Corporate activism’s fine until the mob has its say

Tempers have run so hot in the Israel Folau affair it’s worth remembering the Australian character is ultimately self-correcting. We cherish the egalitarian fair go but strike a pragmatic balance between competing goods. Extreme measures arouse opposition and bullying backfires. Australia’s not free of bigotry but things are healthier than they were only decades ago, and by global standards today our society is remarkably benign. That’s why over-the-top denunciations of remaining prejudice are counterproductive. What’s needed is cajoling before coercion, and persuasion rather than a rush to punishment. And often the most elegant solution lies in our national irreverence: wit, ridicule and amused indifference store up less trouble than tribal rage and revenge.

Ahead of the 2017 same-sex marriage debate there were prophecies of the ugliest homophobia. It didn’t come to pass. There was a sense of most voters casually registering a belated recognition of social reality. So, too, with Folau, at first. His Instagram post was open to various reactions, including bemusement that anyone would bother attending to the too simple theology of a divine footballer. Others joked about their inclusion on the list of the damned. And yes, it’s possible to be affronted by this brimstone bigotry. But much of the pseudo-debate assumes only one possible reaction: grievous psychological harm inflicted by hate speech. Suicide in the suburbs is invoked by activists who sell short the resilient self-dignity of young gays. All this would have faded away, were it not for Rugby Australia’s overreaction.

Folau was sacked from the game he loved, with official insistence that it had nothing to do with his personal beliefs. It’s true that in another context RA implied no link between its corporate posture and the private convictions of players when it presumed to officially back the Yes campaign for same-sex marriage. And last month, when Folau sought to crowd-fund money for litigation against RA, the hipster hypocrite platform GoFundMe tripped him up with fine print. Next, a corporate sponsor heavied the netball bosses of Folau’s wife, Maria, who had the impertinence to lend support to her husband’s appeal. In these circumstances, it’s not surprising that the mob — quiet Australians — swung their support behind the Folaus, and this will have included many people who voted Yes in the same-sex marriage debate and who do not agree with his social media sermonising. It’s a communal repudiation of activist overreach and intimidation. Two often overlooked principles apply. Support for freedom of speech is tested only when you defend its use by someone with whom you disagree. And when one person is connected in some way to another — as co-worker, family member, corporate partner, whatever — it does not follow that they’ve all signed up to the same views unless they bow to pressure to dissociate themselves. That’s a recipe for blackmail. Did RA examine Folau’s bookshelf when it recruited him to play rugby? Of course not, and why would any sensible person assume that a player’s social media post represents not only his team but RA and all its corporate sponsors? And how exactly did an Instagram post — composed of words long familiar from the best known book of our civilisation — render the RA workplace “unsafe”?

It’s fine for companies to take up a principled position. They would have served the national interest had they taken up the cudgels for economic reform in recent years. Of course their paramount concern must be their shareholders and customers. Outside their area of expertise, however, they expose themselves to hazard. This has been masked by the motherhood terminology of the “equity, diversity and inclusiveness” (EDI) push. Some chief executives are sincere zealots for this kind of thing. Others regard it as just the latest corporate fashion, something necessary to adopt but safely left to the “specialists” of human resources, while they attend to sales revenue and other things that really matter. But in its virulent form, EDI goes beyond equal opportunity to declare any unequal outcome the result of “structural” discrimination. Preoccupied with the policing of language, it equates words with physical blows and conflates offence with injury, at least when risk-averse administrators run the show. Invoking tolerance, EDI is intolerant of any challenge to its world view. Did RA ever consider how it might be “inclusive” of Folau’s Christian belief?

A company that embraces identity politics in this way risks demanding the active dishonesty of dissenting employees, and alienating its customers. The focus has been on the harm supposedly inflicted by Folau but what of the damage done if corporate sponsors pressure an entity in RA’s position to disavow a viewpoint that nobody can say is the official opinion of that entity? The danger is that corporations delude themselves that they are in step with community values, when in fact they have miscalculated and embraced activism. The mob will let them know, sooner or later.