for having a non-consensus opinion. That strikes me as a cure that's worse than the disease.