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.

Gossip as enforcement mechanism

This was an interesting Salon article that discussed whether societies resemble more the classic tribe where altruism and dedication to the survival of the group prevails or the independent, objectivist position of types like Ayn Rand, whose characters solemnly proclaim: "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." That part was a little tired of an argument for me, what I found unique about this article was the discussion of how gossip was used as a primary means of enforcement in tribal societies:

"There are two ways of trying to create a good life," Boehm states. "One is by punishing evil, and the other is by actively promoting virtue." Boehm's theory of social selection does both. The term altruism can be defined as extra-familial generosity (as opposed to nepotism among relatives). Boehm thinks the evolution of human altruism can be understood by studying the moral rules of hunter-gatherer societies. He and a research assistant have recently gone through thousands of pages of anthropological field reports on the 150 hunter-gatherer societies around the world that he calls "Late-Pleistocene Appropriate" (LPA), or those societies that continue to live as our ancestors once did. By coding the reports for categories of social behavior such as aid to nonrelatives, group shaming, or the execution of social deviants, Boehm is able to determine how common those behaviors are.


[I]n 100 percent of LPA societies—ranging from the Andaman Islanders of the Indian Ocean archipelago to the Inuit of Northern Alaska—generosity or altruism is always favored toward relatives and nonrelatives alike, with sharing and cooperation being the most cited moral values. Of course, this does not mean that everyone in these societies always follow these values. In 100 percent of LPA societies there was at least one incidence of theft or murder, 80 percent had a case in which someone refused to share, and in 30 percent of societies someone tried to cheat the group.

What makes these violations of moral rules so instructive is how societies choose to deal with them. Ultimately, it all comes down to gossip. More than tool-making, art, or even language, gossip is a human universal that is a defining feature of our species (though this could change if we ever learn to translate the complex communication system in whales or dolphins). Gossip is intimately connected with the moral rules of a given society, and individuals gain or lose prestige in their group depending on how well they follow these rules. This formation of group opinion is something to be feared, particularly in small rural communities where ostracism or expulsion could mean death. "Public opinion, facilitated by gossiping, always guides the band's decision process," Boehm writes, "and fear of gossip all by itself serves as a preemptive social deterrent because most people are so sensitive about their reputations." A good reputation enhances the prestige of those individuals who engage in altruistic behavior, while marginalizing those with a bad reputation. Since prestige is intimately involved with how desirable a person is to the opposite sex, gossip serves as a positive selection pressure for enhancing traits associated with altruism. That is, being good can get you laid, and this will perpetuate your altruistic genes (or, at least, those genes that allow you to resist cheating other members of your group).

Sometimes gossip is not enough to reduce or eliminate antisocial behavior. In Boehm's analysis of LPA societies, public opinion and spatial distancing were the most common responses to misbehavior (100 percent of the societies coded). But other tactics included permanent expulsion (40 percent), group shaming (60 percent), group-sponsored execution (70 percent), or nonlethal physical punishment (90 percent). In the case of expulsion or execution, the result over time would be that traits promoting antisocial behavior would be reduced in the populations. In other words, the effect of social selection would be that altruists would have higher overall fitness and out-reproduce free riders. The biological basis for morality in our species could therefore result from these positive and negative pressures carried out generation after generation among our Pleistocene ancestors. 

I thought this was a very interesting assertion "More than tool-making, art, or even language, gossip is a human universal that is a defining feature of our species." Gossip is often compelling and easy to spread, perhaps this is what makes it so effective as a tool. Its effects are incredibly powerful (David Petraeus, anybody? or for that matter his paramour Paula Broadwell). In a civilized society in which so much of our behavior is moderated by the way it will make us look to other people (do we seem shifty? trustworthy?) it is extremely advantageous to have a good reputation. Even when I am not trying to con someone (perhaps even more so), I get annoyed and frustrated when people act overly suspicious, making me jump through hoops to get something that should have come to me through simple courtesy. Likewise, in the book and film Dangerous Liaisons, one of the "villains" dies, but the fate worse than death was the other villainess being ostracized from high society.