Vox Media, the parent company of Ezra Klein’s Vox and The Verge, among other web publications, posted its Code of Conduct standards online. The code has the standard “Don’t be that person in the office” advice that most grown adults already understand when entering a work place. But there are a few perplexing instructions that fulfill even the worst PC-culture clichés, signaling that perhaps irrational group think isn’t limited to a few college campuses.
The words “safe space” appear in the first sentence of the “Values” section without irony. There’s an entire blurb on microaggressions, which are described as subtle conscious or unconscious put-downs that can have significant impact on the victims. The victims, of course, being news journalists working in a demanding fast-paced, political, deadline-driven environment. (There is also a warning to limit sarcasm, as if that’s ever going to happen.)
Elaborating on what constitutes a microaggression, the code goes on to describe “behavior or language which is unwelcoming” though it may not rise to the level of harassment. It specifically warns employees to avoid common terms like “Well actually,” which it describes as a pedantic correction.
Never mind that Vox’s entire business model of explanative journalism is built on pedantic corrections.
The document goes on to caution against “mansplaining” — especially to women or people of color at Vox Media, many of whom, it’s explained, may not have been included in opportunities to learn from colleagues in the past, but also have often been instructed too condescendingly by colleagues in the past.
If all this seems rather childish, that’s because, well, it is, but there is a solution that Vox Media could easily implement to avoid all of these issues, that could also create an inclusive work environment and manage the ever-growing concerns arising from intersectionality in the workplace:
This is not an entirely original or innovative idea. The Flaming Lips, for example, have employed such protective yet interactive spheres during their concerts to connect with their fans in a way that doesn’t harm the band members.
This would allow employees of Vox Media the shelter of a physical safe space where they can express themselves freely from inside the safety of a transparent spherical barrier, without having to deal with feedback or criticism from co-workers that makes them uncomfortable or challenges their personal development and ideas. This solution eliminates the need to interact on a personal level with associates completely.
#share#Thanks to unparalleled technological advances combined with the delicate sensitivities of PC culture invading our media and workplaces — after a few hundred-thousand years of human evolution, we have finally advanced our species and productivity to the level of the common household hamster.
— Stephen L. Miller is a writer living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He publishes The Wilderness, which focuses on viral politics and social media.