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Saturday, November 30, 2013

Public shaming

I have mentioned before that I'm not a fan of the primitive and all too prevalent act of public shaming. I think it is a cheap shot, and an excuse to antagonize someone under some delusional guise of being pro-social? I'm not sure why people do it (why put forth the effort? why be the crusader at a cost to you and the target and a benefit to... anyone? do we really think the shamed person is going to change their behavior or retaliate in kind because they've always assumed they're in the right as well?). The thing about public shaming is that it's now so much more effective than it ever has been before, with the ability to reach tens of thousands and millions via social media whether you're shaming them for being gay or for wearing a tasteless Halloween costume. It's called leverage, and it's made shaming more effective than ever. Too effective? Or maybe the strength of the shaming mechanism will finally make people re-evaluate it as an appropriate behavior to engage in, or at least something that they are not only morally justified in doing but morally obligated to do?

The latest shamefest was an attempt by a producer of the television show The Bachelor to shame a fellow passenger for complaining to airplane personnel about delays on Thanksgiving. He accomplished the shaming of "Diane" in various increasingly antagonistic ways, narrated in real time on his Twitter account, chronicled here. The quick summary is that he kept sending or delivering her notes, sometimes accompanied by alcohol, at first under the guise of being nice but with the suggestion that perhaps if she was busy drinking alcohol, than she would shut her mouth. She sends him back a note saying that he was being inappropriate and to show compassion he responds:


He keeps antagonizing her, she eventually slaps him, then he gallantly refused to press charges, but gives her a note saying that he has been tweeting the whole thing "Look me up online. Read every tweet. Read every response. And maybe next time you'll be nice to people who are just trying to help."

Elan justified his behavior on his Tumblr account:

And it’s OUR job to tell every Diane to shut up. 

It’s OUR duty to put the Diane’s of the world in their place.

We need to REMIND them about the way of things.

We outnumber them. 

He's just a man on an important mission that not only justifies his behavior, it compels it.

53 comments:

  1. showing ppl whe's in charge with out inflicting shame will make them more lightly to pick your side
    the less harmfull humilliating and public the better
    jmho

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    1. I agree, and the more a person can control their hotheadedness, the more power they possess
      Always end up talking about power and control here.

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  2. I have been observing shaming people in public transportatioj system a long time.
    I find myself doing it all the time.. (I do it in my head)when I am angry or frustrated inside. Most people do not realize that their worls around them is their mirror.
    My town is a good one to obserge this all in action. We are battling system everyday and the crowding is casing peoples inner life to surface all the time, so much so one has to laugh at onesself. Otherwise you become l....fucking crazy on your period (sorry femenists) sexually frustrated ikpotents (sorry men who cant get an erectionz)

    It is extrejely confusingl

    Take all of the flack that m 3 maybe dealscwith after coming out tontye world. She should feel ashamed of hers3lf for admitting to having

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    1. Jesus wtf you're ruining me's blog. You should hang from the gallows of the sw forum!

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  3. Did anybody every read Dale Carnegie's great book "How To Win
    Friends And Influence People? M.E. must have.
    Every so often in the book, Carnegie writes of a particular person,
    and says: "It's hard no to love such a person, right?
    That's how I feel about M.E. Even from this great distance, I can say
    I LOVE HER! I love everything I see about her!
    That's why it's so tragic that anyone she finally does end up with
    will likely be a sociopath.

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  4. "He's just a man on an important mission that not only justifies his behavior, it compels it."

    And he's required to let all of his 124k+ twitter followers know every last detail about it. He's so courageous...

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  5. I think it was funny.

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    1. It was funny to see him act superior, but it was gross to see his followers cheering him on. I dont understand that kind of worship.

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  6. Anytime Someone casually announces they are going to "teach someone a lesson" by responding in a punishing fashion to an "infraction" I find myself making a mental note to avoid that person in the future.
    They are either a bully or (more likely) a stooge of a bully. It's a dominance display that narcissists are particularly fond of because it elevates them while making their adversary look foolish. This sort of behavior is not sociopathic so much as it is attention seeking in the suck up sort of way that egotists excel at- kind of like Eddie Haskell after he takes steroids and gets "roid rage".

    Give me a sociopath over that nonsense anyway.

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    1. I blew up at the person who yelled at dr ginger the other day here. Really my mood was so bad but it sounded like I was dragging the person to be shamed in public. That was a narcissistic thing to do. I guess.

      A long time ago here, i asked a question. About getting angry on the behalf of others, and if it was all about me me me if 7 felt so angry. I think this may have been one of those times I was probably just venting ,, really defending myself, not dr. Ginger.
      That is sthg I also observe in othet narcissistic types .

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    2. I have a friend who does it all the time ..she acts in a very very nasty way to new people who she thinks are being mean to her friends. But her friends dont care. Whatever the issue is, its always an issue that SHE feels strongly about. This is one of the mostself centered people I know. When she comes to me and asks if she is bad for being "snippy" I tryto tell her she is fighting her own battle not her friends' but she argued that really all she ne3ds to do iscontrol her snippiness. I explain to her it is coming from a personal place and that is the source but she cannot see it.

      But machemp, this is exactlyt the kind of person you would avoid

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    3. Ha I was sucking up to a fictional doctor so they will continue to come help me me me. *I* will remain teachers pet here, you will not drive off *my* saviour hhhhhhaha!

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    4. It's abusive behavior, but I don't know that I have necessarily observed it in the majority of narcissists that I have known, although there was one that displayed similar behavior to what you are engaging in.

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    5. Do you really want a sociopath over that any day though? When I read that i felt immediately that you Machiavelliempath are a ME personality.. How can an S be better than anything? Isn't an S really worse than what you have described end of the day?

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    6. The girl I know is very weight conscious. So some newcomer was giving her longtime friend unsolicited, kind of obvious tips on how to shed a few pounds . My weight conscious friend butt in nastily "uhm I think she knoes how to bla bla bla,"
      I wasnt there for the incident but this narcissistic weight conscious friend felt bad after the way she heard herself. Ive seen her in this mode a lot. She was totally projecting herself into the situation, then cloaked it all in the humanitarian excuse that our other friend allows people to treat her badly (I dont think this person was trying to treat her badly, I think she was feeling like making conversation) without saying anything. I kept asking this girl why dhe felt she needed to butt in and she ktot saying over and over it was for the other girl. But I know my narc friend, and she only really " comes to the rescue" withthese inappropriate outbursts when things hit home for HER,
      She would not be so "snippy" IF she knew she was inserting herself, and doing her usual "the world is outt to get me" bit.

      How do you point it out ?? I can hardly have a conversation without her overly defensive manner kicking in. I never want to be with her. She is exhausting and mean and judging all whilst being victimy.

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    7. Everything you have described in your comments about her sounds a lot more like borderline personality disorder than narcissism. It was actually my initial thought when you began talking about her coming to the defense of others so aggressively. I've seen people with bpd behave this way. They have so many intense emotions, that coming to someone's defense like that gives them an outlet, and yes sometimes it is also projection. Bpd is extremely emotionally intense, and they wear others down around them with their defensive and misperceptions of how others are treating them. I compare people with bpd to the energizer bunny. They will wear everyone else out , but they will just keep going and going. They can do it forever.

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    8. Yk ow I have been watching her for a long time, and I also think she has bpd qualities. She is extremely sensitive to criticism. And when she feels like one of our mentors doesnt praise her, she takes me aside to complain. Then when I tell her she is filling in the blanks putting her own negative spin on it all, she kind of sort of gets it but still whines. So I forced to say things like" they already know your abilities, they need to tell you, really ?" Or "your work was simply adequate, the good kind of adequate,., functional. It showed capability and it was fine, but not special enough for them to go out of their way to gush, just get over it" then she kind of sort of settles. She is very high maintenance. But there is so much selfish stuff..she barely gives back. I cant stand her much of the time, and her bfs have called her self centered..

      Shes another one that will tell me that she gets a bad feeling abt my bfs when I am happy. I can see both jealousy, and a compulsion to knock me down when I feel good. She a judger, then wants claps and approval. It happens so much that I want to refuse her any attention and give her no ammunition, and also just withhold praise. I always see her as a narcissist. She was my roommate in my place and wouldnt move her bed away from the wall I eatch tv in the other room and told me I had to lower the volume bec she wakes up. So I had to throw her bed to the other side and got real dominant to get her to shut the fuck up. Then I think she cried. Extremely entitled spoiled bitch... and she also rrrrealy likes it when the npd guy we know tells her how he doesnt invite just anybody to events, that she is a special one ugh. That guy has a collection of people who he manipulates for attention its gross. He tried it with me too many times, got met with nothing and now ignores me because I cant be manipulated by him. Its more entitled and yearn for approval. She has been coddled and always wants to be the baby, getting special attention.

      I see her more like a narcissist than bpd. Our other friend,, the one who this one defended unnecessarily, we are always rolling our eyes at her and trying to figure out how to get out of doing shit with her and complaoning abt her being both selfish and inconsiderate as well as emotionally demanding. We cant stand her. I always thought we are the bpd ones and she is the narc one .

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    9. Shes always apologixing after she realizes shes pushed too far. It isnt about needing love, the way i thought bpd was...it's about losing her reputation. I thought so anyway.

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    10. The cluster B personality disorders, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder, are extremely complex, much more complex than a lot of psychologists once thought (and many still struggle with understanding the complexities). Since they fall into the same category, there will be times when there is some overlap. So sometimes sociopaths will be narcissistic, sometimes borderlines will be sociopathic, etc. There are many different things I have observed in borderline behavior, and many of them seem so different from one another. There is a bpd expert I recently read about that identified four different types of borderlines so it's possible she may have one time, and then the two of you have a different type. I'm not there to observe the situation however, and I would never want to assume. I do recognize however, that some of the behaviors you are describing are abusive. Many people with bpd are extremely self-centered. I'm not sure how this occurred, but I have noticed on the internet, and in some books, narcissism has become synonymous with abusive behavior which I think is interesting because in my personal experience the narcissist doesn't hold a candle to a person with bpd in the area of abuse. People with bpd can b extremely abusive because they perceive themselves as being under attack, and having to defend themselves when in reality this isn't actually occurring, and it comes off as very abusive.

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    11. Do you think if your a BPD, you would show a similar type brain scan as a sociopath?

      I think we're entering un-charted territory on this web-site, which is good. Maybe we'll get some new answers.

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    12. There are a few different areas in both the borderline brain and the sociopathic brain that show abnormalities. One area of the brain that has been researched extensively in both disorders is the amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for emotional responses, and in both personality types there is damage in the amygdala, but in the sociopath they experience a limited range of emotion as a result, and in the borderline mind they experience excessive emotion because of it.

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    13. my amygdala looks like a waterlogged hanging chadish, shriveled ovary.

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    14. Thank you so much, Dr Ginger.

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    15. Dr. Ginger are you a psychotherapist? If so, what is your specialty?

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    16. My background is clinical psychology, but for right now I am in a different area of psychology, but I may end up back in a clinical setting in the future. I've always had an interest in the cluster B personality disorders.

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    17. Thank you for not shaming me for yelling at the person who got snotty when you used the word "validated". Wtf is so bad about craving validation. The world feels so big and we are so small in it...wouldnt anyone want to have some clue they were doing sthg right?

      Most of the ppeople here have had narcissistic parents, yes? Thats ehat I have gathered. I pretty sure they do everything to INvalidate a child.,,, so what is the big deal if some of us want what we did not receive?

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    18. Anonymous, you have probably noticed that I have an interest in psychologically abusive behavior. Are you familiar with abusive behavior that has an element of plausible deniability? It's a harder, more sinister form that is harder to detect, and harder to address, but takes quite a psychological on others.

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    19. Dr. Ginger-
      This is an area of interest for me as well. I feel that it is responsible for many suicides (passive and in some cases deliberate) because of a systematic devaluing of another person who serves as a sort of scapegoat/dumping ground of projected dissatisfactions.
      The phrase "teach someone a lesson" has started to be something that makes me prick up my ears and consider that I may be dealing with one of these types, especially if the person seems perfectly balanced/normal/professional. I've worked with a number of battered women and this is something their partners often say before commencing abusive behavior. These particular individuals (with one exception) have all been high functioning pillars of society.
      The pop culture presentation of a sociopath creates the idea that "bad people" can be spotted and avoided. What is so terrifying to me about these personalities is how they can appear so normal, even virtuous, while they quietly seek to psychologically destroy a chosen target. Your phrase "plausible deniability" perfectly captures the nature of why long term psychological abuse campaigns like this can be so difficult to spot.

      In my experience, the classic antisocial personality may be capable of horrific behavior in a short term time frame, but that there is actually very little that is "personal" about the abuse that is dished out.

      What you describe seems to be a long term campaign by an arguably sane individual to damage/destroy another person. Do you have a name for this particular sort of behavior?

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    20. I can imagine that if you work with pd people or, like machemp, with abused women (pd or otherwise), that you have witnessed all sorts of things.

      I will look it up.

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    21. Machavellianempath,
      I have to agree with you that people who want to “teach others a lesson” can be abusive. I was actually a victim of public shaming once, and I can assure you that this particular author for Psychology Today has an abusive personality. She just marinates in her pathology. I can see what you mean when you say sociopathic abuse isn’t always personal, but I think it may depend on the situation for them. Something that has always interested me is the difference between violent behavior seen in sociopathy and violent behaviors seen in borderlines, and I have always tried to figure out just what the differences are. Sociopathic violence is predatory whereas borderline violence is emotion based. As far as there being a name for the particular type of abuse I mentioned before, such as when a person engages in psychological abuse under the guise of being supportive, such as displayed by “anonymous” who is a self-identified narcissist, I’m not sure there is a name for this specific form. I’ve just always seen it categorized with emotional/psychological abuse.

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    22. I think you see it more frequently in religious/socially conservative settings. It's not as apparent in mainstream culture.

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    23. Dr- Ginger- As for your exploration of sociopathic vs borderline motivations for abuse, I think that's a fascinating and important topic that I'm also researching. Should you be interested in having a conversation at some point, I would be open. I'm a journalist who is working on a book, not an academic, but I do appreciate any collaboration that leads to both parties connecting to more research/resources in this quest to understand (and hopefully defuse) abusive behavior.

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    24. I would be happy to help as much as I can. There is a lot of new information that needs to be provided to the public on both of these disorders. Please provide your email, and I will get in touch with you soon.

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    25. I could go on and on about these two disorders. I've studied them for years. I'm sure I will be able to provide you with some insights, and give you some things to think about that you may want to add to your book.

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    26. I did not verbalize it to her that she should "get over it", I kept that in my head. But she would have appreciated it. She has said how she admires peoole with thick skins. Crazy ironic, right? She purposely comes to me so she can hear it. I am called by HER so she can get a pep talk, and then she presses and presses and presses until I give her what she wants, which is to invalidate her.

      The truth is that she is unbeievably pushy , and I (along with the other girl who I mentioned) are a pair of idiots because we are too nice.

      I am self identifying with shy covert kind of narcissist, or quiet borderline but not full on. And I would not dream of having a child or mentoring anyone.

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    27. I am very glad you pointed out plausible deniability to me. Its a bit like gaslighting isnt it?

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    28. The one time I told her I did not think anything wouid make me feel good inside me, she put on a fake smile and put her arms to give me a hug. I saw her happy about it. She is not a borderline personality, believe me.

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    29. Go ahead and invaludate me now, you know I want it lol

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  7. Public shaming is ridiculous, one would like to hope we've bypassed the middle ages by now.
    Elan sounds like a real prick, i don't watch the show so i have no idea who the people are.
    However it is petty to go shame someone online all discreetly via tweeting or other crap when if he really had the balls he could have told her face to face.

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    1. I thought the whole display of the incident was him trying to gloat to the world and show e v I d e n c e he DID shame her to her face. His entire announcement was a "look at how good I a m at being assertive" demand for approval.

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  8. I tried to post this on Huffington Report, but did not have an account. Here's my response to the original article:
    How easy it would have been for another passenger to open up to Diane and to show empathy. Imagine if instead of provoking Diane, Elan had reached out to her. It is easy to show acts of kindness to brave firemen or children. It shows another level of kindness to reach out to a "Diane." All of us have taken out our anger on others during difficult times. Have you ever lashed out at a loved one or a stranger and later realized your anger was misdirected? Two things stand out to me in this story. Diane is traveling "ALONE" to visit family. Obviously, she lives away from her loved ones. Also, she is wearing a face mask. Either she has an ailment that suppresses her immune system or she has a fear of becoming ill. When I was a child, I remember going to a restaurant with my parents. Our waitress was unusually rude. Rather than reacting with anger, my dad reached out to her. Before we left, the waitress opened up to us and thanked us for our kindness. Her attitude completely changed. It was amazing how one simple act of kindness had such a significant effect on a complete stranger. This experience has stayed with me. I pity Elan. He has love only for himself and cannot empathize with someone such as Diane. I am not saying that Diane acted perfectly. However, had someone reached out to her with kindness, this story would have been different.

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  9. It pisses me off when psychologists like Hare shame psychopaths as a class. They talk about the danger of psychopaths to "us" as if all his readers are in that category. I see that so much.

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  10. She should know she is only 1 of 300 people on the flight, and certainly not the most important. I know a few 'Diane's', and I wish they new how self-centered and disliked their behavior is, but shaming in this way is equally bad behavior.

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  11. ME,

    I'm surprised you didn't suggest that perhaps Elan's behavior was sociopathic. At some point in your life did you, or could you have seen yourself, doing something similar?

    MelissaR

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  12. Just wanted to say that I hope ME, Zoe, Daniel Birdick and others here are doing well.

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    1. They aren't here somewhere, aspie?

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  13. Hey aspie,

    I'm 26 and was diagnosed with aspd 1 year ago. My room mate and the only person I consider to be my best friend I suspect to have aspergers. We have talked on drunken nights about this before and he seems to agree. He's the only person I can talk to about my malicious intentions and wrongdoings and both have a good laugh about it. He seems to think I'm unique and funny in that aspect. He's honestly the only person I feel like I don't have to act around and can actually breathe. We've been playing music together for 7 years. I told him about my diagnosis and he doesn't seem to care even though I suspect he knows I'm consciously manipulating him all the time. While we have a complex relationship I do gain ALOT of material items from him whether it be money, drugs whatever, he never presses me to pay him back even though I say I will every time. He just seems to put up with my antics no problems and doesn't mind all the crazy predicaments I got us into in the past, bar fights, car crashes, etc. I think we balance each other out. Im not trying to imply that aspies are pushovers because that would be a ridiculous generalization, but he definitely seems to be fairly weak for how smart he is. On the off chance that I convince him to come out to a bar or house party and hang out with my friends he seems to enjoy himself and I'm sure It helps him sharpen his inept social skills. My question to you is have you ever befriended a S or do you understand the dynamics that would make our relationship work so well?

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    1. You sound like a prick

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    2. Evidently the entire incident was fake, dreamed up by Elan because he was bored on a flight. Isn't that delightful?

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  14. If thats true, he
    May be a sociopath ha

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  15. Public shaming can only work in a person who feels shame surly? Otherwise it is simply a feel good exercise for the lynch mob mentality of (invariably) the lowest common denominator.

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  16. isn't part of being a sociopath the ability to drive a mob to jump to its feet, to quote The Offspring?

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  17. cleaning out some bookmarks...

    "Public Shaming as a Security Measure"
    https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/public_shaming.html

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