Moral Scolds
photo via dog-pictures b/c a dog would never talk shit.
I stumbled upon this piece regarding the internet reaction to the lion-killing dentist + the Ashley Madison leak. And it surprised me how much I agreed with it.
About 94 percent of the discourse on the internet now consists of this gleeful jeering at someone else's disgrace. I may not condone the transgressor's misdeeds — they may even disgust me as much as they do everyone else — but as soon as this loathsome noise starts up, I find myself always instinctively on the side of the supposed offender. Seeing your own reactions mirrored by other people is instructively repulsive. (When you're flirting with a girl, you always feel you're being genuine and charming, but when you overhear some other guy hitting on someone, it's so transparent and sleazy it makes you cringe.)
Thoughts? The last sentence is tooooo true.
Jon Ronson recently did a TED/NPR segment about this. You should check it out! http://www.npr.org/2015/09/14/440286008/how-can-our-real-lives-be-ruined-by-our-digital-ones
ReplyDeleteName sound familiar? Yep, he wrote The Psychopath Test.
Ahhhh! AMAZING! I'll check it out.
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