Sunday, January 06, 2019

Aren't We Going Overboard on Shaming People

Is continued Public Shaming helpful?
I listened to a fascinating pod-cast the other day. I have tried and tried to find it, but I can't. I have sent Ezra Klein a message to see if he can help.

The premise was that for a certain subset of people, particularly younger people, shaming others publicly, but almost anonymously, generate a level of power and status.

The article to the right is an example. This writer has gone off because she thinks Ellen let Kevin Hart off too easy. She harps on the negative things he says but dismisses his actual apology as "too easy".  Here is the quote.

"Before he resigned, he posted several Twitter and Instagram responses to the public criticism that followed his Oscars announcement, all of which maligned his “trolls” as “angry” and “negative,” and none of which contained an apology. (A thin one—“I’m sorry that I hurt people”—came after he quit the show.)"

So I have to say, I don't think his apology was "thin".  His apology actually said he was sorry and he owned it. Not that chickenshit, I'm sorry if some people were offended or hurt by my actions.

If someone does something wrong, but is never fogiven, then why try to get better. Does doing a few standup jokes years ago put Kevin Hart (or any of us who did that) on Santa's shitlist forever? And they were a very few of the jokes in the grand scheme of Mr. Hart's career.

Folks, we have real problems in the world, Kevin Hart's offhand jokes about gay people from years ago, that he has apologized for, are not the hill to die on. And crapping on Ellen isn't the way either.

Yes Ellen has every right to decide if he apologized, for her and her audience. For you and your audience, you get to "decide" that he hasn't been publicly flogged enough and you can maintain your outrage.