Holy crap this is awful. This entire article is dedicated to the idea that shaming people is somehow entirely responsible for such a big breakthrough in gay rights. It's no secret that sometimes you have to get mad and stick up for what you want, but shaming has had outrageous effect on our discourse and how we talk to each other.
Who decides what we become outraged out? Who decides what counts as bigotry and what doesn't? It used to be easier to define, but now there's people who try to see it anywhere they go, shaming perfectly good people without a bigoted bone in their body, just to lash out for the sake of lashing out.
This whole thing is a petty rationalization of being a bully. Even if the author here is correct that these shaming tactics worked (which I don't think he is), does that really mean it went the right way? Does shaming people actually change their minds? Are we actually changing attitudes or are we just saying "shut the fuck up you bigot or we'll ruin your fucking life"?
Just because you might be in the right doesn't mean you have the right to act like a bully. Everyone thinks they're in the right. If we truly accepted that this is an acceptable practice then anyone and everyone would just act like a childish bully to get what they want. He's criticizing people who want to be the calm rational ones who promote civility, but those are the people we need to get stuff done. Those are the people who actually sit between all the childish screaming and make things happen in society.
You want a world where we can just get outraged and demand what we want? Welcome to the club. We're all outraged and want things to change. But the values we uphold as a free speech society mean that we have to sacrifice other things. If you think shaming people is an acceptable practice, then you're going to shut down discourse. And the important thing about open discourse is that it forces us to talk about things that might make us extremely uncomfortable. Those are the type of things that might outrage us on the surface, but might actually be benefiting us to talk about.
Sorry, but I just see this article as purely disgusting.
Who gets to deside what we become outraged about? ...It used to be easier to define.
Who indeed! That is the crux of the author's argument. Apparently you were fine with the status quo as it was. You were happy with the supposedly easy definition of outrage and shame which the culture had embraced. That definition included making sure people who are gay would feel ashamed about who they are for their entire lives. That, apparently, isn't the focus of your personal outage; it's instead that a marginilized group would dare to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel ashamed about. That's your big outrage. So let's take a moment to compare outrages, since you seem so interested in weighing them.
The article is not saying that everyone should be a scary bully. The author is recognizing that shame and outrage are tools of power that the disenfranchised have been discouraged from using, even by their supposed allies, for dubious reasons. Shame and outrage are very big parts of how second class citizens, be they gays or other marginilized groups, are kept in their place. Gays, and other groups, have long been told to use only tactics that appeal to the public's sense of reason and compassion, and not to risk angering those in power by expressing negative emotions. Now, the real reason that marginilized groups are discouraged from harnessing the power of outrage and shame is that it is effective. You cannot change the world without chaing the narrative about it, and a big part of that lies in what exactly our culture finds shameful. For a long time of course, and still today for many, being gay is something that one is expected to feel great shame for. The author is suggesting that the refocusing of shame from those who have done nothing to be ashamed about (gays) to those who should rightfully be ashamed (bigots) is a key element in the success of the gay rights movement.
There is the outrage that comes with having your position of power be questioned or compromised, and then there is the outrage that comes when you are condemned to be a second class citizen, not just by public opinion, but by law. I suppose it is easier and more comfortable for those who are not the focus of moral outrage to simply look to the power structure to dictate what they should or shouldn't be ashamed/outraged about. Things can get complicated and uncomfortable for someone in a relatively privileged position when they are suddenly expected to listen to the opinion of those whom society has historically deemed unworthy of regard. In this case there are myriad voices for you to listen to and consider, rather than simply swallowing the monolithic message of the status quo.
You'll also notice that this post has gotten a couple of downvotes now, which I am going to assume is from people who read your comment, but not the very well written article to which this snap links. These people wanted to teach me a lesson, let me know that posting this article was not okay with them. So, obviously people are fine with using social controls to police things that they dislike, even if they don't take the time to try to understand them. I would encourage anyone seeing this to read the article and make up their own mind.
Apparently you were fine with the status quo as it was...That, apparently, isn't the focus of your personal outage; it's instead that a marginilized group would dare to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel ashamed about.
I wasn't fine with anything. You totally just put words in my mouth.
You actually just demonstrated my biggest issue with why shaming is such a terrible tactic. I am ecstatic that we have have made such a big progression with our society. I am not your enemy at all. But you see me as your enemy, because the way we shame and demonize each other in our discourse has taught us to see that anyone who disagrees with us, even slightly, is our enemy. I am not fighting against you or anyone else who wants gay rights, but I am angry about the tactics that Arthur Chu is encouraging.
You even showed a perfect example of this right here:
You'll also notice that this post has gotten a couple of downvotes now, which I am going to assume is from people who read your comment, but not the very well written article to which this snap links.
It's not because people might disagree with you and the author? They might even share my disdain for the article? No, it has to be that my shitty comment caused those downvotes and people just wouldn't even read the article. It has to be because people are just totally cool with how things are. You just managed to straw-man people who haven't even said a word.
Now, the real reason that marginilized groups are discouraged from harnessing the power of outrage and shame is that it is effective.
Yes it is, in some ways. But is it really changing people's minds? In fact, attacking people's beliefs is more likely to reinforce them rather than change them. What shaming does is shut people up, at least publicly. But they'll go somewhere else, find other people who agree with them or try to bring people into their fold. They aren't going to go away, and one day they will come back. You can't stop the spread of toxic ideas by trying to beat them down, you have to encourage people to change their ideas.
And most of all, shaming is easy. Chu seems to imply that people have been taking the easy way out by trying to be civil, but it's not like that at all. It's very easy to shame and ridicule your opponent. Civility is hard, it takes restraint. It's not easy to have to engage your opponent rationally, especially when that opponent might take a position that is abhorrent to you. They're position might completely enrage you. We all want to go off on people who take the opposite position of something we feel very strongly about.
And the kind of shame Chu is encouraging isn't just shaming, but public shaming. And public shaming, no matter what it is about, is never okay. People have their lives destroyed by it, and oftentimes it's often over very simple misunderstandings. He even basically writes that he thinks shaming people is the only way to help them, but never once does he address the many consequences that come for the person going through the shaming. Making shaming an acceptable practice is going to legitimize mob justice, and that's just unacceptable.
And maybe this is a little too slippery-slope-ish for you, but I worry if this kind of practice is legitimized, people are going to use it to rationalize their own shaming of people they disagree with. Yes, I agree gay marriage is a no-brainer, but a lot of people believe all their beliefs are a no-brainer....
Apparently you were fine with the status quo as it was...That, apparently, isn't the focus of your personal outage; it's instead that a marginilized group would dare to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel ashamed about.
I wasn't fine with anything. You totally just put words in my mouth.
You actually just demonstrated my biggest issue with why shaming is such a terrible tactic. I am ecstatic that we have have made such a big progression with our society. I am not your enemy at all. But you see me as your enemy, because the way we shame and demonize each other in our discourse has taught us to see that anyone who disagrees with us, even slightly, is our enemy. I am not fighting against you or anyone else who wants gay rights, but I am angry about the tactics that Arthur Chu is encouraging.
You even showed a perfect example of this right here:
You'll also notice that this post has gotten a couple of downvotes now, which I am going to assume is from people who read your comment, but not the very well written article to which this snap links.
It's not because people might disagree with you and the author? They might even share my disdain for the article? No, it has to be that my shitty comment caused those downvotes and people just wouldn't even read the article. It has to be because people are just totally cool with how things are. You just managed to straw-man people who haven't even said a word.
Now, the real reason that marginilized groups are discouraged from harnessing the power of outrage and shame is that it is effective.
Yes it is, in some ways. But is it really changing people's minds? In fact, attacking people's beliefs is more likely to reinforce them rather than change them. What shaming does is shut people up, at least publicly. But they'll go somewhere else, find other people who agree with them or try to bring people into their fold. They aren't going to go away, and one day they will come back. You can't stop the spread of toxic ideas by trying to beat them down, you have to encourage people to change their ideas.
And most of all, shaming is easy. Chu seems to imply that people have been taking the easy way out by trying to be civil, but it's not like that at all. It's very easy to shame and ridicule your opponent. Civility is hard, it takes restraint. It's not easy to have to engage your opponent rationally, especially when that opponent might take a position that is abhorrent to you. They're position might completely enrage you. We all want to go off on people who take the opposite position of something we feel very strongly about.
And the kind of shame Chu is encouraging isn't just shaming, but public shaming. And public shaming, no matter what it is about, is never okay. People have their lives destroyed by it, and oftentimes it's often over very simple misunderstandings. He even basically writes that he thinks shaming people is the only way to help them, but never once does he address the many consequences that come for the person going through the shaming. Making shaming an acceptable practice is going to legitimize mob justice, and that's just unacceptable.
And maybe this is a little too slippery-slope-ish for you, but I worry if this kind of practice is legitimized, people are going to use it to rationalize their own shaming of people they disagree with. Yes, I agree gay marriage is a no-brainer, but a lot of people believe all their beliefs are a no-brainer. They walk through life going, "I can't believe everyone is such an idiot, why can't they just see that I'm right?" So very arrogant people are going to start equating their own beliefs with gay marriage, and they'll get together with others that agree with them, and they'll shame anyone they don't like.
Simply put, it's just not okay. Maybe you disagree with me, which is fine. But the virtue of civil discourse is that you and I can disagree without seeing each other as enemies. But it's already very clear that you do see me as your enemy. So how does that help our discourse at all? How is that supposed to help anything get done?
I'll have to agree on that. It's setting up minefields around sensitive topics, and I think that's part of why race relations are so strained. Racism is one of the cognitive kill switches in our culture. Once that accusation flies, any other conversation stops dead. Everything then becomes about whether or not something is racist, not about immigration, not about police brutality, not about talking about our pasts, or our perceptions, it's about the racist label. So honest conversation about how to solve these sorts of problems get buried under an avalanche of words written to attack or defend given positions as being or not being racist.
The problem is real, the anger is real. As far as race relations, America needs couple's therapy, but I don't think that change is possible in this sort of climate because people don't feel safe to say what they really think. What they really think would be racist. I know because I see it all the time in my city. Nothing, and I mean nothing will get white people to a local government meeting like the threat of black people being around them. Black being sent to their kid's school, they're going to nearly riot at the school board meeting, and demand metal detectors. Expanding public transport to the county? Not happening, because everyone knows that "those people " (the ones in the ghetto of course) will get on the train, ride on the train to the county, rob their homes, and ride the train back to the city with their hdtv in tow. And white flight of course is very real. All by people who will swear up and down they're not racist, because being racist is shameful.
Holy crap this is awful. This entire article is dedicated to the idea that shaming people is somehow entirely responsible for such a big breakthrough in gay rights. It's no secret that sometimes you have to get mad and stick up for what you want, but shaming has had outrageous effect on our discourse and how we talk to each other.
Who decides what we become outraged out? Who decides what counts as bigotry and what doesn't? It used to be easier to define, but now there's people who try to see it anywhere they go, shaming perfectly good people without a bigoted bone in their body, just to lash out for the sake of lashing out.
This whole thing is a petty rationalization of being a bully. Even if the author here is correct that these shaming tactics worked (which I don't think he is), does that really mean it went the right way? Does shaming people actually change their minds? Are we actually changing attitudes or are we just saying "shut the fuck up you bigot or we'll ruin your fucking life"?
Just because you might be in the right doesn't mean you have the right to act like a bully. Everyone thinks they're in the right. If we truly accepted that this is an acceptable practice then anyone and everyone would just act like a childish bully to get what they want. He's criticizing people who want to be the calm rational ones who promote civility, but those are the people we need to get stuff done. Those are the people who actually sit between all the childish screaming and make things happen in society.
You want a world where we can just get outraged and demand what we want? Welcome to the club. We're all outraged and want things to change. But the values we uphold as a free speech society mean that we have to sacrifice other things. If you think shaming people is an acceptable practice, then you're going to shut down discourse. And the important thing about open discourse is that it forces us to talk about things that might make us extremely uncomfortable. Those are the type of things that might outrage us on the surface, but might actually be benefiting us to talk about.
Sorry, but I just see this article as purely disgusting.
Who indeed! That is the crux of the author's argument. Apparently you were fine with the status quo as it was. You were happy with the supposedly easy definition of outrage and shame which the culture had embraced. That definition included making sure people who are gay would feel ashamed about who they are for their entire lives. That, apparently, isn't the focus of your personal outage; it's instead that a marginilized group would dare to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel ashamed about. That's your big outrage. So let's take a moment to compare outrages, since you seem so interested in weighing them.
The article is not saying that everyone should be a scary bully. The author is recognizing that shame and outrage are tools of power that the disenfranchised have been discouraged from using, even by their supposed allies, for dubious reasons. Shame and outrage are very big parts of how second class citizens, be they gays or other marginilized groups, are kept in their place. Gays, and other groups, have long been told to use only tactics that appeal to the public's sense of reason and compassion, and not to risk angering those in power by expressing negative emotions. Now, the real reason that marginilized groups are discouraged from harnessing the power of outrage and shame is that it is effective. You cannot change the world without chaing the narrative about it, and a big part of that lies in what exactly our culture finds shameful. For a long time of course, and still today for many, being gay is something that one is expected to feel great shame for. The author is suggesting that the refocusing of shame from those who have done nothing to be ashamed about (gays) to those who should rightfully be ashamed (bigots) is a key element in the success of the gay rights movement.
There is the outrage that comes with having your position of power be questioned or compromised, and then there is the outrage that comes when you are condemned to be a second class citizen, not just by public opinion, but by law. I suppose it is easier and more comfortable for those who are not the focus of moral outrage to simply look to the power structure to dictate what they should or shouldn't be ashamed/outraged about. Things can get complicated and uncomfortable for someone in a relatively privileged position when they are suddenly expected to listen to the opinion of those whom society has historically deemed unworthy of regard. In this case there are myriad voices for you to listen to and consider, rather than simply swallowing the monolithic message of the status quo.
You'll also notice that this post has gotten a couple of downvotes now, which I am going to assume is from people who read your comment, but not the very well written article to which this snap links. These people wanted to teach me a lesson, let me know that posting this article was not okay with them. So, obviously people are fine with using social controls to police things that they dislike, even if they don't take the time to try to understand them. I would encourage anyone seeing this to read the article and make up their own mind.
I wasn't fine with anything. You totally just put words in my mouth.
You actually just demonstrated my biggest issue with why shaming is such a terrible tactic. I am ecstatic that we have have made such a big progression with our society. I am not your enemy at all. But you see me as your enemy, because the way we shame and demonize each other in our discourse has taught us to see that anyone who disagrees with us, even slightly, is our enemy. I am not fighting against you or anyone else who wants gay rights, but I am angry about the tactics that Arthur Chu is encouraging.
You even showed a perfect example of this right here:
It's not because people might disagree with you and the author? They might even share my disdain for the article? No, it has to be that my shitty comment caused those downvotes and people just wouldn't even read the article. It has to be because people are just totally cool with how things are. You just managed to straw-man people who haven't even said a word.
Yes it is, in some ways. But is it really changing people's minds? In fact, attacking people's beliefs is more likely to reinforce them rather than change them. What shaming does is shut people up, at least publicly. But they'll go somewhere else, find other people who agree with them or try to bring people into their fold. They aren't going to go away, and one day they will come back. You can't stop the spread of toxic ideas by trying to beat them down, you have to encourage people to change their ideas.
And most of all, shaming is easy. Chu seems to imply that people have been taking the easy way out by trying to be civil, but it's not like that at all. It's very easy to shame and ridicule your opponent. Civility is hard, it takes restraint. It's not easy to have to engage your opponent rationally, especially when that opponent might take a position that is abhorrent to you. They're position might completely enrage you. We all want to go off on people who take the opposite position of something we feel very strongly about.
And the kind of shame Chu is encouraging isn't just shaming, but public shaming. And public shaming, no matter what it is about, is never okay. People have their lives destroyed by it, and oftentimes it's often over very simple misunderstandings. He even basically writes that he thinks shaming people is the only way to help them, but never once does he address the many consequences that come for the person going through the shaming. Making shaming an acceptable practice is going to legitimize mob justice, and that's just unacceptable.
And maybe this is a little too slippery-slope-ish for you, but I worry if this kind of practice is legitimized, people are going to use it to rationalize their own shaming of people they disagree with. Yes, I agree gay marriage is a no-brainer, but a lot of people believe all their beliefs are a no-brainer....
Read FullI'll have to agree on that. It's setting up minefields around sensitive topics, and I think that's part of why race relations are so strained. Racism is one of the cognitive kill switches in our culture. Once that accusation flies, any other conversation stops dead. Everything then becomes about whether or not something is racist, not about immigration, not about police brutality, not about talking about our pasts, or our perceptions, it's about the racist label. So honest conversation about how to solve these sorts of problems get buried under an avalanche of words written to attack or defend given positions as being or not being racist.
The problem is real, the anger is real. As far as race relations, America needs couple's therapy, but I don't think that change is possible in this sort of climate because people don't feel safe to say what they really think. What they really think would be racist. I know because I see it all the time in my city. Nothing, and I mean nothing will get white people to a local government meeting like the threat of black people being around them. Black being sent to their kid's school, they're going to nearly riot at the school board meeting, and demand metal detectors. Expanding public transport to the county? Not happening, because everyone knows that "those people " (the ones in the ghetto of course) will get on the train, ride on the train to the county, rob their homes, and ride the train back to the city with their hdtv in tow. And white flight of course is very real. All by people who will swear up and down they're not racist, because being racist is shameful.