The reporting in this story about Shor is important and what happened to him is a travesty. Almost all narratives about PC are hysterical centrist bed-wetting, but in this case there is a genuine wrong.
I'll add that one problem with PC debates is that the people who write about them (on both sides) want to construct grand narratives, when in fact to do justice you have to get into the weeds of each case (which is time-consuming and tedious).
Heterogenous stories get lumped together, which doesn't really help understanding. In the current spate of stories, Shor, Fang & the James Bennet defenestration are very different stories that are being treated as if they were the same.
With Shor, a clear travesty. With Fung you have an excellent reporter who has a tendency to sometimes be shallow & knee-jerk on twitter about sensitive topics. The actual end result (an apology & promise to do better) doesn't seem out of line.
I agree with Yglesias here that the use of HR is less than ideal. In general the co-option of anti-racism by HR & management consultants (i.e. "White Fragility") is deeply problematic. But it's a consequence of worker weakness more than anything.
I understand why people find the rhetoric of safetyism in these cases troubling. But this is rooted in labor law -- complaints about safety are one of the few areas where workers have a little bit of leverage over bosses.
Absolutely the case that there is tremendous over-reaction & bed-wetting (all the talk of "cultural revolution" & "twitter Robbespierres" etc.). a function of people afraid of losing their phoney baloney jobs & status that comes with it.
My larger argument with @jonathanchait is that it's not true that ideological firings over non-conformity are antithetical to liberalism. The biggest ideological purge in USA history took place under Chait's hero Harry Truman. We need to do better than liberalism.
Anyways, more on this here: thenation.com/article/politi…
