The example of Niel Golightly demonstrates that opinions we held decades ago and have not held for many years can still get us fired. Thus, being willing to better yourself is no protection.
Just to give a sense, at the time more than 50% of Americans agreed with each of these statements: Women should not serve in the military. Homosexual relationships between consenting adults should not be legal. Interracial relationships are wrong.
Today, those opinions are a firing offense. And if you said them publicly, they are a firing offense no matter how many years it has been since you thought them.
I mean, they're a C-level executive, i could see why employees, especially women working under him, might be less than thrilled if they were still in power.
I think that his response in that article was appropriate, but I'm also not losing sleep for any millionaire airplane executives that now need to find something else to do with their time.
You went from, "People who try to improve themselves are safe" to, "We can't have sympathy for rich people." But it doesn't just happen to rich people. And when you're presented with an example of that, you'll find another excuse.
The honest thing to do is to go back to your original statement and say, "I was wrong." To demonstrate in yourself the very open mindedness and willingness to rethink your beliefs that you think should be protection against shifts in political culture. (But which aren't.)
Are you going to be honest? Or will you continue moving goalposts to justify your wrong claim?
You're putting words into my mouth. I never said "People who try to improve themselves are safe;" the world is full of too much nuance and complexity for me to make a sweeping statement like that. Nor did I say "We can't have sympathy for rich people;" my main concern in the specific case mentioned would be power dynamics at play moreso than wealth dynamics (although there is an undeniable link).
I suggest you re-read my original post; I was trying to suggest in a broad way that pg was wrong about why some people aren't afraid of being cancelled in a way that has nothing to do with so-called "orthodox privilege."
Some people are able to honestly assess their past positions and statements, understand why things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves. That, and a sense of what conversations are appropriate for public forums versus informal conversation over drinks, act as pretty great cancellation buffers.
And yet one of the top examples is someone who had that "great cancellation buffer" and it didn't help him one bit.
In another famous example, Emmanuel Cafferty, all the guy did was drive with his hand out the window with absolutely no idea that it resembled a signal used by white power groups. That "great cancellation buffer" didn't help him, either.
People feel safe because they don't think it will happen to them. I firmly believe that this shows ignorance of how political purges (which this is) work. Eventually the purge takes on a life of its own and people who started it are often shocked to later find themselves among the victims.
The quotes in the article are more extreme than what you imply in this comment. You're drawing a false equivalence between every possible reason someone could be against women in the military, and writing an article about how even though women could serve, they shouldn't, because it would destroy "exclusively male intangibles" about men fighting to protect "feminine images".
If you watch it, you will find that the "exclusively male intangibles" in that article were, at the time, messages brainwashed into every soldier during boot camp. In every service, in every military. This had been true for generations. The concerns in that article were mainstream concerns about how integrating women into the military could go wrong.
You probably find it brutish and offensive. That was by intent. It was part of a package of beliefs that was intended to turn young men into soldiers who kill at the right command. Whose use of force stops when it is supposed to. We want soldiers who take the town by force, but don't continue on raping and murdering for pleasure. We don't always get this package right. Graveyards are littered with the consequences.
As it happens, the generals were wrong in their concerns. We have been able to integrate women without losing military culture. However I guarantee you that if you scratch a soldier today, you'll find lots of beliefs you don't like. Beliefs instilled during boot camp for the same job - to turn young people (mostly men) into controlled lethal weapons.
See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-resignation/boeing... for the story.
Just to give a sense, at the time more than 50% of Americans agreed with each of these statements: Women should not serve in the military. Homosexual relationships between consenting adults should not be legal. Interracial relationships are wrong.
Today, those opinions are a firing offense. And if you said them publicly, they are a firing offense no matter how many years it has been since you thought them.