<story><title>Outraged about the Google diversity memo?</title><url>http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/08/outraged-about-google-diversity-memo-i.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jernfrost</author><text>Great perspective. As a Northern European having dealt with American company ownership I don&amp;#x27;t think the main problem in Google&amp;#x27;s case was political correctness but rather a general American problem with how free speech is defined in the US. Freedom in America is always about government NOT doing something, while in Europe government is defined as a protector of these freedoms. This shows up clearly with respect to stating an opinion at a US company. There is no protection of free speech on private property in the US. I first encountered this when out company got bought by an American one and they i sisted that religion and politics should not be discussed at work. It surprised them that such a demand was illegal in Norway. Private property does not trumph everything else as it often seems to do in the US.&lt;p&gt;While americans are free to utter quite inflamatory speech in the public, I find that American culture seems to discourage any sort of controversial topic in polite company.&lt;p&gt;That applies to conservatives and liberals alike in the US. Discussing religion among conservatives in the US seems taboo. While liberals are not very open to having PC opinions challenged.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>calvinbhai</author><text>I agree with you. I&amp;#x27;m from India, living in the US, for quite some time I thoroughly enjoyed the FoS and FoE concepts exercised in the public (IMO, India is nowhere close to such freedom), but the levels of political correctness among peers seems to be a little too suffocating, which is exactly the thing I miss from my Indian experience.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like the moment you try to have a conversation about some serious topic, you feel like you are receiving youtube comments in person.&lt;p&gt;Only recently, I realized this requirement for PC is why most social talking in the US tend to be about sport (NFL, NHL, NBA), TV (Game of Thrones or some reality shows) or podcasts.&lt;p&gt;Dare to speak about a social issue or challenge a solution that&amp;#x27;s supposed to be addressing the issue, you&amp;#x27;ll be at the receiving end of a verbal lynch mob.</text></comment>
<story><title>Outraged about the Google diversity memo?</title><url>http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/08/outraged-about-google-diversity-memo-i.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jernfrost</author><text>Great perspective. As a Northern European having dealt with American company ownership I don&amp;#x27;t think the main problem in Google&amp;#x27;s case was political correctness but rather a general American problem with how free speech is defined in the US. Freedom in America is always about government NOT doing something, while in Europe government is defined as a protector of these freedoms. This shows up clearly with respect to stating an opinion at a US company. There is no protection of free speech on private property in the US. I first encountered this when out company got bought by an American one and they i sisted that religion and politics should not be discussed at work. It surprised them that such a demand was illegal in Norway. Private property does not trumph everything else as it often seems to do in the US.&lt;p&gt;While americans are free to utter quite inflamatory speech in the public, I find that American culture seems to discourage any sort of controversial topic in polite company.&lt;p&gt;That applies to conservatives and liberals alike in the US. Discussing religion among conservatives in the US seems taboo. While liberals are not very open to having PC opinions challenged.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tchaffee</author><text>As much as I think the standard of living in Europe is better than in the US (having lived both places for a significant amount of time), I still prefer a constitution that limits the powers of the government instead of a constitution that gives the government more powers &amp;quot;to protect&amp;quot;. As long as the government is not interfering with my freedom of speech, I am happy to deal with individuals or companies myself without the government protecting my &amp;quot;free speech&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s called human interaction and there are zero guarantees that someone will like what you are saying or have to listen to you or even honor your right to say something.</text></comment>