
Shame Storm - joebeetee
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/01/shame-storm
======
jerf
As I've mentioned before, one of the interesting things I like to study in a
casual way is the effect of social community structures on behavior. At this
point it is not terribly controversial that modern social media systems
encourage shame storms, via things like easy "viral" sharing, the existence of
moderation systems that can be used to nuke any attempt to defend oneself out
of existence, and the way modern social media encourages cheap virtue
signalling by its nature (if nothing else, because there isn't really a way to
demonstrate an expensive commitment to anything, everything is cheap words).

So, as an interesting constructive exercise rather than just bemoaning the
situation, how could a social system be _engineered_ in a way that it might
address the staggering ease with which this sort of shame storm arises, feeds
itself, and flings itself against individuals? You can either start from an
existing system and try to tame it, or start from scratch.

It's worth thinking about both because it's fun, and because the people who
may actually someday fix it may well be here.

~~~
zestyping
It's weird to me that almost all posting/commenting platforms are about the
same. You get a series of small boxes with text in them and a small box to
type into, usually too small to fit more than a couple of sentences, perhaps a
button to promote, a button to reshare, and that's it. Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Medium, Disqus... all the same.

We've explored so little of the design space.

If I had to hazard in extrapolating from only a few data points, it seems that
shame-storming behaviour correlates with (a) how easily you can reshare
without thinking and (b) how easily you can reshare without context.

It would be fun to brainstorm all the possibilities for how we could be
communicating online differently. Here are a few stupid ideas I've thought of;
I'm sure there are millions more and I'd love to hear yours:

* You have to wait at least 30 seconds before you can hit the reply or reshare button.

* Short or low-information comments are discouraged; if your comment is short or an exact duplicate of something previously written (e.g. a common insult), it's blocked or you have to wait longer before posting it.

* You must listen to your comment read back to you aloud before you can post it.

* Even when reshared, your comment is always presented together with, and close to, the content of the original source article so it's hard to ignore the source.

* You have to correctly answer a simple question about the article before posting a comment on it. A Norwegian newspaper tried this ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14883842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14883842)).

* After you've gone back and forth a couple of times with the same person, the only option presented to you is to make a voice call directly to that person. You can't just type text at them any more.

* Variant: after a thread gets long enough, you can't type text any more. You must record yourself speaking.

* Every comment must be approved by its parent. (If you never approve replies, then your threads aren't interesting to read, and maybe you get a reputation for never approving, so no one will bother to reply to you.)

~~~
NathanKP
> We've explored so little of the design space.

The design space that we are willing to explore is limited by the fundamental
evolutionary drive of social media platforms to hold your attention as long as
possible by feeding you little hits of dopamine for minimal effort. Social
media platforms thrive on size and activity and neither can be established by
raising the bar, only by lowering it to new depths.

~~~
zestyping
I think (at least a few) people are starting to realize that this is what's
happening. There may be a window of opportunity opening up to try new and
different things. I suspect there are a fair number of folks who are looking
for alternatives to Facebook/Twitter/etc. and would be intrigued by novelty.

Bumble is an example of a platform that was all about changing the rules of
engagement, and it seems to be doing all right so far. Perhaps there's hope?

~~~
hnuser1234
It's doing alright as in not failing, but remains to be seen if any of their
paradigms measurably improve anything.

------
tlb
Public shaming can either become less common or more common over time. If it
becomes more common, it might eventually become less damaging. Right now,
because only 1000s of people have been targets, it's feasible for employers to
search online and not hire people who've been shamed.

A historic parallel of diminishing effect is posting identifiable pictures on
the Internet. It used to be a big no-no, because when only a few people did
it, you really did put yourself at additional risk from stalkers. But now
enough people have personal information posted that you're just one in a large
crowd.

When Warhol said that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes,
people thought they'd be celebrated for 15 minutes. But perhaps it'll be the
opposite: everyone will be publicly shamed for 15 minutes.

~~~
Alex3917
> If it becomes more common, it might eventually become less damaging.

I mean that's like saying if a huge percentage of Americans have been arrested
then it might eventually become less damaging; that happened, and it _has_
become less damaging, but at the end of the day it's still extremely damaging.

~~~
tzar
> _I mean that 's like saying if a huge percentage of Americans have been
> arrested..._

No, it's not like saying that. It's saying that public shaming might
eventually become less damaging. If you want an analogy that expressed the
point of the commenter, one was provided:

> _A historic parallel of diminishing effect is posting identifiable pictures
> on the Internet._

This, also, is not like being arrested.

------
alehul
Really interesting read-- this reminds me a ton of the New Criterion, which is
constantly publishing articles of a similar style [1]. It's composed in this
verbose, sometimes satirical New Yorker-style of writing, and offers such a
stark contrast to what's normally cited as a "politically right" source, like
Fox News, which I find pretty abhorrent in quality.

Thanks for linking to this; it's immensely important to learn >1 side to an
issue, but with the quantity of shallow writing out there, it can often be a
challenge.

[1] [https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/12/offense-
archaeol...](https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/12/offense-archaeology)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Fascinated with the concept, I subscribed to the New Criterion a year ago. I'm
not right-wing by any measurement, and I didn't even know the mag was oriented
that way, but the idea of a magazine with no ads, no glossy pictures, no 6th-
grade reading level? Based around art and commentary? I had to try it.

I like it a lot. It challenges me to be a more intelligent art consumer. It's
not pumping stuff. It just wants to challenge me. I'm glad I tried it.

~~~
wrycoder
It’s a monthly review of books, art, classical music performance, the theatre,
and the state of the world from the point of view of a classical liberal.
There’s a refreshing lack of snark and partisan talking points. When I
renewed, I gave a subscription to the local library.

------
zozbot123
The rule for how to deal with this sort of "shaming" is quite simple: no
matter what you may have been 'accused' of, _always_ double down and _never_
issue anything that might even loosely resemble an apology or an admission of
weakness, no matter what the costs might be. Then simply wait until the mob
gets bored and moves on to the next easy target. There are very high profile
examples of this working quite well, but mentioning them here would cause
undue controversy, so it is best to abstain.

~~~
weberc2
It's hard to make heads or tails of this without a better definition of what
constitutes "doubling down" or "working quite well".

The example that comes to mind is James Damore and he "doubled down" in the
sense that he stood by his original statements (which made sense because his
original memo was clearly and explicitly not endorsing the things he was
accused of endorsing). It "worked out quite well" in that he _only_ lost his
job and endured a lot of harassment, abuse, and slander (although who knows
what kinds of psychological scars this treatment could have left him with),
but probably didn't have a hard time finding another job and the mob did
eventually (mostly) move on.

So either the Damore example satisfies your definition of "working quite well"
but not mine (or probably most people) or this example illustrates that your
prescription doesn't always work. Perhaps it is exceptional, in that most mobs
aren't marshalled by major publications nor do they conspire with the CEO of
one of the most prominent companies in the world.

~~~
zozbot123
Do you think that James Damore would have been _better off_ had he apologized
and groveled to the mob of shamers? Even after he lost his job? (which there
was no chance of avoiding - as you say, he went against the CEO of "one of the
most prominent companies in the world".) That seems rather implausible if you
know how these mobs generally behave. Forbearance - of the sort you might
expect from an individual who has been wronged and sought appropriate
restitution - never happens, because it's not a stable equilibrium. What
happens is that the "storm" eventually blows over naturally, but that's a
rather different dynamic.

~~~
weberc2
Not sure if he would have been better off or not. I'm glad he didn't grovel;
we shouldn't incentivize mobbing innocent people, especially under overtly
false pretenses (though it's entirely unfair that the innocent party has to
endure all of the consequences for doing what is right while the mobbers get
off scot-free).

------
busterarm
I think one of the biggest misconceptions that highly educated people have is
to think that they are immune to the effects of an angry/unruly mob. As
participant or as victim.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I think one of the biggest misconceptions that anti-mob people have is that
there is no cost to letting people go un-shunned.

There is much hand-wringing over the handful of people wrongly shunned, but
many of the wringers give no thought at all to the victims who are forced out
of their careers, families, and communities every day because the people
around them refuse to consider the possibility that there is a wolf in their
midst.

Nieces absent from Thanksgiving while their uncle sits at the table. Talented
women leaving tech while their spiteful coworkers are promoted.

Should we allow abusers to hold power because there’s a shadow of a doubt that
they might be innocent, thereby sending their victims to start over in a new
city?

Outside of the court system, shouldn’t we try to hit a 1:1 ratio of wrongful
excommunications to failures to excommunicate?

Or should it be 1:1,000,000 like the courts do? A million unpunished rapes for
every wrongful conviction? A million women pushed out of their rightful career
path for everyone one man who was wrongfully fired?

When the information doesn’t exist to make perfect decisions, how do we decide
who takes up the burden of our mistakes?

~~~
busterarm
I'll admit that I'm fairly sketched out in general at the suggestion of extra-
legal measures of justice in a civilized society. I think the potential for
harm far outweighs the good that might be done and that your goal of a 1:1
ratio sounds a lot like "eye for an eye". It's about as counter to societal
progress an idea as I can think up.

And I say all that as someone who saw the Surrogate Court system abused to
steal away all of the lifetime wealth honestly earned by my mother.

------
xbryanx
Jon Ronson's book on this topic, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, is another
insightful look at the wild world internet-fueled shaming.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You%27ve_Been_Publicly_Sham...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You%27ve_Been_Publicly_Shamed)

------
sethrin
I think that the actual issue is the collective desire for punishment, and our
inability to forgive others. From what I can see, forgiveness is something
that we should strive to achieve as soon as possible after an offense. It's
far too easy to hold people in public contempt, or prison, far longer than
their just deserts.

~~~
overgard
I think forgiveness assumes that most of these “righteous“ crusaders are
actually personally angry though, which is rarely the case. It’s frequently
just virtue signalling in a way that sociopathically ignores that a real human
beings’ reputation is at stake and the massive consequences of that.

~~~
sethrin
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how you could know that, or why it would be a
precondition to forgiveness. Assuming that large numbers of people are
dishonest and sociopathic may not be incorrect, but acting as if that were
true seems pretty misguided.

The problem of forgiveness is forgiving atrocity. Yeshua bar Youssif suggested
that one should "turn the other cheek," that is, not just to immediately
forgive the offense, but to immediately give the perpetrator the opportunity
to commit the same offense again. The application of this precept to persons
such as Robert Bowers is a sickening thought -- clearly we must not condone
atrocity in the name of forgiveness. Yet we must come in time to forgive, and
indeed, sooner than our wont. The matter is a frequent and weighty concern for
me; I don't have any answers.

------
motohagiography
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I
would find something in them to have him hanged." \-- Cardinal Richelieu

~~~
commandlinefan
I'm 44, and either I'm just getting old enough to notice things I never
noticed when I was younger, or there's something very concerning brewing - it
seems to me like a small but growing subsegment of western society is working
as hard as they can to escalate civilization to an actual violent conflict.
And, based on my understanding of history, the biggest losers in that conflict
will be the ones pushing the hardest for it right now.

~~~
Zelphyr
I don't think there's a concerted effort to escalate. I think it's more of an
emergence phenomenon. But yes, the outcome you describe is likely inevitable
if something doesn't change soon.

------
ballenf
I'd recommend people having kids give them very common names and consider
giving them modifications of the last name if it's rare. It's depressing
advice and a bit like paying a lifetime of insurance premiums that's likely
never to be needed.

Unless the concept of a search changes in the next couple decades, getting
lost in a sea of similar names is the only defense against unfounded
accusations. (Changing one's name after the fact doesn't work as you're
required to give prior names for many jobs.)

~~~
ThrustVectoring
When I registered for a library card as a kid, there were five other people
with my exact first + last name. The doctor's office my parents used when I
was an infant had to modify their policies to ask for my middle initial
because there was another infant with the same first + last + birth month.

Definitely recommend it. The first ten pages of Google results for my first +
last show like at least 50 other people that aren't me.

Only issue is that it can be difficult to use your name as an email handle -
fortunately my parents were tech savvy enough to grab concat(firstName,
middleInitial, lastName) as a gmail address and domain name for me.

------
agentultra
So the author of this piece appears on a panel to defend a book by an author
who had published another book called, _Liberal Fascism_ [0]. This piece is
supposed to make me feel sorry for her?

Well I don't fully understand the entire context of this person's story but I
do know something about being publicly shamed. When I was a kid in high school
I had to suffer being called a f __got every day. By every one. I had been
hospitalized in an altercation and had been involved in several more. My car
had been vandalized on more than one occasion. People would openly point, yell
the word, and laugh until the whole crowd had joined in. It was an exercise in
torture.

No side eye on the train. No wondering what people were shaming me for. The
police couldn't do anything about it.

I used to think public shaming was a bad practice given my poor experience
with it. When I heard the first stories of people using social media to shame
serial offenders of the social norms of public life I thought... who are these
people to judge and decide? What if that person had a _reason_? Do we really
want to lower ourselves to this vigilante justice?

However this is 2018. This world has books like, _Liberal Fascism_. It has
platforms for people with radical opinions to gain an audience from the
comfort of their living room. Instead of limiting the spread of anti-LGBTQ
sentiments it has fostered them and allowed them to spread. Instead of
reducing racially-charged crimes and hate speech, social media and the
Internet has enabled it. On a whole new level.

I think you should count yourself lucky that the people hurt by your
conservative views have made you feel ashamed. You felt the discomfort of
someone who doesn't fit in. Welcome to the club. How will you change now?

[0] [https://www.amazon.ca/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-
Pol...](https://www.amazon.ca/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-
Politics/dp/0767917189)

~~~
weberc2
I agree that public shaming can and does serve a useful function in dissuading
fringe right-wing ideologies (among others); however, the whole reason we're
seeing an uptick in these fringe ideologies is because public shaming has lost
its potency after it was repeatedly abused (mobbing moderate liberals and
conservatives for violating far-left moral tenets under the overtly false
pretenses of fascism/racism/white-supremacy). Basically

TL;DR, if you (like me) really want to push back against dangerous ideologies
like racism, fascism, white-supremacy, etc, then you should oppose groups who
try to combat moderate ideas by conflating them with the aforementioned
dangerous ideologies.

NOTE: The author of "Liberal Fascism" is a moderate conservative, by the way,
and trying to associate him with extreme right-wing views is exactly the
problem (and we can acknowledge as much without endorsing his ideas).

~~~
agentultra
The difficulty I have with this is that many right-wing conservatives with
radical opinions on everything from the rights of LGBTQ folks to race are
trying, desperately, to rebrand themselves as moderate conservatives. In the
same way that white nationalists are trying to avoid being called out as White
Supremacists.

I'm sure Jonah would like me to believe he is a moderate conservative. The
history lesson in _Liberal Fascism_ is laughably inaccurate and built on a
poorly thought-out premise. It was an argument made that had never existed
before. In a word, I don't have any reason to believe he is any kind of
moderate person.

I think what we're seeing with public shaming are dis-empowered people calling
a spade a spade.

What I'm curious to see is whether people who have felt this kind of shame
will change. Will they re-examine their behavior? Or will they, like the
Jonah's of the world, dig in and continue to bloviate about leftist-shame-
mongering hordes abusing their free speech? And in the process what happens to
the rest of us? Will my kids be shamed and called a f-g when they get to
school and end up in a hospital with a fractured skull? Will we ever change?

~~~
weberc2
Whether or not you or I agree with his book or his beliefs, Jonah Goldberg has
a long and distinguished career as a moderate conservative. He's an avid
critic of Trump and he vocally condemns racism and white supremacy. Casting
him as an extremist is witch-hunting, and it hurts our ability to keep actual
racists and white-supremacists in check.

> Will my kids be shamed and called a f-g when they get to school and end up
> in a hospital with a fractured skull? Will we ever change?

The world has been changing for decades before this "moderates are actually
white-supremacists in disguise" trend kicked off. It's precisely this kind of
conflation that jeopardizes the progress we've made.

------
colinprince
For a more gracious treatment of the subject of public shame, try listening to
Monica Lewinsky [0]

"[I was required to] listen to my sometimes catty, sometimes churlish,
sometimes silly self being cruel, unforgiving, uncouth; listen, deeply, deeply
ashamed, to the worst version of myself"

[0]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame](https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame)

------
BryantD
I have a pretty simple algorithm for articles about the dangers of public
shaming. If they fail to catalog GamerGate and the online shaming of Zoe Quinn
as an example of the problem, they are probably not a balanced look at the
phenomenon. I find Justine Sacco's case is a reasonable metric for the other
half of the equation.

~~~
AcerbicZero
My understanding of the GG drama was that it started fairly unsavory, but
rapidly became about something entirely unrelated to Zoe and her
relationships.

The reaction from the gaming media organizations being accused of serious (if
video games can be serious) lapses of journalistic integrity, complete with
multiple examples of it just poured fuel onto the fire. After that, I stopped
following it, but it does seem that more gaming media organizations put effort
into disclosing conflicts, so perhaps some good came out of it in the end.

~~~
mcguire
I'm afraid I only saw the GG thing _after_ it had stopped being about
journalistic integrity and video games (whatever the hell that is). Unsavory
is a pretty mild description.

~~~
zozbot123
Spoiler: there's no "before" and "after". It was _always_ about /v/ trolling
Zoe Quinn. And to some people, I suppose, it was about journalistic integrity
and video games (to channel '45'). Does one negate the other? That's a hard
question, and a matter of interpretation - no matter where you stand, you'll
never get everyone on the same page.

------
monkeydreams
This article, if written by someone else, might be more impactful for me. This
is the story of a woman who fled half-way across the world from a Twitter-
storm, but who, when confronted by a refugee who had been shot and tortured in
his home country, that his suffering did not mean he had the right to seek
asylum. This is a woman who admires Marine Le Pen and Trump, but is happy to
seek her own asylum when a minor shit-storm goes down.

But to address the articles concern - the reason we all seek mob justice is
because a) it works, and it hurts, and it can ruin the lives of even the
richest of us and b) we have no other buttons left. We mash the
twitter/facebook/HN button because it is the last place we have any agency.
Corporate interests have taken over out politics, rendering even the power of
the ballot box moot since most parties appear to be in someone's pockets, the
power of our consumption is dulled by decades of moribund growth, our ability
to protest curtailed by an ever-present state of surveillance. This is what we
have and, by god, we will keep mashing those buttons until things change.

~~~
mcguire
I admit I am a little curious about what she thought about living in
Australia.

~~~
subpixel
I’m sure she found some pleasure and imspiration in the news coming out of
Nauru.

------
phs318u
A few thoughts just bubbled up while reading this.

1\. Everyone is potentially a journalist. Smartphone & social media = capture
& comment.

2\. Everyone is potentially a celebrity. Virality = celebrity.

3\. Everyone is potentially a publisher. Share, post, retweet = publish.

4\. Almost no one is (cares to be) an editor.

It seems to me that though the obvious impact of these is exactly what you'd
expect (a permanent social shit-stain), the times they are-a-changing. Belief
is no longer a matter of truthiness but almost a lifestyle/fashion choice.
People are learning to tune-out whatever it is they consider fake-news. I
suspect that the amplified impact of modern "shame storms" will be discounted
by the levels of latent disbelief held by people.

i.e. people could (soon) care less.

Maybe?

EDITED: fixed line-break formatting. Why do I keep falling for the same thing?

------
api
I had the thought the other day that what we're seeing here in the West is
like an informal version of China's social credit system, and perhaps that
something _like_ China's social credit system is almost unavoidable when
everything is hyper-connected like this. This is what humans do, and when you
connect them all at scale they do it at scale.

The specific mores and taboos don't matter. People get hung up on this being a
"liberal" thing, but go to a very conservative part of the Borg hive mind and
you get the same behavior. Criticize Donald Trump on Reddit's conservative
forums and you are instantly brigaded, shamed, or banned.

~~~
matt4077
The mere existence of the emotion of „shame“ shows that this mechanism is old,
probably older than Homo sapiens.

It’s simply a way to get people to behave in a society, without invoking the
heavier tools such as the law.

~~~
int_19h
Conversely, that the mechanism is so old indicates that it evolved to work in
groups of the size humans (or their ape ancestors even) formed back when it
first appeared - i.e. dozens, not millions. It's not a given that the way we
scale it is optimal, or even good.

~~~
api
That's sort of what bothers me. This stuff evolved to work in small tribes,
not global societies. When you don't actually _know_ the person the behavior
is very different.

------
emerged
It's becoming increasingly clear that a fully connected graph is not the ideal
form for productive human social organization.

------
staunch
One of the funny and snarky things Jordan Peterson has said is that he
"figured out a way to monetize social justice warriors".

Which is true in some sense. He's become well funded through donations and
book sales even as groups of people direct a ton of hate at him. He can afford
to almost totally ignore them, because for every hater there are ten fans.

Which leads to a crazy thought: If the social media mobs knew that they were
going to make their victims rich, might they moderate themselves somewhat?

Would they tell each other to "stop talking about X, you're just making them
more money!"

I think some kind of meme like this might be a strong antidote in some cases.
Maybe some benevolent person or organization could give a $100k patreon seed
to each victim of the mob.

Maybe one solution to hateful internet mobs spewing bile is loving internet
"mobs" sending donations.

~~~
Zelphyr
I don't think they would stop. I suspect what we're seeing is that the mobs
shouting very loudly is being propped up by social media and the news media
(who fall all over themselves to report it because of the controversy).

The reality, I think, is that the population of mobs is otherwise quite small,
but because of the social media and news media megaphones they appear larger
than they are. We're at a point now where everybody else is in fear of being
attacked by those mobs so they quietly fund whoever they perceive to be in
opposition of the mob. But at the same time, because of the media megaphones,
the mobs incorrectly believe they are having success and thus the negative
cycle continues.

------
ohiovr
This is a great essay on reviling. Revilers are mentionable in the last book
of the christian bible.

------
yters
Also known as mob rule, one of the main reasons philosophers like Plato and
Aristotle didn't like complete democracies.

------
viburnum
Buruma deserved to get fired because he had no idea what he was doing or what
his magazine's audience was.

------
maconic
I don't know if there is a good fix for it, but labels are a very potent
weapon. In the U.S. a few decades ago, calling someone a communist sympathizer
was a dangerous label. In China in the 1950s being called a rightist was a
dangerous label. Today being called a racist, a pedophile, a Nazi, etc. are
still dangerous labels. In this article cited the author was labeled a
sociopath by an ex-boyfriend and also of being cruel ("cruelty-based view of
the world"). These labels are difficult to undo because they are so easy to
remember. If you live in a small village and, let's say, get labeled a
derogatory term like a "slut" ... that quickly propagates until every villager
accepts it as common wisdom that you are. So I do like the discussion about
how to engineer a better social system, but it would require censoring label
accusations until they had been proven, and this goes up against another part
of the social system of supporting free speech. So I think you'd have to ban
negative labels in the way that we don't legally allow hate speech (in the
U.S.) despite the First Amendment because of the way it causes
disproportionate and long-term harm to the victim. I don't see any other
realistic solution to a problem that has existed ever since humans formed
social groups and speak languages... being ostracized, exiled, or worse has
been the outcome of shaming for the last 100k years. I don't see a great way
to avoid it other than to just walk on eggshells and always be really nice to
everybody or develop the reputation of a maverick... tough but honest and fair
(like Sen. John McCain was known for). Regardless, you have to fit yourself
into some admirable persona that society values to avoid shaming. If there are
other people that get shamed because they don't fit into one of the socially
admirable personas, perhaps the best way to address it is to expand the list
of socially admirable personas.

------
beasteurope
[https://www.wired.com/story/viral-call-out-
culture/amp](https://www.wired.com/story/viral-call-out-culture/amp)

It's not going to stop because it works.

------
yosefzeev
An opinion that is politically fueled should not allow this form of "shaming"
unless we want to throw free speech out the window. Our small church was
"Targeted" because I gave some advice to a gay woman who asked for it about
her kids. She then tried to wreck our lives over the asked for advice. You can
read the account here:
[https://www.scribd.com/document/389212460/Antisemitism-in-
We...](https://www.scribd.com/document/389212460/Antisemitism-in-Western-
Kentucky)

Others got on the "Band wagon" at different intervals. Whatever the
justification is for such behavior, ultimately there is no justification.

------
jeremysalwen
Don't really think the Kavanaugh example really fits in with the rest. Sorry,
if you want to be a Supreme Court justice, yes, you should should be held to a
much higher standard. Yelling about "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" does
indeed count as "partisan bitterness".

~~~
manfredo
If allegation of a decades old crime at an unspecified date, time, and
location, and with no corroborating evidence is enough to block a Supreme
Court nomination then we're not going to be nominating new justices any time
soon (Democrat or Republican).

~~~
perfmode
His attitude while defending himself on the stand is the basis for which I
would rescind his nomination. His behavior was not befitting of someone who is
about to be conferred lifetime appointment to the highest court in the
country. I don’t want him crafting laws and making decisions that impact huge
groups of people.

~~~
manfredo
Behavior such as? Most people who I've seen criticize his behavior essentially
boil down to criticizing him for not admitting guilt, or because he tried to
discredit Ford - neither of which are valid points in my view. Defending
oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser, to
criticize defendants for doing so is essentially saying it should be socially
unacceptable to defend oneself from an accusation. While I probably won't
agree with Kavanaugh's court opinions, the opposition to his appointment also
has negative effects. It was correlated with a drop in trust for alleged
victims of sexual assault, for example: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2018/10/15/after-a-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2018/10/15/after-a-year-of-metoo-american-opinion-has-shifted-against-
victims)

~~~
jacobolus
Behavior such as repeatedly making easily disprovable statements (which
numerous past acquaintances who had no particular reason to otherwise make
public statements about his nomination called out as blatant lies), and
pugnaciously asking a Senator whether she ever gets black-out drunk.

After starting his career in politics as a vicious partisan hack e.g. involved
directly in a conspiracy to undermine Judiciary Committee hearings, perjuring
himself in his first judicial confirmation hearing, and spending his judicial
career on tireless and extreme support for corporate interests, he should have
not been the nominee; there are many less controversial and more respected
choices among high-profile career members of the GOP. But if he had acted like
an adult in the hearing and been willing to admit to being an angry drunken
partier as in his teens and twenties who might have done stupid things and not
remembered, and demonstrated some contrition and sign of personal growth, I
and many others would have some respect for it.

Instead, his behavior was the most hostile and disrespectful I have ever seen
in a public hearing. I urge anyone curious about this to watch the 3 hour
hearing for yourself. In my view his confirmation is a stain on the Senate and
the Court. It cements the public perception that the rich and powerful can do
anything they want, remain unapologetic, and face no consequences.

~~~
manfredo
He repeatedly stated that did consumed large quantities of alcohol in late
high school and in college. Maybe there is diagreement over the exact degree
of inebriation, but I am not so sure it's correct to say he lied. Regardless,
the two points after are where the problematic nature of the complaints
against Kavanaugh surface:

> who sometimes shoved his penis in women’s faces,

Another allegation which he denies. As I predicted, the core complaint is that
he denies the allegations made against him. This is effectively constructing a
situation in which the accused is guilty of something no matter what. Either
1) the accused does not defend themselves and is guilty of the alleged crimes,
or 2) the accused does defend themselves, but in the world view you've
constructed this makes them guilty of hostility and disrespect.

> and demonstrated some contrition

Contrition for what? He denies said allegations. Again, when you get to the
bottom of it this is essentially criticizing the fact that Kavanaugh
maintained his innocence. This is what was so pernicious about the Kavanaugh
hearings that bothered even me, a lifelong Democrat. The fact that merely
trying to defend oneself against an allegations is grounds for negative
character judgement is at odds with the core principles of justice.

> and sign of personal growth, I and many others would have some respect for
> it.

If going from a binge drinking teenager to Supreme Court nominee (let alone
Justice) doesn't demonstrate personl growth I don't know what does. This is
greater growth than most people on HN will likely achieve (myself included).

Update: It appears the above poster had since edited their comment. My
response took a while to write, so it could be that their edit was made before
my response was done. I urge commenters not to assume bad faith on their part.

~~~
jacobolus
> _He repeatedly stated that did consumed large quantities of alcohol in late
> high school and in college._

No, he repeatedly _denied_ it (while only admitting that he “liked and likes
beer” and occasionally drank beer in moderation). He also made up comically
absurd lies about his high school yearbook, and lied about several other more
serious topics e.g. related to his work for Starr and his work as a Bush
staffer. (I don’t intend to re-litigate this here. You can do a web search and
find numerous analyses of the details.)

~~~
manfredo
From his testimony:

> I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many
> beers.

It may be valid to say that his drinking was more serious than his tone seems
to indicate, but to say that he did not admit drinking to excess is factually
incorrect.

~~~
jacobolus
The description from everyone who knew him was that he got shit-faced several
times per week, and was commonly a belligerent drunk.

Did you watch the hearing? If not, I strongly recommend it. I don’t know
anyone who watched it all the way through who thought that Kavanaugh was being
candid or sincere in response to Senators’ polite questioning.

A nomination hearing is not a trial; you should not be trying to parse his
statements as if it were. The standard for a Supreme Court Justice should not
be “well if we give him the benefit of the doubt he was grossly misleading,
uncooperative, and aggressively disrespectful but a jury might not convict him
of perjury”.

P.S. What do you think “boof” and “devil’s triangle” mean?

------
blattimwind
Why is this dated January 2019?

~~~
ThrowawayR2
The site seems to be for a print magazine so this article is slated to appear
in the January 2019 issue.

~~~
cwkoss
I wonder if this improves or harm the SEO for these articles.

------
warp_factor
The issue is also that people got more and more sensitive over ybrast decades.
Political correctness seems to be at a all time high.

Try to say openly in the bay area that you support Trump and you will be
shamed like never before.

Shaming is now always in our mind and I find myself thinking more and more
about redacting what I say to make it "unshameful" in order to avoid any
possibility of shaming.

~~~
beat
I don't think that's the same thing. It does point to a basic intellectual
failing of the modern right, though... conflating being judged with being
censored.

Nobody's taking away your right to free speech. We just reserve the right to
think you're an asshole for saying it.

~~~
warp_factor
Well, this is why the country is so divided. Instead of having a debate, the
new way of doing is to directly go to the conclusion that "you must be an
asshole". Good Proof of openmindness...

Not targeting a specific side btw, this is a trend on the left as well as on
the right.

~~~
beat
Some things aren't worth debating. If someone says that protesters should be
shot, they're not worth debating. They're an asshole. If someone says Sky
Daddy waved his hand and created the world 5000 years ago, they're not worth
debating.

