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This should not come as a surprise to anyone. I’m on the board of the Business Department at a nearby university. These studies from consulting agencies, purporting to show a correlation between DEI and increased productivity and profits, are frequently invoked by other members. I had to point out to them that the axes on the graphs in the studies aren’t even labeled..

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Even if every chart was just dummy type or boilerplate or wrapping paper it wouldn't matter—everyone knows which way the wind blows, everyone knows what you need to say and think to remain employed and not be cast out as a heretic or blasphemer, and all the fig leafs and spurious studies are just rote lies that are needed to maintain the illusion of rational evidence-based thought, when the postrational Soviet American future is here and is locked in.

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Absolutely. This is especially true in the corporate world, which is a magnet for conformists.

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i don't work in business but in publishing/culture/editorial, which is a magnet for people claiming to be nonconformists.

i have to say that i don't think i will ever get over the shock of seeing people i've known for decades, people who claim to be some type of "artist", who now mouth all the same exact platitudes and who wouldn't be caught dead having an independent non-tribe-approved thought. the level of groupthink and punitive ideological conformity among our supposed "creative class" is just astounding, maybe even outdoing the Soviets.

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I’m not surprised. I was heavily involved in the New England hardcore/metal music scene in the early 2000s. It was very much a community of artsy people, and it was very tribal, even back then.

I think the hyper-polarization of our culture, enabled by social media, has thrust us into a constant state of political realignment. Certainly Trump kicked it off. But we’ve had major events, like covid, George Floyd response, January 6th, Oct. 7th and the following war, etc…, causing people to rethink their political allegiances and realign almost every year since it seems.

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yeah there has always been the conformity of the nonconformists.

i remember a few times when I was younger people policing their cliques and saying things like, "If you don't do X, you're not rock n roll!" (to which I would say or think, I never said I was!)

but it was so rarely political besides denouncing whoever was the reigning Republican and then protesting Bush and/or Giuliani (I'm a NYer).

i think it comes down to the social media/smartphone effect: tribalism and the panopticon in your pocket have turned everyone into an obedient good-thinking member of their chosen tribes, which in the case of arts and culture really seems to mean Social Justice fundamentalism.

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Conformity of the non-conformists goes at least as far back as Doestoevsky. He writes about it in Rhe Devils. But I have no doubt it goes all the way back to the start of mankind. Seems like a human universal.

And, right. I grew up in a deep-blue area of the Northeast as well. The internal disagreements never seem “political” because everyone implicitly understands that the true enemy is Republicans. So long as you don’t cross the one line you’re not supposed to cross — the party line — can maintain the illusion that you have freedom of conscience.

I certainly wouldn’t have moved to the center/center-Right had it not been for the internet. I didn’t personally know a single Conservative until I was in my late-20s. But I discovered the writings of famous Conservative intellectuals, like Thomas Sowell, much earlier. And reading their works created a crack in my worldview that allowed a bigger shift to happen over time.

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Any honest DEI professional or advocate is clear that McKinsey’s studies are highly flawed.

And, the result of their misdirection is that people perpetuate gobbledygook in the name of credibility.

It’s actually done the opposite. DEI has been reduced to grievance and the perception that representation is equivalent to lower quality and people being hired because of a single aspect of one’s identity—most frequently racial.

It’s not. And, such foolish reductionism advanced by so-called DEI experts is ultimately harmful and limits what DEI is and can be for organizations and institutions: any input that creates the conditions for people to thrive and for organizations to create immense value toward the fulfillment of purpose.

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"Any honest DEI professional" ... Buahahahahaha "honest thief", "virgin escort" and "vegetarian cannibal" are laughing at the background.

"And, such foolish reductionism advanced by so-called DEI experts is ultimately harmful and limits what DEI is and can be for organizations and institutions: any input that creates the conditions for people to thrive and for organizations to create immense value toward the fulfillment of purpose."

You're saying "Socialism-YES! Distortions-NO! "but now it's DEIsm Yes! Distortions - No!

Sure Jim or Amri or whatever. Sure.

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Public companies aren’t run by the owners, the shareholders. They are run by corporate bureaucrats. Poll the shareholders of Disney and see how many approve of woke, for example. Increasingly these woke corps are run by women too. Which is turning out to be a nightmare. Nasty nasty leaders, with sycophants trailing behind them, shouting ‘Off with their heads! And the psychophants lustily self righteously following instructions. Shareholders don’t want this.

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Just finished reading it.

Selling fraudulent concepts to the ready-to-be-faithful is a pretty age-old model, ain't it? Only the clientele changes.

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Aren't you just excited every day when you get out of bed to see what the day will bring? You've gone from strength to strength in your writing, and your scoops. You seem to have a very bright future ahead of you. I wish you all the best in continuing this streak. And of course, I hope these rightly skewered repent.

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You're absolutely right. It's been a treat to see it all happen. What a stroke of timing, placement, and hustle.

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For the DEI crowd, after hiring POCs exclusively and purging their companies of White workers, if they continue to make money for a short period,that is evidence of best business practices and the success of DEI.

If the companies are hemorrhaging money and the ship is sinking as a result of a DEI workforce, that is ALSO evidence of best business practices. The shareholders losing their retirement savings are assumed to be despised White people, so that’s a good outcome for the DEI advocates.

The point of DEI is DESTRUCTION, particularly of institutions built up over centuries by mostly White people. It’s about STEALING what cannot be earned: jobs, salaries, wealth and reputation.

In short: DEI = 21st century communism, with skin color substituted for class.

DEI is symptomatic of the HATRED POCs feel for a nation and it’s people who offered them opportunities to work hard and achieve their goals in life.

Unfortunately, these individuals have no intention of creating and building upon success over generations, as Americans of every background have done for centuries. They’ve decided that they’re entitled to take what they’ve never earned, because of racial oppression suffered by people they never knew nearly two centuries ago.

The destruction of these businesses is a gratifying side effect for the DEI advocates. Communism is about imposing the equality of misery and poverty on everyone. Destroying these companies is the WHOLE POINT of DEI.

“Woke” CEOs and Board members who didn’t understand this should be canned immediately.

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DEI = 21st century communism, with skin color substituted for class.

The smartest thing the Left ever did (esp in America) was jettison the working class, who may not be "educated" but who were never stupid enough to trade family, faith and nation for a pile of magic Marxist beans, and replace them with the "coalition of the marginalized", basically finding our social brush fires and pouring gasoline on them for the benefit of their Permanent Revolution.

Also by piggybacking on the Civil Rights Movement, they were able to manipulate and weaponize a good cause most people approved of, and make it impossible for people to push against them, as this would label them as Racists!, the blasphemy/heresy charge of our age.

And now they've captured our entire culture, as well as our academic and business classes, and have installed one of their commissars in every office and classroom in the country.

If people like us state the simple truth you wrote and that I repeated at the top of the comment—that the postliberal future is here and that the Race/Gender Marxists will destroy everything they touch—we will be denounced as either bigots or cranks, but I guess we'll have to see how many years it takes for most people to admit they should have listened to us all along.

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Very insightful comment.

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thanks and same to u

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Your assessment of these posers, such as Cuban, reminds me of something Kevin D Williamson said in his book The Smallest Minority regarding journalists but equally applicable here. The abject, craven, embarrassing need for the love of complete strangers. And the attention garnered from such pathetic virtue signaling. Really good read, thanks.

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It was about profitability in the sense that having the DoJ come down hard on your company is bad for profits.

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All of the people pushing DEI are attached to the money printing fountain. They get first dibs on the newly printed money so whatever failures they are responsible for (DEI) are of no consequence to them. "Money for nothing and your chicks for free" to borrow from Dire Straights. If you want DEI and all the communism to go away, turn off Central Banking and restore the original Republic.

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You are banking on the fact that no one read the survey you referenced. Aren't you ?

They had to reverse engineer the survey. McKinsey didn't provide their data

They found, in the actual data , that the SP 500 firms (in 2019) that ranked the highest in diversity, outperformed the lowest quartile.

What they concluded was that a random big company using the McKinsey approach wouldnt get the results McKinsey suggests.

Great.

The reality is that it's useless research.

All the companies in the SP 500 that they used back in 2019 have the resources to decide for themselves if DEI works for them.

And those outside of the SP aren't going to base their diversity decisions on this survey

Which begs the question of what is the value of the McKinsey survey ? It's great for McKinseys consulting business. That's the value. We agree there.

But the bigger conclusion is that when you look at the highest market cap companies , they have DEI programs. All of them. Many are speaking of it less to avoid criticism from folks who agree with you . But they aren't changing their behavior

Feel free to compare the current stock price trends of public companies that speak negatively of DEI vs those that fully implemented DEI.

And as far as the personal shots at me. I hope they help you sell books.

But I will reference broadcast.com. you can read up all you want about how and what we did

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1061236/0000950134-99-003284.txt

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lol @ how butthurt you are. maybe learn how to use “begs the question” before engaging in an argument, if you want to be taken seriously.

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Did anyone actually believe that there was evidence that DEI increased profits? I’d think anyone believing that would be too stupid to breathe and would quickly asphyxiate.

It was just a convenient lie that people could safely pretend to believe, because other people were repeating it, and because it was a lie that ultimately only hurt white people, not anyone whose life means shit to anyone.

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@apexpredator,I hear you. Easy to hold on to an idea even when incomplete. All good.

If you believe in individual accountability, you will at least consider that there are those who hold themselves accordingly in a darn near $20bil industry.

If you hold the idea of DEI reductionism, even in the opposite vein of DEI practitioners, I get that too.

And, reductionists views are reductionist views—independent of their political proclivities.

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