This is a strawman, unmoored from evidence or reality.
Here's my read, based on your supporting the blog post and your two comments:
You've constructed this fantasy as a defence mechanism. You use the classification of those with earnest beliefs that you find threatening as worse at 'actual code' and obsessed with 'work groups', and on that basis you reject those beliefs without having to introspect.
As collaboration, design, and people skills become more valued as ways to produce better software alongside sheer lines-of-code output, you fear that the power you derive from skills is being diluted.
As the corporate world realises that people who aren't men or who aren't white might matter, need to be taken into account, and might have something to contribute, you fear that maybe some of what you got you didn't deserve quite as much as you thought, and the fear of being seen as privileged makes you want to cling onto your existing power all the more.
This is an opportunity for growth. You can choose whether to create resentful posts on HN, writing off anyone who cares as a leech, or you can engage with those underlying feelings and become a better human, and better at your job.
Agree, maybe I should have been more explicit about the argument I'm trying to make:
- The OP's argument is irrelevant to bandcamp, since the antiracism at bandcamp was actually not directed at the 'mission' at all
- If we instead consider the hypothetical that OP is responding to - that being antiracist is in conflict with your 'mission' - then it was a bad mission anyway, and maybe you should change it so that it no longer conflicts with antiracism.
There's a genre of opinion that sounds like "I don't want politics in my videogames/workplace/church/facebook group", which stems from an idea that politics is exclusively a thing that politicians do in government, coupled with a (mistaken) sense that 'being political' is a bad attribute.
In fact, 'being political' is non-normative - per wikipedia:
Politics is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.
So, the first answer to your question is a pedantic one: "joining together for a common purpose" is by definition a political act.
The second, more nuanced argument, is that your even if it's not obvious, these mission statements are political:
- "Accelerate the advent of sustainable transport" - says that 1. sustainable transport is good; 2. sustainable transport isn't coming fast enough; 3. it's appropriate for a private company to influence the transport market
- "Build the best CPU" - 1. CPUs are a good thing to spend energy and finite resources on; 2. something about the validity of calling a cpu 'best'
and so on. I agree that having a clear mission which your employees are aligned to is crucial for morale and effectiveness; but the way that mission is chosen, who influences it, the way that it displays beliefs about what is desirable; and how it evolves over time all are all political.
Is that how you characterise the activism at bandcamp, which said "maybe this racist list of 'funny names' is racist, and maybe we shouldn't do that?"
Because, to write off 'how about not being racist' as "saying the right words and dis-empower Gen-X", or "[using] a platform for their own interests" is ...
racist.
And being anti-racist is political activism, and that's good.
... is political. What is that purpose, why is it common, and how does the joining work - these are the fundamental political problems.
> If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow.
Yes. At work, you are a mercenary. Your safety, family, health, concern for the decent treatment of your fellow humans, ought to come before your product. If the direction of the company you work for impinges on human decency, you shouldn't put that aside in favour of some weird 'fellowship' complex.
> It promotes people to stick to their beliefs rather than put them aside. [...] It attracts those who have their own interest and want a platform for their own interests
It's possible to have beliefs that aren't purely self-interested, an idea which seems so foreign to the author as to escape consideration entirely.
It's possible to have beliefs that help you achieve your 'mission' in a way that's compatible with your values. If laying down your belief that racism is harmful and wrong is necessary for you 'mission', then the mission is itself harmful and wrong, and no amount of 'fellowship' is going to change that.