The nature of my employment provides about as much insulation from this as possible, but Rod Dreher has been posting a series of reader letters about life in the woke corporate world.  One anecdote describes the apparent need to voice the politically correct definition of “diversity” in an environment that breaks everybody up into their respective identity groups, with no place for straight white men.  Their only option is to join the LGBT group as “marginal allies.”

The writer concludes:

Fortunately, I’ve matriculated up the corporate ladder by delivering on revenue and KPIs for the company. But there is a ceiling. All of the leadership speaks the language of the “woke” SJW. Soon, I will have a choice. Either I will have to pretend to be “woke,” which I believe some of my company’s leadership already does, or I’ll have to effectively “hide” my disagreements and stay put in my current role. The third option is resignation. Unfortunately, most of corporate America has embraced all of this chicanery. I’m only 30. I can’t imagine what it will be like for my future children.

Of course, choosing to pretend means a life of never expressing one’s opinion — indeed, of actively hiding it — which is a trap from which there is no escape.  The progressive culture will find ever more stringent, subtle, and unpredictable statements and codewords that one must voice in order to pass as PC, to the point that the Left’s worldview must be internalized if one is to hope to discern and predict the shifts.

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This social disease is progressive in terms of its development, too.  It hadn’t hit the corporate world so much when I was in my twenties, but the feeling was already permeating campuses.  Back then, it wasn’t that there was no place for straight white males, but cracks were opening up into which we could easily fall.  The assumption then, as perhaps still now, was that our privilege would protect us, so we didn’t need help… and after all, what fun is it to mentor and guide some normal guy when focusing one’s attention on somebody from an identity group has the added bonus of social justice altruism?

Naturally, this most affects the people in the disfavored group who most need help and guidance.  One needn’t assume too much to speculate that this provides a partial explanation of the high drug use and suicide rates among men.