Hi, I’m Bill. As Tim Chevalier has written about me (at least a little bit) in an article series entitled “The Christians and the Pagans” (1, 2, 3), I hope I may be permitted a short response. (Yes, it’s taken a while. Sorry about that.)

What first struck me as I read Tim’s three articles is the number of things we agree on. Firstly, I entirely agree that there is no such thing as being apolitical or non-ideological – as Tim says, being (supposedly) apolitical is a political view. In fact, I would also go on to say that there’s no such thing as being areligious – being an atheist or agnostic is a religious view. People sometimes find this assertion more palatable if I use the term ‘worldview’ instead of religion, but the point is the same – everyone has a highest point of reference, an ultimate real from which everything else flows. It may be God, matter, reason or something else, but everyone has it. Similarly, everyone has a basis on which they relate to others and a view of what would be ideal in society – everyone is political.

I also agree that it’s foolish to push away people who want to contribute. When Tim writes:

“[T]o build the best thing you can you have to include everybody who wants to and can work together on it and contribute. Pushing away people who have something to contribute is an exercise in purity-based morality, not a sound business or technical strategy.”

all I can say is a hearty (and perhaps slightly cheeky) “Amen!”.

However, when I agree with Tim on this, I can’t help remembering the following quote from the Github issue which prompted ESR’s article:

“Reading the links you posted I only have one thing to say to you:reevaluate your actions,you are becoming a toxic individual who is harming the Python and Django communities and haven’t even realized it yet. You are a member of the Django Software Foundation and are supposed to be setting the example. I will be forwarding the content of this issue to the Chair to evaluate your continued presence in the DSF. best regards.”

And I can’t help remembering what happened to Brendan Eich. There seemed to be a whole lot of pushing away, and purity-based morality, going on in both these situations. And if the response is “it’s not about his code; we didn’t like his politics”, surely that’s taking precisely the view that Tim is arguing against? Tim objects to people focussing on his politics and ignoring his code, and wishes it were different; would he grant Brendan the same grace?

Where we diverge is in Tim’s assertion that Christianity is a part of the dominant culture, an “unmarked ideology” in tech. This assertion would be within some distance of plausibility if by “Christianity” he meant the moralistic therapeutic Deism of American (and British) civil religion which is called “Christianity” in some quarters. Even then, it would be a big stretch – I think most people in tech don’t follow that; instead they see it for the hypocrisy it is. The dominant culture of tech is secular humanism. To demonstrate this point, of these pairs of opposing views, which one is dominant in tech? Which one would go unmarked if it were expressed in conversation at a tech gathering, and which would be challenged?

As someone who has occasionally been on the sharp end of Christianity being very much a marked ideology in tech, I do find it hard to see how Tim can have come to the conclusion that it’s the mainstream. Over 1000 people come to Mozilla all-hands meetings; the prayer meetings we hold there have never attracted more than 5 people. This doesn’t bother us, because Jesus is Lord of all. But it’s hardly what one would call popular.

An additional trouble with Tim’s article is that it was prompted by an article by ESR, but Tim seems to have seriously misread him. Tim claims a pollution of agency attack – that is, people are denigrating the code of “SJWs” because of their politics. I agree his (ESR’s) headline (“Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs”) is unhelpful at this point, but the body of his article seems clear that:

“We must cast [SJWs] out – refuse to admit them on any level *except by evaluating on pure technical merit whatever code patches they submit*.”

As we can see, ESR is urging precisely the opposite of what Tim says he is. ESR wants the hacker culture to stick to meritocracy, which he defines as focussing on the code contribution and not the person. His article is a call for a rejection by projects of a particular political stance and its ramifications, not of contributions. Just as, in a project run as perhaps Tim would have it run, other political stances and their ramifications would also be rejected by the leadership.

For myself, I unashamedly agree with this principle of operating open source projects. I don’t care if you call it meritocracy or something else. This is not to say some people don’t need more help on the contribution pathway than others – “to each according to his need”. But when it comes to looking at the code, we look at the code. If sometimes that principle is drifted from, and people start evaluating contributions based on the person who made them (a system which, for example, was being encouraged by djangoconcardiff) the solution is not to throw away the principle, but to recommit to it.

With Tim, I assert that this principle is *not* apolitical or non-ideological. Against Tim, I assert that instead, it is fundamentally based in justice. And I think this is where the heart of the disagreement is between “SJWs” and some (at least) who oppose them – it is not that one side says “we are pro-justice” and the other side says they aren’t, or says that something other principle is even more important. It’s that they don’t agree on what justice is. And perhaps one reason that “SJW” has taken on negative connotations in some circles (as Bradley discusses) is that people look at the form of justice espoused by this group and see it as no justice at all. Hence the ironic title.

More on the nature of true justice later, I hope. In the mean time, Merry Christmas to all :-)