Shame Storm
firstthings.com
Shame Storm
1–10 of 247 posts
Re: Shame Storm
#2I had the thought the other day that what we're seeing here in the West is like an informal version of China's social credit system, and perhaps that something like China's social credit system is almost unavoidable when everything is hyper-connected like this. This is what humans do, and when you connect them all at scale they do it at scale.
The specific mores and taboos don't matter. People get hung up on this being a "liberal" thing, but go to a very conservative part of the Borg hive mind and you get the same behavior. Criticize Donald Trump on Reddit's conservative forums and you are instantly brigaded, shamed, or banned.
Re: Shame Storm
#3Jon Ronson's book on this topic, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, is another insightful look at the wild world internet-fueled shaming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You%27ve_Been_Publicly_Sham...
Re: Shame Storm
#4FYI, here's the agenda of these people:
https://www.firstthings.com/about/
First Things is published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and educational 501(c)(3) organization. The Institute was founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus and his colleagues to confront the ideology of secularism, which insists that the public square must be “naked,” and that faith has no place in shaping the public conversation or in shaping public policy.
The Institute’s mission is to articulate a governing consensus that supports:
* a religiously pluralistic society that defends human dignity from conception to natural death.
* a democratic, constitutionally ordered form of government supported by a religiously and morally serious culture.
* a vision of freedom that encourages a culture of personal and communal responsibility.
* loyalty to the Western tradition that provides a basis for responsible global citizenship.
Re: Shame Storm
#5Really interesting read-- this reminds me a ton of the New Criterion, which is constantly publishing articles of a similar style [1]. It's composed in this verbose, sometimes satirical New Yorker-style of writing, and offers such a stark contrast to what's normally cited as a "politically right" source, like Fox News, which I find pretty abhorrent in quality.
Thanks for linking to this; it's immensely important to learn >1 side to an issue, but with the quantity of shallow writing out there, it can often be a challenge.
[1] https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/12/offense-archaeol...
Re: Shame Storm
#6FYI, here's the agenda of these people: https://www.firstthings.com/about/ First Things is published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and educational 501(c)(3) organization. The Institute was founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus and his colleagues to confront the ideology of secularism, which insists that the public square must be “naked,” and that faith has no…
Agendas are like you-know-whats... everyone's got one.
I wouldn't say I agree with them on everything but this is definitely on the sane side as agendas go, especially these days when vast numbers of people seem to have eaten the brown acid. They also deserve a bit of credit for being pretty up front with it.
Re: Shame Storm
#7I had the thought the other day that what we're seeing here in the West is like an informal version of China's social credit system, and perhaps that something like China's social credit system is almost unavoidable when everything is hyper-connected like this. This is what humans do, and when you connect them all at scale they do it at scale. The specific mores and taboos don't matter. People get hung up on this bei…
China's "human flesh search engine", with its attendant doxing and shaming culture, is perhaps even more famous than its social credit system - in fact, one of the points of the latter is to avoid the excesses of the former. There's nothing new here.
Re: Shame Storm
#8Public shaming can either become less common or more common over time. If it becomes more common, it might eventually become less damaging. Right now, because only 1000s of people have been targets, it's feasible for employers to search online and not hire people who've been shamed.
A historic parallel of diminishing effect is posting identifiable pictures on the Internet. It used to be a big no-no, because when only a few people did it, you really did put yourself at additional risk from stalkers. But now enough people have personal information posted that you're just one in a large crowd.
When Warhol said that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, people thought they'd be celebrated for 15 minutes. But perhaps it'll be the opposite: everyone will be publicly shamed for 15 minutes.
Re: Shame Storm
#9I think one of the biggest misconceptions that highly educated people have is to think that they are immune to the effects of an angry/unruly mob. As participant or as victim.
Re: Shame Storm
#10FYI, here's the agenda of these people: https://www.firstthings.com/about/ First Things is published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and educational 501(c)(3) organization. The Institute was founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus and his colleagues to confront the ideology of secularism, which insists that the public square must be “naked,” and that faith has no…
Agendas are like you-know-whats... everyone's got one. I wouldn't say I agree with them on everything but this is definitely on the sane side as agendas go, especially these days when vast numbers of people seem to have eaten the brown acid. They also deserve a bit of credit for being pretty up front with it.
Yeah, everyone has an agenda, and I find theirs particularly noxious. You can immediately see their agenda shining through in the linked article once you know what to look for, like how they defend a man who was fired from the Atlantic for advocating for the death penalty for women who get abortions, and poo-pooed the notion that his presence might make his female coworkers very uncomfortable.
I don't know about you, but if one of my coworkers were calling for people like me to get the death penalty for doing something that was legal, I too would feel uncomfortable being around them.