Ask Dr. Helen: When Being Professional Means Being PC
My column is up at PJM:
Go read the column and tell me what you think.
Should doctors, lawyers, and other professionals feel obligated to send money to organizations that fund activities they don't believe in?
Go read the column and tell me what you think.
Labels: PJM column, political correctness
posted by Helen at 5:54 AM
30 Comments:
This is one (of the many things) that I like about running my own company. As an employee, I can be fired for "embarrassing" the firm. As a credentialed professional, I have to pay dues to left-wing groups.
Running my own show, I'm perfectly free to post things in my personal blog like "Obama: Threat to America", or "FDR: Why we must dig up and defile his socialist corpse".
That's what acivists do. They put a noble sounding cover on their real agenda, then anyone who opposes their activity is painted as anti-[fill in a good cause].
It's a very clever strategy.
"So my question to you is, do I join back up and throw away over $400 doing so or do I go straight to Amazon.com and buy the Kindle that I’ve had my eye on (especially after reading Charlie Martin’s review on it) and never look back?
Along the same lines, have any of you had a similar experience with your professional organization? Did you quit, or just resign yourself to their views?"
I'm not a "Joiner", most Texans aren't.
At least those that are real Texans and not "transplants".
But I was never a professional whatever. My lifelong career was in a large corporation that didn't want us to belong to anything that would keep us from our work, or interfer with doing same. Including our children belonging or joining anything that would effect our ability to work twenty plus hours a day, every single day.
But to give you my opinion of what you should do, is not really something us Texans like to do, because we are great believers that everybody should be able to do stupid stuff, make fools out of themselves, bankrupt or otherwise ruin their own lives...well you get the drift of it, I think.
I'm not an educated man in the arts, but somebody once said (I have no idea who said it) "to thine own self be true").
So I think that means: to do what ever the hell you think you should and screw everybody else.
Papa Ray
Good piece on an important subject.
I see, however, that Pajamas Media is now splitting up articles across several pages. They should do like the NY Times and allow a single page option for viewing. If they don't, perhaps you could post a parallel version of your articles so readers can see it on a single page here.
The height of absurdity came for me when I made a presentation to the local Chamber of Commerce. After the presentation, I asked for a list of the attendees and was informed that it is not the policy of the Chamber to provide such lists, lest someone would try to solicit those companies for business. HUH? This is, after all, the chamber of “Commerce.”
I withdrew my membership and have never gone back.
Papa Ray said: "I'm not a "Joiner", most Texans aren't." Is it just me who sees the irony...?
I'm way ahead of you. I stopped joining my professional organizations several years ago for exactly the same reason.
Rihgtwingprof- I understand wha you said, but, what is a guy, say, a junior faculty member, not yet tenured , to do? If he/she does not join the MLA ( if he/she is a English prof), wont it derail his/her career? Just wondering.....
I'm not a nurse yet (graduating in december) but I can assure you that I won't be joining the American Nurses Assoc. (ANA) anytime soon. One of my professors was talking about the importance of joining one's professional organization in class. I went to the ANA site just to look around and the first thing I saw was an official endorsement for Hillary Clinton. Beyond that, the ANA has position statements on a variety of subjects. One of these says that the ANA endorses single-payer universal health care. These are things I simply do not support. Besides, I feel that it is inappropriate for a professional organization to support a single candidate period. Why should I send money to the ANA to represent me if they don't represent what I believe in?
There are professional organizations I could be joining, should be if I wanted to increase my "networking" agenda several fold. I have not been put in the situation some of you seem to have been placed, and would be furious if that were to happen to me. What teacher would dare to NOT join the teacher's union?
I have never liked the implications, and it seems only worse today.
As long as a squared, plus b squared, equals c squared, my cell phone will remain turned off unless I need to make an outgoing call, or check for messages. The same goes for a GPS. My ex wife, and my boss never knew where I was at all times. I'll be damned if my government is going to. They work for ME. I don't work for THEM. And I am getting pretty pissed off about who thinks who is running whose life. Anyone who thinks "they", or "we" are free, is NOT paying attention. There are people (non producers) who actually wish to be provided for by the government, and through the government, also want to control me. Our government is way to willing to agree with that.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but there are just too GD many parallel "coincidences" going on in this country. The information gathered equals easy control over us all. We are out of new worlds. There is no longer anywhere to go, except places it is simply too cold. Soon, a stand will just have to be made. That's how I see it. The opposition has been circling their wagons for quite some time. We are way behind.
Call me chicken little, call me what you want. I would rather be called names and be wrong (I can only hope I am) than to be able to unfortunately say "I told you so" at some not too distant time.
If you're not yet tenured, join that organization and swallow the bile. Also, you should consider keeping your mouth shut when politics of any sort come up. When you get tenure, you can then write your professional organization and tell them exactly what they can do, and you can more comfortably discuss politics with your moonbat colleaugues.
With the post above, I rest my case.
I wrote a letter to the ABA resigning when I found out that they had filed an amicus curie brief in favor of the DC handgun ban. I just got my membership renewal and am returning it to them with a duplicate copy of my resignation letter.
It's too bad that the ABA can't stay out of politics. I liked all of the educational materials and I'll miss my hotel and rental car discounts. But I value my freedom more than my discount.
It galls me that the ABA is so incredibly politicized, yet in order to practice as a lawyer in most states, the state requires you to graduate from an ABA-accredited school. I fear for the future of the profession.
D-day,
Same with the APA, one typically has to have an accredited program with an APA internship to get certain jobs. It is really a barrier to the field for many. I am glad I'm in a position now where it no longer matters if I belong or not.
I agree with you, freedom is more important than a discount car rental. My big problem is that they held my disability policy and I can't get another private policy (having had a heart attack etc.) with another insurer.
Papa Ray: to thine own self be true
"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare.
How about forcing lawyers' clients to fund organizations they don't believe in? In Pennsylvania we attorneys have to keep our escrow funds in interest bearing accounts for the benefit of who? Well, the state bar association of course. The interest earned on our client's money is automatically sent to the bar coffers so that the Elite can decide what's the best way to spend it.
I see a couple lawyers have popped in, seemingly miffed about the way things are as well.
So, I have to ask. If you will tell me, why does one wish to become a lawyer in the first place? Is it the money? Is it a true desire to help people? It sure is a hell of a racket, a hell of a game. Talk about good cop, bad cop.
It's similar to pulling an abortion doctor aside if I ever get my hands on one, and asking him how in the hell he can perform a partial birth abortion procedure. I've just got to hear the answer.
Dr. Helen. I love your blog. I was a member of the APA for one year as a graduate student so that I could put it on my vita when applying to internship. The political bias of my professors was so unreal, that I just kept my mouth shut about any PC issue during graduate school. I wrote about your post on my blog (thecountryshrink.com), and I think you have a lot of guts in posting using your real name. Keep up the good work.
I left the American Bar Association, though that didn't have much to do with politics. It had a lot more to do with the fact that I'm only a few years out of law school and I didn't like paying the fees. :)
But I hate PC requirements on the job. Yesterday, I had to attend sensitivity and diversity training -- we're required to do it every year (I work for the state government). Ironically, every person in the so-called "diversity" training was a white woman. I hate that kind of stuff, because the useful advice (be polite, respectful, and professional) is something everyone with a brain already knows, the rest of it is gushy, irrelevant fluff, and it's all a waste of time.
br549, I'm a lawyer because I like to write fiction, but I wasn't interested in starving in the gutter while writing my books. Writing is notoriously difficult to succeed in, so I wasn't going to count on making my money that way, and my job is stable, fairly well paying, not very stressful, and leaves me plenty of time to write.
(I would never, ever in a thousand years go to work for a law firm.)
I think most lawyers are people who secretly, or not so secretly, want to do something else. :)
John Money was president of the APA? Oh, man. That tells me more than I wanted to know about the APA.
I'm a liberal. I'm a feminist. And I hate that man. Hate. Hate. Hate.
need sleep;
Elizabeth
I just finished reading "The Feminist Dilemma: When Success in Not Enough". (It sat on my "to read" shelf for about 5 years.) One of the authors' theses is that most of the difference in men's and women's incomes is due to their different lifestyle choices. They also strongly imply that women who claim otherwise are, in fact, professional bigots.
Assuming that you could make a lot more money by working in a law firm, it sounds like that what you said confirms their statements about lifestyle choices.
I let my membership to the AARP lapse because of their gender bias. Lots of special programs for women, none for men.
I wonder if our society could cater to women any more than we do now. I recently was searching hospital websites in the Cincinnati area for a hypertension clinic or program. All had special women's health programs and links. None had the same for men.
You will find this everywhere. Virtually any governmental website, APA, and other professional organizations have links to special women's/girls' programs, etc. and nothing for men.
bobh,
I've never read that book, but I did study the gap between men and women's salaries in a labor economics class in college. The vast majority of the gap could be explained by choices women make themselves -- taking time off to raise children, opting more for government or nonprofit work instead of private sector work, etc. Also, men are more likely to negotiate over their salaries than women, while women (interestingly) are more likely to negotiate over things like benefits, vacation time, sick time, etc. I find this is true in my experience. I recently left a more prestigious and higher-paying job to take the one I currently have. I enjoyed my last job (prosecuting), it was very interesting, and I loved working with the police officers, who were great guys. But I didn't like having to sacrifice evenings and weekends to prepare for trials and never being able to take time off because there were only two prosecutors in my office and seven courtrooms to cover every day.
I was offered a job at a prestigious law firm where I'd be making a ton of money but expected to put in 1800 billable hours a year, plus 200 hours of "rainmaking activities" (being active in the community and various professional organizations). I know myself well enough to know that I would hate, hate, hate that -- I value my time much more than money or prestige.
Bottom line -- I don't know how true your book's thesis rings for other women, but it sure rings true for me. :)
Men "have to".
Women don't "have to".
This, too, is news?
I probably would have stayed in the ABA if I needed to for health insurance reasons. I'm just glad that I got out before I enrolled for all of the investment accounts, life insurance, credit cards, etc. I suppose it's easier to get out of when you're just starting out in your career and have less to lose.
I read the comments at your PJM column. There is hope after all. Honestly, I thought the overwhelming majority of professionals bought into what their unions stood for - in reality - not on the "cover".
I cannot help but wonder if people have lost cases that ruined their lives, because their lawyers were not of the same politics. I know what PC that did to me. I have empty pockets for the remainder of my days on earth.
It really frightens me to even consider the same could hold true with the AMA. My GP, who I love to death, has asked me numerous PC type questions during office visits. I just give her the look that lets her know "this has nothing to do with the reason I am here". That usually stops the question and answer session, but I can' help but wonder what she writes into her little computer station in the examination room. She is relatively new to this office, and needs to play the game. It's a shame. She is a fantastic GP. She has saved my life once, and now it appears, perhaps twice. I will admit when being rolled into the operating room for upcoming brain surgery, I will be shouting "Obama for President".
You know, just in case.
Dr. Helen,
Kudos to you for being true to yourself! No, I don't think it's appropriate for professional organizations to engage in political advocacy; what does politics have to do with the practice of psychology, law, or any other profession?! Not only is your money being used for causes with which you disagree; it's being WASTED too! If your dues money were being used to further the practice of psychology, that would be one thing; since it's being used to advance a political cause that is not at all relevant, pertinent, or salient is a crime, really. Folks in your profession are in the business of HELPING people, and you cannot do that as well since the APA wastes your dues money. Plus, at the end of the day, you know that you've been true to yourself; that is priceless.
MarkyMark
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