Local leaders aspire to be frosty beverages

And do you support that form of punishment Will? Do you really want our digital commons used for that purpose? Carrboro and Chapel Hill have both invested heavily in the concept of public spacemaking, including significant investments in the redevelopment of their downtown areas. Instead of waiting until our digital commons is already corrupted and in need of redevelopment, why not act now to create a local digital commons that is a gossip free, safe place rather than a tool for public humiliation and reputation tarring? I'm not suggesting we all become Pollyannas. I am suggesting that we expect allegations to be made based on good research skills and verifiable sources rather than accepting rumor and innuendo as fact.

Shame is a very useful tool that we've lost in society today.

This afternoon at a party I saw Scott Maitland and told him that there seemed to be great interest in why he, as a community leader, did not appear on the 11/8/05 BOE voter roll. As Paul Harvey made famous, it's always interesting to get "the rest of the story!"

Scott had planned to vote on election day but then had a schedule conflict come up. He rushed to vote that Friday, the last day of early voting, but got there just as they were shutting down. On election day,Tuesday, November 8, Scott was in Washington, DC being sworn in to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Tom, once again you claim to know what I think. You infer a great deal and read into the thinking of others a lot. Free advice: be careful as it can be a bad habit to get into.

Y'know, it is JUST possible that the man had to go to DC a few days BEFORE being sworn in.

James Barrett--maybe shame is lost in YOUR society--I think it's still around.

Let's face it,sometimes voting DOESN'T happen. I think I missed one back in the 80's...I remember being deathly ill and not making it to the polls.

melanie

Melanie:

You seem to lose the point.

It bothers me if only a small percentage of people vote. It bothers me and I don't mind telling people.

It bothers me if someone who is telling others to vote--someone who stands to profit either professionally, politically, or socially by telling people to vote--and doesn't vote. It bothers me and I don't mind telling people.

It bothers me if a leader doesn't lead by example. It bothers me and I don't mind telling people.

I hope you can understand the difference.

All:

Am I getting this right? That shame is a bad thing?

You better hope, my friends, that shame is still around. Otherwise, all we've got is the law. And relying only on the law to keep us safe from people who would go against our communitarian values is silly.

Think about it. Some people (A) do the right things because they believe in them. Others (B) do the right things because they are afraid of what people will think of us if they don't do them. And a small percentage (C) do the right thing because they don't want to get sued or go to jail.

Do you realize how big group B is? Many, many people. It's the biggest group of all. And on at least some of the issues, some of the time, we all operate under B.

For those of you who think of shame in puritanical terms, of a scarlet letter sewn on Hester Prynne's bosom, you might want to reconsider the role of stigma in society.

The greatest problem with society today is that we do not informally enforce our communitarian values through a sense of having a stake in it.

My daughter's mother was in Asheville, coming out of a blockbusters with a video she had just rented. In the parking lot a father was slapping his toddler son around. Slapping him hard, bringing out welts in his face; hard, in a parking lot full of customers coming and going. In public. No one bothered. Without hesitation, she intervened. She stood and faced him. She asked him what he was thinking, hitting a defenseless child around like that? What possible harm could a toddler have caused to deserve such brutal beating? Avoiding eye contact, he muttered something about minding her own business. In a loud voice so everyone could hear she declared it her business. Whether he was hitting his little boy in public or in his house, she announced, IT IS MY CONCERN.

This is the moral voice.

Some things deserve shame. James Barrett is right: it's useful tool.

Rosa Parks shamed a racist society through a simple act of courage. She shamed others who lacked her courage into action. She dared point her finger and say, "Shame!" to those who immorally (but legally) discriminated others based on the color of their skin.

This is the moral voice.

When we point our fingers at our leaders and cry "Shame", they may not react in ways that we would like all the time, but they are forced to react.

This is the moral voice.

We are rapidly becoming a legalistic society in which its members care less and less what others think so long as what they are doing is "legal".

Read these words from a book that has had a significant impact on my education as a citizen:

"America's diverse communities of memory and mutual aid are rich resources of moral voices--voices that ought to be heeded in a society that increasingly threatens to become normless, self-centered, and driven by greed, special interests, and an unabashed quest for power."

"Moral voices achieve their effect mainly through education and persuasion rather than through coercion. Originating in communities, and sometimes embodied in law, they exhort, admonish, and appeal to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. They speak to our capacity for reasoned judgment and virtuous action. It is precisely because this important moral realm, which is neither one of random individual choice nor of government control, has been much neglected that we see an urgent need for a communitarian social movement to accord these voices their essential place."

And that is what Ruby is contributing by giving us this forum.

This is the moral voice.

David,

No one here is advocating relaxing morals. Are you willing to forego privacy for the sake of holding leaders to the moral high ground? Do you want the cops looking in your bedroom window and reporting what they see? Do you want to require that young women have parental approval for an abortion--even if their life is at risk? Do you want to have cameras installed in public places to make sure no one breaks the law?

How do you distinguish between a bad act and a mistake? Is not voting one time a moral disgrace or an indication that the guy is human? Are you willing to shame someone for an scheduling problem?

Voting is important but not voting can hardly be compared to child abuse.

Terri

"...not voting can hardly be compared to child abuse."

No doubt, Terri. I wasn't comparing non-voting with child abuse. I was giving evidence of the importance of moral voices, of people sounding the alarm. We're losing the will to do this as a community.

Now that we've got that straw man out of way, let's talk seriously. (I've refrained from saying something smart-alecky and equally straw man-ly like "Voting is important but revealing community leaders who choose not to vote can hardly be compared to cops peeping into windows". Oops, I said it anyway. Don't worry, though Terri, people are too busy these days to read parenthetical comments).

Holding leaders accountable in word and action is a vital function of the body politic. When a person uses his influence as a leader to exhort others to vote and fails to do so herself, I want to know. I want someone like Ginny to tell us about it.

Will society judge that person harshly? It is the role of each individual to determine the value of this information, and society's role collectively. Some might find it interesting (in a relevant and necessary way) and others might turn to their spouse, sigh, and remark on the nonsense that the media is dispensing these days. Personally, I want a shot at judging which position to take on the matter.

What you are proposing is self-censorhip, which is good and proper--sometimes required--if the information has little or no social value. Or in legal parlance, self-censorship by the media should occur if the probative value of the information is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, misleading to the public, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence (paraphrasing Rule 403, Fed. Rul. of Evid.). I am sure the media standard for reporting is somewhat different, but I doubt that it is substantially different.

Non-voting by individual citizens has no probative value (and, relevant to some of your privacy arguments, little or no prejudicial value).

On the other hand, non-voting by leaders of the community--especially those who benefit politically in exhorting others to vote--has probative value that is not substantially outweighed by prejudice.

Non-transparency in government and the political process is the top reason for political cynicism, no doubt. When a politician says one thing but does another, it tells us something about the person.

In balancing privacy with the right of the public to know, if we are to err, when we speak of public officials, it should be on the side of revelation.

David says "when a person uses his influence as a leader to exhort others to vote and fails to do so herself, I want to know. I want someone like Ginny to tell us about it."

I guess I do too, or at least I don't mind being told. But to get back to the point of the criticism that Ginny earned herself here, Bernadette Gray-Little was not such a person. Diane Bachman may have said something about the importance of voting 4 years ago when she ran for council, but I haven't seen anything about any "exhortations" from her in the last 4 years, or in the run-up to this election.

And what about all of the other student leaders she singled out in her post? Did each and every one of them "exhort others to vote?" I don't think so. I'm not sure, of course, but my recollection is that some of the people on her list were just generic student-leader types, as opposed to people who had specifically urged others to vote in the town council election.

Shaming people who have unequivocally brought it on themselves is a good thing. Shaming people for sport is not.

I think there's a good point that folks are dancing around, but missing.
IMO, the argument from critics has gone something like this:
"You shouldn't post this because it could be wrong, or they could have a good reason, but even if it's right and they don't, you still shouldn't post it because not voting isn't that shameful and even if it is then you shouldn't shame them."

1) There have been very few corrections (and to none of the folks on my list on OP) and it's been up a few days, so I'm starting to gain at least some more surety in its truth.

2) The folks who have excuses either decided not to vote, didn't feel like it or tried in some form, but it doesn't really stand up.

3) If you shouldn't be ashamed of being a community leader and not voting, then having your name listed as someone who didn't vote isn't a big deal and has no consequences. It's like me having my name listed as someone who owns a Dodge Stratus. Or as somebody who drank alcohol on Saturday night. If I feel unashamed of this, then who cares if other people know or form opinions based on that?

If a community leader not voting, on the other hand, IS something to be ashamed of, then being on the list as encouraging folks to vote or being a leader without voting is merely an amplification of a shameful act. Which happens all the time and is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

4) Whether or not these people feel shamed is up to them and what they think their responsibilities are related to the community. (For example, I don't mind people knowing that I didn't vote in the primaries in 2004 because I don't think it's particularly shameful.) But if you failed in your responsibilites to your community, your community has an interest in knowing.

[This isn't to say that we should delve (a la "the slippery slope" that is so common an argument from some folks) into private information or a "Big Brother" (another common theme) society, but it is information that is already considered to be of some use to the public and our right to know.]

"Diane Bachman may have said something about the importance of voting 4 years ago when she ran for council, but I haven't seen anything about any “exhortations” from her in the last 4 years, or in the run-up to this election."

The quote from the DTH is from two years ago. And if one is extolling the general virtues of and importance of voting only for self-interest in a certain election, that seems sort of shameful to me anyway.

As for campus folks, I know a good portion of the "generic" folks I listed [and many of them are not just "generic" in our campus community, which has the same small-world feel of OP]. Seth Dearmin's platform for Student Body President included several "Get Out the Vote" and Town-Gown priorities. He was elected, so the student body expects him to fulfill this. His cabinet is expected to help him fulfill his platform. One of these expectations is that they "Get Out the Vote" or at the very least don't sit out the vote...
Fundamental principles of College Repubs and Black Student Movement include civic engagement -- I think their members expect their leaders to vote. Student Congress members are all elected members of Student Government and on their listserve told members it was important to attend the forum on Town Council because the elections are important. The Student Solicitor General was a Student Congress member at the time. And the campus blogger (and one of my best friends) who didn't vote wrote a whole post telling people to vote. I was pretty fair in my "shaming" and even included several friends -- certainly I wasn't motivated by a political agenda against Gray-Little and Bachman and I didn't manipulate the informatio.

I think I've covered most of the student leaders here and justified my inclusion of them.

"Shaming people who have unequivocally brought it on themselves is a good thing. Shaming people for sport is not."

Agreed. But there's at least one more category, "Shaming political leaders for not doing a simple and important civic duty that requires only a small investment of their time."

David,

I don't agree with shaming. Like other forms of punishment, it is not an effective strategy for changing behavior and it is simply at odds with my personal morals.

My point is and has been that we need to be very careful, thoughtful, and aware of how precedents in using personal data for public purpose can morph into practices that are dangerous and humiliating. This year the SBOE decides to put whether or not you voted online. Next year maybe they will decide to put HIV status. You want to know about voting status, others want to know about health. When I suggested that you remove your daughters picture and personal information from your blog because of child predators you told me you had never considered that possibility. Less than a year ago, insurance companies routinely used social security numbers as policy numbers. There's no end to the personal information that can be made available to the world about you, your family members, your leaders. What do we really "need" to know?

David--

Thank you ever-so-much for explaining things to me.

Clarification--

I think shame is a useful emotion---but that is different than SHAMING. Shame needs to be SELF-generated. One OUGHT to feel ashamed when one has done something bad.

Anyone hear Desmond Tutu's speech last night on WUNC? It was on the documentary showcase. I don't know if it's available over the internet...but if it is...EVERYONE should listen.

melanie

Just as I vehemently disagree that "Rosa Parks shamed a racist society through a simple act of courage," more than a few folks in this community know that this isn't really about shame and a "public figure;" it's really about assumptions being made by some about 2007. I predict that just as certain techniques backfired in 2005, if the situation arises, they will also backfire in 2007.

Techniques Fred? Please elaborate.

In the spirit of the season Will, I will do what you seem to refuse to do and answer your question. Techniques like organized negative campaigning directed towards a candidate I feel backfired. No need for a debate on this however, because I know that we will continue to disagree on this.

I didn't really mean to turn this into a fight over the word "shame". But it's been on my mind since reading "Freakonomics" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics) recently about how economists do a lot of study on incentives.

One study they looked at was about parents picking up kids late from preschool. When they changed from simply a "shame" based model of discouraging late pick-ups to charging money, they had a marked INCREASE in the times folks were late. Folks were more willing to pay $ to be late than they were to handle the "shame".

Whether you agree with its appropriateness or not, "shaming" is a useful tool. I still submit that society overall uses less of it than it used to (on divorce or even sleeping around are easy examples).

Fred, why even bring something up if you're going to make a comment so vague that it is lost on the majority of us? This forum is designed to promote the increase of information and knowledge, not as a vehicle for making enigmatic accusations.

Please be clear:

1) Why do you vehemently disagree that “Rosa Parks shamed a racist society through a simple act of courage"?

and

2) What are these assumptions of 2007 made by some about 2007?

Correction:

2) What are these assumptions being made by some about 2007?

Dan, if you believe that having 1,000 fewer votes means more than a higher percentage of the total votes cast from one election to the next, than what's the point?

Enigmatic accusations? WOW!

1) David, what Rosa Parks did was not to shame a racist society, rather it gave needed courage to citizens to participate in a bus boycoytt that would not have worked if they didn't draw on that courage. Economic power was responsible for the shift. TODAY, there may be people who might feel ashamed of their former conduct, but Rosa Parks' Montgomery didn't feel much shame.

2) Some assume that Maitland might run for office in 2007.

Ok, "enigmatic accusations" is awkward, but I had already used "vague" in the previous sentence, so I went to the thesaurus on this one. Bad move because "enigmatic accusations" is certainly a phrase worthy of easy ridicule.:)

I think we are talking semantics on the Rosa Parks shame thing. When I say shaming I mean being brave enough to speak out. Eric just posted here on OP an interesting excerpt from a glossy containing an outrageous editorial as well as advertisements from local businesses. Shaming is the name I use for the action I will take when I call these businesses up and ask them politely if their intention was to affiliate themselves with that editorial. I cannot fully anticipate what Fred would say about the effect that this would have if enough people do this. But I suspect he would say it's the effects of economic pressure if any business subsequently decides to stop its advertising. That would be misunderstanding the cause with the effect: The economic pressure was brought on by moral voices. That is the power of shame.

When I speak about shaming I am not talking about crazy invasions of privacy.

Fred, I don't know Maitland. From what I've heard he seems like a nice enough guy. I do't think anyone's starting a smear campaign.

But then again, I might be wrong. I'm still the new guy on the block and a little naive at times of people's worst intentions.

Fred, first, if trying to get a candidate to explain why they took a stand against their public statements is considered negative we're in deep trouble.

Second, there wasn't any organised campaign against your guy. The coordination you might've thought you saw is because a few of us were trying to point out the schism between what your dude said and what he did in his 1st campaign, during his 1st term and during his 2nd run. Common events drove common criticisms (some much more pointed than others).

Third, while I was critical of your buddy for the difference between his Campaign personna and his Council personna, I based this criticism on his published statements during his first campaign and subsequent direct observation over the ensuing years. This campaign cycle your paragon made a whole slew of statements, published or not, as to how he'd be different this round. One observer of the process (guess who), not only took very close note of what your leader said but made sure that when your candidate disputes his own words that those words could be presented "straight from the horses mouth".

Finally, hopefully we'll see a new, improved Councilman. But Fred, as much as you will wail about being "negative" over the next few years, you can expect me to continue to criticize your dude when his deeds don't match his words.

Ruby, note that I am not participating in this debate that Will wants to have! :-)

David Marshall wrote:

"Holding leaders accountable in word and action is a vital function of the body politic. When a person uses his influence as a leader to exhort others to vote and fails to do so herself, I want to know. I want someone like Ginny to tell us about it."

Dear David, We appear to be talking about apples and oranges. Once Ginny explained her attempts to verify her data, I have not criticized her article although I agree with Eric that the use of Gray-Little and Bachmann is extraneous to the intent of the article. But I am willing to forgive that, especially in light of Ginny's lack of association of any official media outlet.

My cry of outrage comes from Tom Jensen's misuse of Scott Maitland's voting record. Is Scott a community leader? Perhaps, but he's not elected, he didn't exhort students to vote, and he doesn't participate on this forum. Using data collected in the process of writing a legitimate article was misused, just as Will and other redlight cameras opponents were afraid that data could be.

Sure hope you never become the victim of "crazy invasions of privacy."

BTW, BF Skinner and EL Thorndike, the founders of behavioral psychology, pointed out that positive reinforcement was always more effective than punishment (negative reinforcement). Says something about our society that we prefer punitive measures.

"BTW, BF Skinner and EL Thorndike, the founders of behavioral psychology, pointed out that positive reinforcement was always more effective than punishment (negative reinforcement). Says something about our society that we prefer punitive measures."

Dear Terri:

I'll agree to disagree, but I'm afraid you have mischaracterized my position. Your interpretation of my position is flat-footed, and I don't know if you are doing this for reasons of form or substance. I will continue to comment on the assumption that you are interested in what I have to say, rather than the possibility that you view this as a debate from which a clear winner will emerge.

I am all for positive reinforcement, how can you believe any rational person would not be? But society is a byzantine system of incentives and disencentives, and to ignore the utility of one for the visceral pleasure of the other is to pander to internal biases.

My position in this discussion was more descriptive than prescriptive. Although I think it's an important function for society to reveal relevant information about its key members, I was describing the machinations by which moral voices work.

I would much rather speak of incentives, the positive reinforcements that make us all smile and feel good inside. But the discussion wasn't on that topic.

In fact, I've hated this thread from the beginning because I felt forced (by my own internal desire to set things straight) to defend something that is on its face odious. I take no pleasure in talking about shame in a way that places it as an important norm-instituting factor in society. I knew that as soon as I mentioned the word people would come out of the woodworks with a knee-jerk reaction. Some people, I am sure, are appalled by the notion that shame actually serves a function in society because they associate the word with awful things, like intolerance, bigotry, stupidity, and narrow-mindedness. That is the flip side of shame, that it doesn't carry with it perfect results. It is a moral vehicle, not a moral system. But, I have argued, this doesn't take away from its utility in a society of individuals increasingly indifferent to the concerns of the body politic.

Next time you have to promise me to let me be the good guy, to defend something easy, like apple pie or Sundays in the park or the laughter of children at play.

I'm exiting this debate because I have to continue making phone calls to businesses who have chosen to advertise in a magazine that, as Eric has said, would make Rush Limbaugh blush. I will apply the moral suasion of shame, sad that I do not have the funds or the positive influence to have them stop paying for bigotry that passes for informed opinion.