The problem is that it cuts both ways:
"I think I might not be straight"
"Oh, we don't do that here, we believe in the lord."
If you're like me and believe in maximizing individual agency, you teach people to resist semantic stop signs and not use them. We question the stop signs. We actively interrogate the rules we are told to not question.
Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time.
“We don’t do that here” means there are more important things for us to discuss right now.
I knew a mother who allowed her kids to question everything all the time. It was cool to watch. Once. After a while I realized why she was also the most tired mom I had met. At some point the kids realize dessert before dinner is a question we are safe to ask, so we are gonna ask it four times a week. I’m not sure if she ever saw that she conditioned them into that via random reinforcement. They didn’t stop until the youngest was about 14. That’s a long time to be tired.
"That's racist!" "You're a bigot!" "You can't use that word!"
The response is predictably, "Yes, Yes, I'm a terrible nazi bigot racist. Now as I was saying..."
There is a guide to responding, especially to the repeated questions, which often comes with discussions. Yes, you may need to repeat that discussion a bunch. So it goes.
There are many other pressures at play that make this a totally appropriate tool to communicate shared values, none of which you've considered in your argument.
Nice flamebait but I'll take it.
Funny you said that considering the american left (and therefore the western left, delayed a couple years) is postmodernism distilled.
The left is the kids in your story, and society is the mom. The right is just watching and reaping the rewards.
One of the parenting rules my mother enforced in our family was that she would refuse perfectly valid requests seemingly at random. Her explanation? "You have to learn to take a "no" gracefully." These were also the scenarios where attempting to argue or seek a special exemption just this once only hardened her resolve not to give in. I greatly disliked this as a kid, but grew to see the value in it as an adult.
You're setting expectations. This is pretty effective between adults, I am not sure it's as effective with children, and I say this as someone who has tried to apply it to children. The results are mixed.
There's a certain amount of value in being able to guess What Mom Would Say. Mom isn't always going to be there. On the other hand you have to be careful how broadly you apply that. What Mom Would Say about eating berries you haven't identified is pretty good, or going off the grid for 48 hours without telling anyone where you'll be and when to worry. What Mom Would Say about what your hobbies and interests and romantic life should look like might lead to estrangement and neuroses.
In hindsight as an adult, I could better appreciate the occasions where she turned down requests and possibly the reasons why, and there is some value in kids learning that there are limits to what they can get without being offered a detailed explanation in return.
> There's a certain amount of value in being able to guess What Mom Would Say. Mom isn't always going to be there. On the other hand you have to be careful how broadly you apply that. What Mom Would Say about eating berries you haven't identified is pretty good, or going off the grid for 48 hours without telling anyone where you'll be and when to worry.
This isn't really the context in which these things came up in my family. Her stated goal at each occasion was that it's very important that her kids learn that life doesn't always go the way we want. So while we could go to a friend's birthday party, we couldn't go to all of them, and she made the call (perhaps ~ 75% of requests that required a non-trivial expense would be turned down (~25% otherwise), but as a kid it was hard to see the distinction). We knew as kids that we had very little expendable income as a family, and did a decent amount of filtering out requests ourselves. I think our financial situation was a lot more dire than we could appreciate as kids, and this approach was one way my mother kept things sane.
> “We don’t do that here” means there are more important things for us to discuss right now.
Why is it only the political left that gets to define what things are sufficiently not-to-be-discussed?
Many of the comments here follow the same pattern: an assumption that there's an authority that is universally correct (the mother, in your example) and someone lesser-than that simply needs to be corralled into not questioning it. What if we, instead, approached these issues as though both sides are intelligent adults capable of discussion?
We don't need to be condescended to because we asked if we should push to the "master" branch.
> Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time.
Sealioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
> At some point the kids realize dessert before dinner is a question we are safe to ask, so we are gonna ask it four times a week.
Good opportunity to teach the kids about boundaries and respect for your fellow human being:
“I am never going to allow dessert before dinner, because it is unhealthy and your well-being is important to me. The next time you ask me that you won’t get dessert before or after dinner. New questions are interesting, old questions are annoying. I don‘t like being annoyed and will incentivise you to be better.”
Or:
“Sure. Here’s an apple. Fruit is dessert. No, you cannot have ice cream because it is unhealthy and…”
Or:
“Why do you keep asking the same question when you know the answer will be negative? Do you not realise that is annoying? What would you do if someone annoyed you everyday?”
Also, "we don't do that here" doesn't mean "not right now" it means "never, or we won't let you into the club." The phrasing of the sentence implicitly diffuses responsibility among the entire group, and marks the other person in the conversation as an outsider.
I'm not you, but I wouldn't want to say that to an employee. I want them to feel comfortable, too.
It implies that the one asking the question is by definition an outsider, and they should know their place. It also implies : "You do not need to know the answer because you are too unimportant; OR this is a stupid question who's answer is obvious."
IMO, it is easier and less combative to tell the real reason you refuse to answer and take personal/individual ownership for it. "I spent X amount of time figuring out architecture. It will take a Y time to explain. Let's discuss this in another venue where time isn't a bottleneck"; OR; "The manager / higher-ups decided that certain personal topics are off the table to maintain cohesion between the team."
It is fine to impose culture onto new entrants to the group. But, that inherently implies a power imbalance which is important to acknowledge and communicate. If this is supposed to be an equal relationship with equal agency, then this sort of behavior veers on workplace bullying.
I agree with the above commenter, that such rigidity and opaqueness towards interrogating a team's culture cuts both ways. If you wish to use it, then do so at your own peril.
Not everyone agrees with that! And by continually pushing back against the "we don't do that" consensus, and arguing about the details, they keep these ideas floating around longer than they really should. Choosing to engage with them when they've already been "settled" gives them apparent legitimacy and now you're setting explicit written policies about which words can and can't be used in what contexts and shit, rather than enforcing a social norm via a social mechanism.
Some things need to be ossified! You can't be an athlete without a skeleton, you can't keep every idea in a pliable cartilage form forever if you want to do useful work on or around it. When things are more or less settled they should be solidified as well.
The semantic stop sign betrays weakness, like eugenics might maybe have some secret kernal of truth. The thrashing of it is both scientifically correct and demystifies it.
That approach assumes that 1) every venue is an appropriate venue for a debate, 2) that everyone who supports a value or norm is educated enough on it to explain its technical merits to a skeptical audience and 3) everyone is capable of defending that idea against a hostile debate opponent in public.
To me "we decided, it's not like that here" is firm and clear, communicates that this is a social norm that is not up for debate at this time in this venue, without necessarily declaring it's absolutely final or that there is no appropriate venue. There are not really any perfect solutions here but this is a quite good one.
Also, who is "we"? If you have a 5-person company and you hire 10 more people, should the social rules decided by the first 5 be dictated to the other 10? Or should they be changed to make everyone maximally comfortable?
These aren't questions that you should necessarily answer on the spot, but these are questions that have to be answered.
because sometimes it needs to be made clear that such comments are not acceptable here. you could say it in different words, like for example: "in this company such comments are considered inappropriate" or "we don't make such jokes here"
If you have a 5-person company and you hire 10 more people, should the social rules decided by the first 5 be dictated to the other 10?
initially yes. later when everyone knows each other better, there is time and room to reconsider and maybe debate the finer points of some specific rules.
Also, the idea of "reconsidering the finer points of the rules" is really interesting - it suggests that the comfort of the first 5 matters more than the comfort of everyone else. What if the first 5 people were hyper-religious conservatives who hired 10 progressives and want to keep hiring progressives? Should it still only be the finer points of the rules that get discussed? Or should it be understood that their culture of prayers every day doesn't scale up, and that a lot of things need to be re-worked? This can also be true of hyper-progressive people. A culture of offense-taking at little things, language policing, and social justice book clubs is as non-inclusive as a culture of daily prayers.
"We don't do that here" is exclusionary language, and so are the other two comments you suggested. Both use "we" to fabricate consensus (has the company really decided as a group that this particular speech pattern is banned?) and shame the other party as an outsider. That is not the right way to create respect.
ok, i kind of agree with that. i was not responding to that part of the comment.
the idea of "reconsidering the finer points of the rules" is really interesting - it suggests that the comfort of the first 5 matters more than the comfort of everyone else
no, it suggests that when 10 individuals join an existing team, they ought to learn more about the team culture first, before they try to make changes, unless the existing culture is clearly hostile to some people.
consider the difference between 10 new people joining all at once or one at a time, a few weeks apart. why should 10 new people get the right to dominate the culture that i am trying to build in my company? i am paying you, so you follow my culture. once we know each other better, then you may start pointing out problems that you discover. but if you come in and start being disruptive because you disagree with my company culture, then you better go look for another job. even if i am wrong, that's not the way to implement changes.
the critical point is, that such issues are not a question of majority, but one of inclusiveness. we want to reject a culture that excludes some people. so if the original 5 people have a problematic culture, then the newcomers are good to try to change that (but being disruptive is unlikely to work), but if it is the reverse, then it's the newcomers that need to adjust.
EDIT: added some clarifications.
Wait - you think the problem with eugenics is that it was ineffective? I think we need to talk a lot more about eugenics.
Or we can just nip the whole thing because failure and racist failure are both just failure.
If you test positive for some genetic markers, you get free IVF, paid for by the government. If you have some kind of anti-IVF bent, it's not mandatory, just a benefit you aren't using. The IVF process picks embryos that have the least undesirable traits - but you will definitely have a kid and it will be yours.
You have eugenics and no forced sterilization, no murdering people, nothing.
It still won't work, but you have ethical eugenics.
We breed for traits. That's eugenics.
The reason we don't practice eugenics with humans is that it removes our agency and tramples our rights. And that's morally abhorrent. We don't need to pretend that it doesn't work. We just need to acknowledge that directing the procreation of other humans is just flat out morally wrong.
Eugenics specifically aims to change the social situation (poverty, crime, drug use, etc) by changing the gene pool. That will never work, crime is not a genetic condition.
What you describe is genetic modification, not eugenics.
You can breed for traits.
I'm fully capable of realizing that forced breeding/sterilization is inhumane and also be aware that it is capable of getting results.
But really, eugenics doesn't work. If you go to a really crime filled area, legally/ethically adopt a dozen babies and raise them in a low crime area.. they will look like the area they were raised in, not like the kids who grew up in a high crime area.
The inverse holds too. Go take a dozen babies from a low crime area, throw them in a dangerous high crime area, and they will be criminals.
With animals, you can breed for some general traits but not consistently. Some German shepherds don't take orders well. Some non-herding dogs will be great at herding. If you want to raise, eg a police k9, you need to start with a very young dog (or get lucky), you can't randomly pull from a breed (oh, this dog is a GS, they will be a great police k9).
If you engage in a really aggressive eugenics program you will.. basically not change anything.
Similarly, we used to be interested in showing people that racism was bad. Anti-racism educators and consultants would talk about the economic benefits of widening your market or your employee pool. Now that we instead call people "racist" to shut down discussion, actual racists are gaining ideological footholds, and lots of people are suspicious of the people who call others "racist."
People are not stupid. If you want them to agree with you, you should not talk down to them.
I think it's reasonable to resist that on the grounds that humans aren't gravity, no one is going to come up with newton's laws of how to treat each other. These things aren't facts of the universe that can be revealed to us, they are decisions we must make using our own resources. Debate is one of those resources, but not the only one, not even the most valuable one, not one that is appropriate at all times in all places for all ideas.
Edit: By the way, if it's good for society, and not for you, there should be laws about it. That's why the eugenicists in the early 1900's (who believed that racism was a social good) enforced Jim Crow Laws: businesses often refused to discriminate unless the law forced them.
I think the technique in the article is best used in situations where you specifically do not want to do so. When there's no value for you in the debate, or you will only be giving legitimacy to a discredited and harmful idea.
Saying "we don't do that here" is definitely a bit of a power play and you wouldn't use it if you truly needed to convince the other party to believe the thing. If you merely need them to act on it though, and you have the power to pull it, it's fine for that.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure what to make of this: whether or not GR (our current ToG) is correct, and, if not, what’s missing or how it might be wrong is a hugely important active field of research.
As is, of course, trying to integrate QM and GR.
They aren’t ossified, they are hard. Conceptually hard. Mathematically hard. And a few other hards.
(Note: I carefully avoided saying "because it's unsanitary" to avoid the immediate response that urine is reasonably sterile and no worse than any other liquid that might wind up on the floor. I've learned my lessons.)
"if stuff doesn't cut both ways, find out why it doesn't"
> “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals.
Of course it cuts both ways. Any method of setting a boundary can be used to enforce morally just or unjust rules. The authors point is that
> “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture.
Genuinely asking: Does your position of "maximizing individual agency" mean that we should not enforce boundaries? If am running an office and someone makes a homophobic joke (not acceptable), what (in your view) is my recourse?
To in wit you might get the reply "Why do you find that joke hurtful?"
You can either throw out a semantic stop sign or engage in empathy. You can share meaningfully why you don't like those terms or jokes. You might say something like "My father told a lot of homophobic jokes to crush my self esteem once I came out as gay and I still find them hurtful."
Notice how we are enforcing a boundary not as an arbitrary line but as a conversation between two people? We use reasoning - not just cold rationality but the full spectrum of emotional reasoning too - to negotiate boundaries.
> When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.
So in this case, I would agree with you. I think the author would as well. She is not making this suggestion as a one size fits all response to off-color remarks. It's useful when people really should know better and there's other work that should be done. Or, the person is unable to accept criticism.
Why would you do that? What's wrong with them?
Why should I? Or
Who’s going to make me? Or
Or what?