This is partly sparked by reading a fascinating book by Jon Ronson called You Have Been Publicly Shamed. Ronson likes to explore odd things happening in the world. In The Psychopath Test he looks at how there's a test supposedly determining who is and isn't a psychopath and he interviews those tested who deny they are psychopaths. He's the guy that wrote the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, which sparked the movie.
In his new book he talks to those who have been shamed, looking into just how far some of the lives have been destroyed, as well as those who do the shaming and how they feel knowing how badly things got out of control.
But more than that shaming has been on my mind because there seems to be soooo much shaming going on right now, especially on the Internet.
Of course, there has always been shaming. What were the stockades back around the Revolutionary War but shaming? There are judges still, and Ronson talks to one, whose punishment for criminals is having them publicly holding signs detailing their crimes and standing up to ridicule, a public shaming of sorts. NPR has a good piece exploring this topic here:
But the shaming seems to be happening both more often, and to crazier depths, online. Rarely a week goes by without at least two Facebook trending stories where it seems as if everyone is piling on, shaming someone. They seem to be often about one of two things, both of which people object to. One is those hurting animals (and so we had the one in the last week about someone duct taping a dogs mouth shut) and the other is racist and/or questionable behavior by police. Both are wrong but just how far do you go to object to it?
I have three recent moments of shaming fresh in my mind and a fourth where I felt the pull and started to do some shaming myself.
One of the most memorable piece of shaming in the last year was probably when that dentist killed Cecil, the lion. There were petitions and memes and everyone went wild criticizing and shaming the guy. Did he do an awful thing? Yes. Does shaming someone like that accomplish much?
Part of what I see as the problem with shaming in the electronic age is that it's not just what you see on Facebook, the petitions, the calls on someone to take action against him. What often happens additionally, though, is groups like Anonymous and 4chan (where people can post anything they want anonymously) get into it and release private phone numbers and soon the person often loses their job, as if he must be a bad dentist since he was mean enough to kill poor Cecil. It's the piling on and going too far that bugs me.
But, damn, it's tempting and sooo easy to do. This is the yin and yang of online shaming - its so easy, just click share or sign your name and boom, you've done it. And you often feel good about it because you're thinking, "Yeah, I did something good today.!"
The Cecil piling on was shamed a bit in response. This is the part that gets a bit weird. This is where, in that instance, people fighting for important issues in America rightly note that there's more crucial problems to fight in America rather than everyone piling on a dentist. And so there was a response meme saying, essentially, do we need to put on a lion's mask to get your attention? Why do people care more about the death of a lion than the death of a black woman while in police custody?
As one tweet put it, "The Gospel teaches us that we should be more upset about the death of #SandraBland, than tragedy with Cecil the lion." You saw that explored a bit here.
Similarly, remember when the Paris attacks happened and it seemed like every American's Facebook page suddenly had posters and photos about how they are praying and caring for Paris. Then people pointed out, correctly, that it was odd everyone was praying for Paris when there were terrorist attacks that seem week in Lebanon and elsewhere. And so people amended their posters and photo to say "praying for Paris....and Lebanon and.."
If that oversight had been pointed out gently then cool. But the way the memes I saw most often went it said something along the lines "You are only praying for France because they, like you, are White." And THAT is shaming. And this time it wasn't a person being shamed,
No, this time it was like EVERY WHITE American was shamed. How did that feel? I've been asking people that question, about the implication that they were somehow racist if they paid more attention to Paris than other places. The most common response is to blame the news media which, of course, was going wall-to-wall and Page one with its coverage of Paris and minimal coverage of other places. It's a fair point, I think, because if you don't know about the other attacks than how are you going to know to pray for these places. Personally, I felt a bit ignorant.
Do these people feel bad that they didn't know about the other events? Mostly the response I've received has been more complicated, they they are upset the media isn't giving them more coverage of the other attacks. And they think, as I do, that to chalk it up as racism is too simplistic since there are other factors involved including the long history between the U.S. and France.
This is a good piece on the topic: We Need to Put More Thought — and Less Shame — Into Our Conversations About Paris and Beirut on Social Media
That also brought up the matter of whether posting Facebook memes, in that case calling on people not to pray for the shootings in California but rather to take actions immediately. Mostly their focus was on the politicians, but that was unclear in many memes I saw. As someone whose response was to pray first and maybe take action, be it a rally or a vigil or whatever, later, I felt shamed.
And then my reaction shifted to "Wait, are those posting memes taking action themselves?" To me action means talking with your feet, standing up literally for what you believe in, not typing what you believe in or, in this case, cut-and-pasting or "sharing" what you believe in with a a few simple clicks. Standing up to power, not typing to power.
Time for a confession: I jumped onto this shaming train a few months ago. What drove me to do it was that guy, Martin Shkreli. He is the former hedge fund manager who bought the rights to a 62-year-old drug called Daraprim and immediately gouged the price from $13.50 a pill to an unbelievable $750! That was more than a 5000 percent jump overnight,
That made me sick. So I decided, I am going to shame this man. I started a series of Tweets and Facebook posts to shame this guy. Then I had two questions come up. Does my church, which is Unitarian Universalist, believe in shaming folks and, related question, what am I actually trying to do here? The answer to the second was embarrass the hell out of this guy. But do people change their behavior based on being shamed and embarrassed? Maybe but more likely they change when they see the benefit in changing and that's not really something happening during shaming.
And that's part of what I heard back. I tagged my Rev. Meg and Rev. Chris on Facebook and said, um, what's our stance on shaming? And Meg wrote, I'm paraphrasing here, we don't shame. We believe in rising up, showing people the positive instead of criticizing and putting down.
So that experience gave me more food for thought.
Ronson's book, as well as Ted Talks he has done like this one, points out another downside of shaming which is that it goes way further than most people involved in the shaming probably ever want or imagine.. Often the targets of shaming receive death threats and when it's a woman being shamed they are often threats of rape.
In one case Ronson writes about a man, being shamed for something he said that some considered inappropriate, who noted online he had lost his job and his life was in ruins because of this shaming campaign against him. That sparked a counter shaming campaign, against his will, in which the person doing the original shaming is then shamed.... she lost her job too, and she was getting anonymous rape and death threats... and it all seems so extreme and ugly and, wow. .
I am still sorting out my own feelings about shaming. Is it ever right?
For example, when there's video of a cop in a school hurting a student, no matter the reason, people go ballistic and I sometimes join them. They campaign to get the person fired, there are sudden new Change.Org petitions, etc.
But at some point the campaign goes from demanding justice to shaming that person and often it soon extends to shaming the whole police department and, some times, that is followed by people shaming all police. And I have objections to that. One thing I say often, especially on Facebook, is that I object to all stereotyping and generalizations, be it about cops or about, say, those suggesting everyone who is Islam supports or helps Islam. But people will stereotype and group and generalize because it's easy. I call it Lazy Thinking. And I think a lot of shaming is also Lazy Thinking.
Here's a tough question I'll ask you to think about and post your response. Do you have anyone in your family who is at least a little bit racist? When you see them over the holidays are you going to confront them about their prejudices and stereotypes?
Now when you hear about someone on Facebook or Twitter saying or doing something racist are you going to join an already ongoing campaign to both bring justice to that person and shame them?
I think what's happening is people are doing what's easy, which is shaming others for racism and other prejudices, while not doing the harder job of explaining, to their own friends and family, say, why All Lives Matters is NOT an adequate response to Black Lives Matter, why it's not acceptable for ones ignorance of Muslims to be an excuse for making jokes about Muslims having bombs, let alone excusing the idea that we only want refugees if they are Christian, that all Syrians are bad.
Anyway that's some of what I have been thinking about lately.
Now I can return to my usual thoughts like how best to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse and the benefits and consequences of time travel and why fast food restaurants always give you six ketchup packets when you say no, you don't want ketchup but on those occasions when you DO ask for it, you get three. And is it hoarding to save said ketchup?
Enjoy the rest of your weekend
