He may as well go back inside. Credit: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty
“Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends on us,” declares the narrator in Albert Camus’s The Plague. For the second time this year, a pestilence is descending upon us. But, once again, some are finding this fact hard to swallow.
There are important debates taking place about the effectiveness and necessity of restrictions and lockdown measures. Now that the pandemic has taken hold in communities across Europe — and many governments have been incapable of operating effective test and trace systems — there is unlikely to be a ‘perfect’ strategy.
On one hand, if we entirely reject restrictions, there is a substantial risk of lethal second waves, overwhelmed healthcare systems, and tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths. On the other hand, as ‘lockdown sceptics’ have rightly argued, these measures cause immense economic, educational, social and health damage, and undermine our civil liberties. We are, for now, stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There are, however, some people on the lockdown sceptic side of this debate who would deny the existence of this tradeoff; they are flirting with a sort of ‘Covid denialism’. The pandemic, they claim, if it ever existed, is over because ‘herd immunity’ has already been reached. There is no true increase in cases, they insist, just more testing and ‘false positives’.
This approach deserves interrogation, we believe. And a key proponent of the herd immunity and false positives theory is the well-credentialed Dr Michael Yeadon, a PhD in respiratory pharmacology and a former leader in pharmaceutical companies. Yeadon surmises, in a post for Lockdown Sceptics, that:
“The susceptible population is now sufficiently depleted (now <40%, perhaps <30%) and the immune population sufficiently large that there will not be another large, national scale outbreak of COVID-19. Limited, regional outbreaks will be self-limiting and the pandemic is effectively over. This matches current evidence, with COVID-19 deaths remaining a fraction of what they were in spring, despite numerous questionable practices, all designed to artificially increase the number of apparent COVID-19 deaths.”
Yeadon’s central assertion is that, by his calculations, a large proportion of the population have already had the virus (32%), have prior immunity to it through exposure to other coronaviruses (30%), or are too young to spread the virus (10%). This, he says, leaves relatively few (28%) susceptible.
While Yeadon admits in his report that the precise numbers are not “mathematically perfect”, they could, if true, mean we already have herd immunity (typically estimated to require 60%-70% of the population to be immune). We could all get back to life as normal. Everything could reopen; social distancing, testing, and vaccines would be unnecessary; and we could return to our terrible former hygiene habits.
Sadly, we cannot. Yeadon’s claims are riddled with leaps of logic and illustrated with highly inflated, speculative statistics that most infectious disease experts dispute, and which are being disproved by the explosion of second waves across Europe. To understand why he’s so wrong, we need to address his claims about how many people have already had Covid, the alleged existence of prior immunity, and whether false positives explain the second waves.
So let’s start by examining how many people have already had the virus. Serological surveys, which assess whether people have been infected by Covid-19 and have developed antibodies to it, provide weak evidence of population immunity, even in some of the worst affected cities. Despite large outbreaks this year, only 23% in New York, 18% in London and 11% of people in Madrid have Covid-19 antibodies. Overall, the REACT-2 survey found just 6% of England had antibodies by July. A US study estimated 9.3% seroprevalence nationally.
On the positive side of the ledger, it is possible that a higher number of people, even some who lack antibodies, are developing longer lasting T cell memory. T cells ‘reactivate’ the immune response when a virus, which has previously been encountered, is encountered once again. They help reduce the severity of symptoms upon reinfection, but are highly unlikely to prevent it — meaning that those who have T-cell memory may still be reinfected and spread the virus again.
The possibility that some patients develop T cells but not antibodies does complicate the calculation of how many people have actually been infected by Covid-19 and are immune. But it is, nevertheless, a leap to claim one-third of the United Kingdom has been exposed and is immune. This is because most people who get infected do develop antibodies: between 91.1% and 100% of cases who tested positive by PCR then developed antibodies; studies show that antibodies last for several months at least. Thus, only a small proportion of people would be missed by serological surveys, by only having a T-cell response to the virus.
Yeadon’s claim that 32% of the population have already been infected derives from his estimate of the chances that someone will die from the disease if they have been infected, i.e. the infection fatality rate (IFR). He estimates the average IFR is 0.2% which, with 43,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United Kingdom, equates to 21.5 million people having been infected (i.e. 32% of the population.) Yeadon admits this “might be a little high”.
Indeed. It is dependent on a substantial underestimation of the IFR. The WHO has estimated the Covid-19 IFR is around 0.5%-1.0%. A meta-analysis in September put it at 0.68%, and another analysis puts it at 0.53%, while in England specifically, it is estimated to be 1.5%. A Swedish government study put the infection fatality rate at 0.6%, based on a sample of PCR-positive individuals in late March. An IFR between 0.5% and 1%, and 43,000 infections, equates to between 6% and 13% of the population previously being exposed in the United Kingdom and likely to have immunity.
In sum, Yeadon may be right that serological surveys underestimate the extent of previous infection and immunity, but by nowhere near enough to mean we already have herd immunity.
So let’s turn, then, to his claim about prior immunity. Yeadon states a large number (30%) have prior immunity because they have previously encountered other seasonal and endemic “common cold” coronaviruses. It appears that some individuals have T-cells circulating in their blood which are able to react to the novel coronavirus in laboratory conditions, even though they have not been infected by the virus. A study of donor blood specimens in the United States between 2015 and 2018 suggested half displayed various forms of this “T cell reactivity” to SARS-CoV-2, and a German study found reactivity among one-third of donors.
But this reactivity does not necessarily mean, as Yeadon asserts, that these people are immune. First of all, these studies had small numbers of participants, 20 and 37 respectively, meaning they may not be representative of entire countries. Secondly, their T-cells were found to react to virus particles in cell cultures in laboratory conditions specifically; we do not know how they behave in practice, how these individuals would actually respond to an infection by Covid-19. And contrary to Yeadon’s implication, it would be unprecedented for cross-reactive T-cells to prevent an infection entirely, reducing its spread in the population so substantially.
In reality, T-cells reduce the ability of viruses to make copies of themselves over the course of several days and may potentially reduce the severity of disease. And in previous small human challenge trials, participants were exposed to common cold coronaviruses and re-exposed to other similar coronaviruses later, or the same virus one year after, and most were reinfected and developed symptoms.
For now, there are reasons to believe cross-reactivity may not have much impact on the threshold for herd immunity. There are too many cases in which too large a proportion of a population has been infected to indicate widespread pre-existing immunity to infection. Two large outbreaks on ships this year, for example, resulted in 67.9% and 85.2% of their passengers being infected. By April, 57% of the population of Bergamo in Italy had been infected and developed antibodies to the virus. By July, 54% had in Mumbai, while 55% in Karachi in Pakistan had by September. Clearly, huge swathes of populations are susceptible to infection.
Finally, Yeadon claims that two thirds of those aged 0-11 years old cannot spread the virus (10% of the population). There is, indeed, widespread evidence that young children are not likely to develop disease from Covid-19; but there is scant evidence that they are unable to be infected or spread it. In fact, the evidence is mixed when it comes to how much less likely they are to be infected than adults or how much they contribute to the spread of the disease.
In any case, if people have T-cell immunity from their exposure to other coronaviruses in the past, that is already considered in empirical estimates of the R. The R for the coronavirus has been estimated in a variety of different ways that examine the way the virus is demonstrably spreading in the population — accounting for any pre-existing immunity they might have. If there were isolated groups of people who did not have this pre-existing immunity, however, it would imply that the R0 (and hence the herd immunity threshold) in those groups would be higher than in the populations that scientists have already looked at — in other words, harder to reach.
Besides, the ultimate proof of whether or not we already have herd immunity is being provided by events unravelling right now. The second wave of infections, hospitalisations and deaths all demonstrate that there is a large proportion of people who are still susceptible to being infected.
This is where the second key facet of denialism comes to the fore. The rise in cases, we are told, is a function of greater testing and widespread ‘false positives’, which is when people who are not infected are receive positive results. We are apparently experiencing a ‘casedemic’, not a pandemic. But this claim is crumbling under the weight of new evidence.
Back in September, Yeadon said that “because of the high false positive rate and the low prevalence, almost every positive test, a so-called case, identified by Pillar 2 [community testing] since May of this year has been a FALSE POSITIVE.” The inaccuracy of tests is so dire that, according to Yeadon last week, we must immediately stop “lethal PCR testing” that is driving fear and restrictions (rather than helpfully spotting cases to prevent outbreaks).
You could, perhaps more reasonably, have made this claim during the summer, when far fewer people were infected by the coronavirus. But explaining why the UK has uniquely high false positives rates would be difficult, and so would the observation that many other countries have undertaken similar numbers of tests with much fewer positive results.
As Tom Chivers pointed out in September, tests are used more frequently by people who have symptoms, meaning the chances that a person who is tested is actually infected by the virus is higher, which reduces the chances of false positives. Yeadon’s argument would also require ignoring the presence of false negatives (cases where people are infected but test negative), which occurs very frequently in the first days of the illness.
In any case, more recent data from the UK dispels the notion that false positives alone explain the rise in cases. This is because the proportion of positive tests has been increasing dramatically across a number of measures, from as low as 0.4% at the start of July to 8% at the start of November. This would mean, even with Yeadon’s claim that 1% are false positives, almost all of 7% are true cases. The increasing proportion of positive tests cannot simply be explained away by false positives, as that would mean testing quality is severely declining.
It is a similar story for the Office for National Statistics infection survey, the most reliable source on community infection in the United Kingdom (because it is a large representative survey of the population). The ONS indicates that the proportion of the population who tested positive during the fortnight they were tested had risen from 0.03% in late June to 0.1% at the start of September, and 1.04% by mid-October. Again, the change is important: even if much of that 0.03% in June were false positives, it is not likely the number of false positives have increased 35 times.
This can also be triangulated against the ZOE COVID Symptom Study, which uses a large number of daily symptom reports and tests to estimate the total number of cases in the community. They estimate the case numbers have risen from 22,000 at the start of September to over 540,000 by late October, with about 43,000 daily new infections. Imperial College’s latest REACT-1 study, from another large community survey, is more pessimistic, estimating an increase in community prevalence from 0.60% in late September to 1.28% in late October, which would mean about 100,000 new cases a day.
Over and above the dramatic rises in cases are the rising numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. The time between new cases and a rise in deaths typically takes around four to six weeks: it takes time for the virus to spread from the young to more vulnerable groups, longer for them to develop symptoms, be hospitalised, die, and finally have their death recorded officially. The average time between infections and deaths is around 22.9 days, and deaths are registered and reported in official statistics even later.
In the United Kingdom, we can see that hospitalisations are in fact rising proportionately to new cases, and while deaths have taken over five weeks to start rising, they are certainly on the way up. There are now already over 10,900 people in hospital with confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom. There are also a few hundred people dying a day, and that number is rising. Across Europe, including in Spain, France, Germany, and Belgium, there is a similar story of rising cases, followed by hospitalisations and deaths. Even Sweden is now instigating a new voluntary lockdown in the face of growing case numbers.
Yeadon’s typical response has been to point to the lack of excess deaths in recent months. But this is simply a reflection of delays in reporting. The death registrations from the Office for National Statistics are now showing excess deaths.There were 980 excess deaths in the week ending 23 October, 10% above the 5-year average, after 726 excess deaths the week before. These numbers are near identical to the number of deaths involving Covid (978 and 761, respectively). The ONS have also found nine-in-ten death registrations listing Covid-19 as the underlying (main) cause of death. This is consistent with the 28 day death numbers from Public Health England (which provides daily death count figures), showing deaths picking up from mid-October — again, about five weeks since cases started increasing at a substantial rate in September.
The precise relationship between cases, hospitalisations and deaths, as well as the speed of the outbreak, is not the same as it was in March. There are some who have already been infected, and there is ongoing social distancing, improved hygiene, local lockdowns, more frequent use of masks, better testing and tracing, and improved treatments. If we stopped taking precautions, as lockdown sceptics insist, the cases would increase at a faster rate.
But even though the pandemic is not over, we should not despair. The smartest forecasters are expecting at least one of the dozen promising candidates to produce a workable vaccine by early next year. We have learnt a lot about the virus and how to treat it, with drugs such as dexamethasone, tocilizumab, potentially remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies — making the disease less lethal than it was earlier this year. We also know that the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) instead of invasive ventilation, anti IL-6, and blood thinning provide benefits to patients. And although treatments would be hard to scale up to everyone who required them, they could make the disease far more benign.
Meanwhile, effective testing and tracing can prevent outbreaks and save lives — as in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. We are also on the cusp of a large number of cheap and rapid testing technologies — LAMP, antigen strip tests, and, even, breath tests — that could allow life to return more or less to normal even sooner.
Earlier this year, exceptionalism blinded many Western countries to the coming carnage of Covid-19. Overconfidence and inept bureaucracies led to dramatic failures in border controls and testing, tracing and isolating that could have prevented widespread outbreaks. The result was harsh lockdowns and tens of thousands of deaths.
Europe is in the foothills of a second wave of Covid-19. This has, rightly, led to a renewed debate about the appropriate policy response. It should not lead to a denial of reality.
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SubscribeThis is a wonderful article, Lionel, and you say the obvious in a way which few people will now do.
But I must disagree with some of it. “For the consistent pattern here is an accelerating, positively demented refusal to make judgments. ”
This is not entirely true. Society does make judgements, but they are different to what they once were and they are no longer “pro social”.
Look at the moral panic around race.
I once asked a prospective candidate to proofread his CV. An hour later my boss and an HR goon called me to “discuss the interview” because the candidate had complained that my insistence on good grammar was code for “hiring native English speakers”, and therefore “white people” only.
I concealed that the candidate in question was a sheep-white Yorkshireman. HR were too afraid to ask me what his skin colour was, preferring to make this a “general point”.
But when I did finally disclose the colour of the fellow, the sigh of relief was audible. Until that point they feared a multimillion pound racial harassment lawsuit and, until that point, I was in danger of losing my job.
The other stigma, implied but not stated, was that, being a white African, I was self evidently a racist. For many circles of leftwing intellectual, and for many woke corporates, white skin itself is a stigma. And if you are both white and from Africa (they don’t often appear to distinguish one white African from another – presumably we are one homogenous “evil type” in their eyes), then you are doubly in the wrong.
In our current time a mere accusation of racism can end a career. And denying an allegation of racism is often considered to be proof that the accusation had merit to begin with (for only someone who was guilty would, as their Quantum mechanical double-think goes, protest their innocence). Allegations like this stick to a person like jam to a biscuit.
People are also judged for failing to use the right language. There are ever shifting goal posts of vocabulary that “right thinking” people must consistently keep up with to demonstrate their purity.
There is therefore judgement attached by self-identified gatekeepers to we commoners for what they imagine we think, rather than to how we conduct ourselves with people we relate to in the real world.
It is not true, then, that we are moving inexorably towards “non judgement”, but rather to a world where new playmakers decide what we should and shouldn’t be judgemental about.
And they largely appear to be unconcerned with the reality that much of what they advocate hurts the very groups they imagine themselves to be representing (which is where myself and Lionel are in full agreement).
I agree with you, Hayden, both as to the excellence of the article and your point that judgement still exists but has switched its focus to new attitudes and behaviours. Little shame is now attached to abandoning your partner and children, and single parents are just a fact of life. However, if you should draw attention to the fact that much poverty and mental illness is linked to this selfish behaviour, you are clearly some kind of uncaring social fascist! My church belongs to the ‘inclusive Church’ network, which seems to be code for LGBT acceptance. That’s all very well, but conservative Christians who, for example, think that marriage is by definition a heterosexual union are clearly NOT ‘included’!
“I’m sorry sir, we can’t let you into this meeting. It’s an *inclusive* meeting. Your sort aren’t welcome.”
This ‘inclusive church’ concept is not as lovely as you think. Frankin Graham says frequently that gay people are welcome in his church. At other times he is more honest: he says gays are welcomed in, then when they join they are expected to undergo gay conversion therapy. Ask your liberal accepting friends whether they believe that it’s just as good for children to be brought up by a single sex couple or whether in an ideal world they would always have a mother and a father.
“I’m sorry sir, we can’t let you into this meeting. It’s an *inclusive* meeting. Your sort aren’t welcome.”
This ‘inclusive church’ concept is not as lovely as you think. Frankin Graham says frequently that gay people are welcome in his church. At other times he is more honest: he says gays are welcomed in, then when they join they are expected to undergo gay conversion therapy. Ask your liberal accepting friends whether they believe that it’s just as good for children to be brought up by a single sex couple or whether in an ideal world they would always have a mother and a father.
Well done sir! (If I may be so bold as to assume your chosen pronoun)
For me, the key sentence was “Stealing, looting, prostitution, medically burdensome obesity, and sexual predation on children don’t make the world a better place.” The author apparently has no issue with being the sole arbiter of good and bad in this case. But isn’t that the point of it all? In a society that believes in moral relativity, we each have the right to decide what is good or bad. If that is the case then anything goes. Absolutely anything.
Lionel, male by name and appearance, is actually an adult human female. Very confusing. But of course we don’t DO genders any more do we?
To think Lionel Shriver is ‘male by appearance’ is to make the assumption that women are make-up and fake nails. She is very clearly an adult human – intelligent- female.
To think Lionel Shriver is ‘male by appearance’ is to make the assumption that women are make-up and fake nails. She is very clearly an adult human – intelligent- female.
Lionel, male by name and appearance, is actually an adult human female. Very confusing. But of course we don’t DO genders any more do we?
To add to the chaos, the people who traditionally made judgements now hesitate. Witness Pope Francis when questioned about the new head of the Papal Household having a very lurid same sex history in Montevideo – “Who am I to judge?” You’re the ******* Pope, sunshine…. As riotously parodied in this video from early in his reign. Since then he has declared in writing that all religions are willed by God. I’m not sure if that includes Satanists and Scientologist.
https://youtu.be/WEchg1KhmTY
The most potent political, cultural and social credo of this new century is making ANY form of discrimination an evil. Groupthink sits guard ready to banish and denounce any transgressor from the tribe. The media focus on race gender and the ‘Big Nine’ legally privileged Victim groups, but the anti discriminayory mania – call it M.A.D – is actually way way bigger than all that. It is a wormlike form of derangement and groupthink that is now IN us all. Stigma was an inevitable casualty of MAD. Any ‘judgement’ which implies looking down at another person’s behaviour is taboo. Welcome to the grubby realities of a vacuum carved out by a bland secular post Christian Age suddenly filled by a noxious cult of equality and its mean fists in our faces – a universal terror of discrimination. Fight this fight too wonderful Lionel.
A little initial ‘shame’ that adjusts conduct can save a great deal of guilt and pain (for many) of future unfettered and habitual, ummm… ‘less than best-practice’ behaviours.
A little initial ‘shame’ that adjusts conduct, can save a great deal of guilt and pain (for many) of future unfettered and now habitual “less that best-practice”.
Substance Use and Stigma – What are the drivers for stigma? Is the fact that someone simply uses a drug that makes them the target of derision and abuse? Clearly not, as it seems very fashionable for growing demographics to enter into the ‘recreational use’ of drugs. So, what is it that actually attracts the ire that can, at times, pronounce pejoratives over some drug using punters?
“INTERPRETATIONS OF SOCIAL STIGMA CAN BE LINKED TO SEVERAL MEASURES. OUR FIRST POINT OF UNDERSTANDING MUST COME FROM INVESTIGATING THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD STIGMA. ACCORDING TO MERRIAM-WEBSTER IT REFERS TO A MARK, AND NOT SO MUCH IN RELATION TO A ‘BLEMISH AGAINST ONE’S NAME’, (SOCIO-ETHICAL DISAPPROVAL) BUT VERY MUCH MORE TO DO WITH A ‘BRANDING’, A SOCIAL STATUS THAT DERIVES FROM THE ORIGINAL NOMENCLATURE, WHICH REFERS TO THAT OF A SLAVE.
This social status identifier was directly linked to being ‘owned’ – the property of someone, or something. This ‘branding’ then shaped the identity by stripping away personhood, self-governance/ agency and capacity, as you were now first and foremost property, not person. The removal of that ‘stigma’ and the restoration of human dignity came when one was out from under, not the ‘label’, but the ownership, the dominion/control of that one or thing.” Drug_Use_Stigma_22-07-19.pdf (nobrainer.org.au)
I agree with you, Hayden, both as to the excellence of the article and your point that judgement still exists but has switched its focus to new attitudes and behaviours. Little shame is now attached to abandoning your partner and children, and single parents are just a fact of life. However, if you should draw attention to the fact that much poverty and mental illness is linked to this selfish behaviour, you are clearly some kind of uncaring social fascist! My church belongs to the ‘inclusive Church’ network, which seems to be code for LGBT acceptance. That’s all very well, but conservative Christians who, for example, think that marriage is by definition a heterosexual union are clearly NOT ‘included’!
Well done sir! (If I may be so bold as to assume your chosen pronoun)
For me, the key sentence was “Stealing, looting, prostitution, medically burdensome obesity, and sexual predation on children don’t make the world a better place.” The author apparently has no issue with being the sole arbiter of good and bad in this case. But isn’t that the point of it all? In a society that believes in moral relativity, we each have the right to decide what is good or bad. If that is the case then anything goes. Absolutely anything.
To add to the chaos, the people who traditionally made judgements now hesitate. Witness Pope Francis when questioned about the new head of the Papal Household having a very lurid same sex history in Montevideo – “Who am I to judge?” You’re the ******* Pope, sunshine…. As riotously parodied in this video from early in his reign. Since then he has declared in writing that all religions are willed by God. I’m not sure if that includes Satanists and Scientologist.
https://youtu.be/WEchg1KhmTY
The most potent political, cultural and social credo of this new century is making ANY form of discrimination an evil. Groupthink sits guard ready to banish and denounce any transgressor from the tribe. The media focus on race gender and the ‘Big Nine’ legally privileged Victim groups, but the anti discriminayory mania – call it M.A.D – is actually way way bigger than all that. It is a wormlike form of derangement and groupthink that is now IN us all. Stigma was an inevitable casualty of MAD. Any ‘judgement’ which implies looking down at another person’s behaviour is taboo. Welcome to the grubby realities of a vacuum carved out by a bland secular post Christian Age suddenly filled by a noxious cult of equality and its mean fists in our faces – a universal terror of discrimination. Fight this fight too wonderful Lionel.
A little initial ‘shame’ that adjusts conduct can save a great deal of guilt and pain (for many) of future unfettered and habitual, ummm… ‘less than best-practice’ behaviours.
A little initial ‘shame’ that adjusts conduct, can save a great deal of guilt and pain (for many) of future unfettered and now habitual “less that best-practice”.
Substance Use and Stigma – What are the drivers for stigma? Is the fact that someone simply uses a drug that makes them the target of derision and abuse? Clearly not, as it seems very fashionable for growing demographics to enter into the ‘recreational use’ of drugs. So, what is it that actually attracts the ire that can, at times, pronounce pejoratives over some drug using punters?
“INTERPRETATIONS OF SOCIAL STIGMA CAN BE LINKED TO SEVERAL MEASURES. OUR FIRST POINT OF UNDERSTANDING MUST COME FROM INVESTIGATING THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD STIGMA. ACCORDING TO MERRIAM-WEBSTER IT REFERS TO A MARK, AND NOT SO MUCH IN RELATION TO A ‘BLEMISH AGAINST ONE’S NAME’, (SOCIO-ETHICAL DISAPPROVAL) BUT VERY MUCH MORE TO DO WITH A ‘BRANDING’, A SOCIAL STATUS THAT DERIVES FROM THE ORIGINAL NOMENCLATURE, WHICH REFERS TO THAT OF A SLAVE.
This social status identifier was directly linked to being ‘owned’ – the property of someone, or something. This ‘branding’ then shaped the identity by stripping away personhood, self-governance/ agency and capacity, as you were now first and foremost property, not person. The removal of that ‘stigma’ and the restoration of human dignity came when one was out from under, not the ‘label’, but the ownership, the dominion/control of that one or thing.” Drug_Use_Stigma_22-07-19.pdf (nobrainer.org.au)
This is a wonderful article, Lionel, and you say the obvious in a way which few people will now do.
But I must disagree with some of it. “For the consistent pattern here is an accelerating, positively demented refusal to make judgments. ”
This is not entirely true. Society does make judgements, but they are different to what they once were and they are no longer “pro social”.
Look at the moral panic around race.
I once asked a prospective candidate to proofread his CV. An hour later my boss and an HR goon called me to “discuss the interview” because the candidate had complained that my insistence on good grammar was code for “hiring native English speakers”, and therefore “white people” only.
I concealed that the candidate in question was a sheep-white Yorkshireman. HR were too afraid to ask me what his skin colour was, preferring to make this a “general point”.
But when I did finally disclose the colour of the fellow, the sigh of relief was audible. Until that point they feared a multimillion pound racial harassment lawsuit and, until that point, I was in danger of losing my job.
The other stigma, implied but not stated, was that, being a white African, I was self evidently a racist. For many circles of leftwing intellectual, and for many woke corporates, white skin itself is a stigma. And if you are both white and from Africa (they don’t often appear to distinguish one white African from another – presumably we are one homogenous “evil type” in their eyes), then you are doubly in the wrong.
In our current time a mere accusation of racism can end a career. And denying an allegation of racism is often considered to be proof that the accusation had merit to begin with (for only someone who was guilty would, as their Quantum mechanical double-think goes, protest their innocence). Allegations like this stick to a person like jam to a biscuit.
People are also judged for failing to use the right language. There are ever shifting goal posts of vocabulary that “right thinking” people must consistently keep up with to demonstrate their purity.
There is therefore judgement attached by self-identified gatekeepers to we commoners for what they imagine we think, rather than to how we conduct ourselves with people we relate to in the real world.
It is not true, then, that we are moving inexorably towards “non judgement”, but rather to a world where new playmakers decide what we should and shouldn’t be judgemental about.
And they largely appear to be unconcerned with the reality that much of what they advocate hurts the very groups they imagine themselves to be representing (which is where myself and Lionel are in full agreement).
This is a case of a liberal society eating itself. Every society needs binding rules and respected principles to function. Those rules/principles – by their very nature – limit one’s freedom, either by the force of law or by societal judgment, i.e. stigma. It’s foolish to think that a liberal society means trashing all of these rules in favour of untrammelled freedom.
The question is – where do you redraw the line in modern society? It’s a good thing that some things have been destigmatised – who would want to go back to the dark days of homosexuality being illegal?
But it’s all gone too far now. People who get so morbidly overweight that they can’t work or even walk…primarily they are damaging themselves, but there is a cost to society from the situation they have put themselves in (health care costs, benefits etc.). And therein lies the rub: stigma needs to happen where individual behaviour starts to have too much of an adverse effect on others/society as a whole. Liberal society presupposes that the people in it are able to deal sensibly with the freedoms they have. If you reach that inflection point, then the person clearly hasn’t handled their freedoms well and the behaviour needs regulating – either by law or by peer pressure. That’s how all societies work – even liberal ones. No rules, no society.
To continue too far down the destigmatisation road and to insist on ever more things being free of judgment is also to infantilise society. One of the fundamental acts of growing up is realising that you can’t do what you want and have what you want all the time. You hear the word “no”, have restrictions placed upon you and learn how to operate within them. Allowing everybody to do just what they want all the time without consequence leads to a society comprising narcissistic, overgrown kids with no consideration for how their own conduct might impact on others. Not a pleasant prospect.
Ah the slippery slope. The undefeated champion!
But who decides? If humans get to choose, we are doomed.
There’s something about these ‘new standards’ that not only scream ‘leftism, socialism’, etc. but also low-class, un- or under- educated, undisciplined, moronic and even barbaric (chopping body parts off to attain a new gender). Yup, you can even say ‘stigmas’ contribute to a more cultured and civilized society, ie we’re going backwards.
Prospect? If only it were still a “prospect”!
Trouble is, the infants seem to have attained positions of authority.
Ah the slippery slope. The undefeated champion!
But who decides? If humans get to choose, we are doomed.
There’s something about these ‘new standards’ that not only scream ‘leftism, socialism’, etc. but also low-class, un- or under- educated, undisciplined, moronic and even barbaric (chopping body parts off to attain a new gender). Yup, you can even say ‘stigmas’ contribute to a more cultured and civilized society, ie we’re going backwards.
Prospect? If only it were still a “prospect”!
Trouble is, the infants seem to have attained positions of authority.
This is a case of a liberal society eating itself. Every society needs binding rules and respected principles to function. Those rules/principles – by their very nature – limit one’s freedom, either by the force of law or by societal judgment, i.e. stigma. It’s foolish to think that a liberal society means trashing all of these rules in favour of untrammelled freedom.
The question is – where do you redraw the line in modern society? It’s a good thing that some things have been destigmatised – who would want to go back to the dark days of homosexuality being illegal?
But it’s all gone too far now. People who get so morbidly overweight that they can’t work or even walk…primarily they are damaging themselves, but there is a cost to society from the situation they have put themselves in (health care costs, benefits etc.). And therein lies the rub: stigma needs to happen where individual behaviour starts to have too much of an adverse effect on others/society as a whole. Liberal society presupposes that the people in it are able to deal sensibly with the freedoms they have. If you reach that inflection point, then the person clearly hasn’t handled their freedoms well and the behaviour needs regulating – either by law or by peer pressure. That’s how all societies work – even liberal ones. No rules, no society.
To continue too far down the destigmatisation road and to insist on ever more things being free of judgment is also to infantilise society. One of the fundamental acts of growing up is realising that you can’t do what you want and have what you want all the time. You hear the word “no”, have restrictions placed upon you and learn how to operate within them. Allowing everybody to do just what they want all the time without consequence leads to a society comprising narcissistic, overgrown kids with no consideration for how their own conduct might impact on others. Not a pleasant prospect.
Whatever happened to sympathy while encouraging people to better themselves? I’m sorry, but you cannot help someone if you pretend they do not have a problem.
There’s a great deal to be said for the concept of sometimes having to “be cruel to be kind”.
What about responsibility? The Kohima Epitaph says ” We gave our day for your tommorrow “. Millions died and and were crippled during WW2. People conquered fear, cold hunger in order to ensure our freedom yet some people lack the emotional maturity, responsibility ,self control to prevent themselves becoming obese which means others have to pay vast amounts for their health care.
Guy Gibson VC said he was scared everytime he flew yet this never stopped him. Odette Sansom GC resisted telling the Gestapo information even when she was burnt with pokers and had her toe nails ripped out. Why can the obese not summon a fraction of the self control of Gibson or Sansom. Can civilisation endure without self control?
The problem with your examples vis-a-vis today, if I may say, is that the defenders of Kohima, Gibson VC and Sansom GC had the strength and responsibility (duty) that flows easily from a moral imperative, or to put it less dramatically, a consensus. Today there is little or no moral imperative, as exampled in the article. Anything goes. I doubt self control ever enters the heads of obese people. Why should it?
You are probably correct which is depressing.
I think that today’s ‘everything goes’ society might struggle to produce a Guy Gibson or an Odette Samsom.
We may have to go back to the lab (but not Wing Cdr Gibson’s lab).
You are probably correct which is depressing.
I think that today’s ‘everything goes’ society might struggle to produce a Guy Gibson or an Odette Samsom.
We may have to go back to the lab (but not Wing Cdr Gibson’s lab).
Pedant alert: it actually says
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.
Thnk you.
Thnk you.
The problem with your examples vis-a-vis today, if I may say, is that the defenders of Kohima, Gibson VC and Sansom GC had the strength and responsibility (duty) that flows easily from a moral imperative, or to put it less dramatically, a consensus. Today there is little or no moral imperative, as exampled in the article. Anything goes. I doubt self control ever enters the heads of obese people. Why should it?
Pedant alert: it actually says
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.
There’s a great deal to be said for the concept of sometimes having to “be cruel to be kind”.
What about responsibility? The Kohima Epitaph says ” We gave our day for your tommorrow “. Millions died and and were crippled during WW2. People conquered fear, cold hunger in order to ensure our freedom yet some people lack the emotional maturity, responsibility ,self control to prevent themselves becoming obese which means others have to pay vast amounts for their health care.
Guy Gibson VC said he was scared everytime he flew yet this never stopped him. Odette Sansom GC resisted telling the Gestapo information even when she was burnt with pokers and had her toe nails ripped out. Why can the obese not summon a fraction of the self control of Gibson or Sansom. Can civilisation endure without self control?
Whatever happened to sympathy while encouraging people to better themselves? I’m sorry, but you cannot help someone if you pretend they do not have a problem.
Lionel Shriver writes with the emotional acuteness of an artist and the specificity of a scientist. Many of the article’s personal and philosophical insights resonated with some of the dilemmas I faced. Like Shriver, I also have very conservative parents. I despised and rebelled against their various prohibitions but also recognised that having some sense of moral limit protected me from the chaos that overly liberated behaviour could bring me and loved ones. Shame and the other secondary emotions (guilt and embarrassment) are powerful and innate. They evolved to facilitate social harmony. To try and program them out in the name of social justice is to overturn human nature and sow collective breakdown. Shriver’s voice and insights are so distinct in both her essays and fiction. I admire her a lot!
Well said, and that trumps the “lets return to a religious worldview” a million times over.
Excellent points, Frances An. An interesting aspect of shame is that it is most functional at the group or societal level, but tends to be dysfunctional at the individual level. That is to say shame helps keep people in line by presenting the threat of ostracism –nobody wants to be a pariah, so shame represents the threat of being an outcast that tends to help regulate society. However, at the individual level, the coping behaviors for shame are not specifically uplifting. Unlike guilt–with its focus on the transgression rather than the self–toward which individuals generally respond with recompense (thereby making themselves better individuals), with shame–and its focus on the self–individuals tend to cope by minimizing the perceived negative attribute (and/or transgression if there is one), or externalize the cause (rather than attribute to their own control), and the effect shame has on anger can often be ugly. On the other hand, guilt combines with anger in more constructive ways. So your point about how shame is powerful and innate and evolved to facilitate social harmony is well taken, and moreover, to try to program it out is both ill considered and futile. The trick is to try to shift or transform feelings of shame into feelings of guilt so that the coping behaviors for the individual are more self-improving rather than painful and debilitating.
Very good points.
Very good points.
It used to be that kids sowed their wild oats and then settled down. What seems to have happened is that increasing numbers have decided that wild oats (utterly selfish behaviour) should be a lifetime thing. There’s only one end to that tendency, but you’d have to stop and consider it before you’d worry.
Well said, and that trumps the “lets return to a religious worldview” a million times over.
Excellent points, Frances An. An interesting aspect of shame is that it is most functional at the group or societal level, but tends to be dysfunctional at the individual level. That is to say shame helps keep people in line by presenting the threat of ostracism –nobody wants to be a pariah, so shame represents the threat of being an outcast that tends to help regulate society. However, at the individual level, the coping behaviors for shame are not specifically uplifting. Unlike guilt–with its focus on the transgression rather than the self–toward which individuals generally respond with recompense (thereby making themselves better individuals), with shame–and its focus on the self–individuals tend to cope by minimizing the perceived negative attribute (and/or transgression if there is one), or externalize the cause (rather than attribute to their own control), and the effect shame has on anger can often be ugly. On the other hand, guilt combines with anger in more constructive ways. So your point about how shame is powerful and innate and evolved to facilitate social harmony is well taken, and moreover, to try to program it out is both ill considered and futile. The trick is to try to shift or transform feelings of shame into feelings of guilt so that the coping behaviors for the individual are more self-improving rather than painful and debilitating.
It used to be that kids sowed their wild oats and then settled down. What seems to have happened is that increasing numbers have decided that wild oats (utterly selfish behaviour) should be a lifetime thing. There’s only one end to that tendency, but you’d have to stop and consider it before you’d worry.
Lionel Shriver writes with the emotional acuteness of an artist and the specificity of a scientist. Many of the article’s personal and philosophical insights resonated with some of the dilemmas I faced. Like Shriver, I also have very conservative parents. I despised and rebelled against their various prohibitions but also recognised that having some sense of moral limit protected me from the chaos that overly liberated behaviour could bring me and loved ones. Shame and the other secondary emotions (guilt and embarrassment) are powerful and innate. They evolved to facilitate social harmony. To try and program them out in the name of social justice is to overturn human nature and sow collective breakdown. Shriver’s voice and insights are so distinct in both her essays and fiction. I admire her a lot!
Good article. The rise of obesity and attempts to normalise it says something is really unbalanced in our society. The astonishing ease with which high calorie food can be procured, the use of additives that are obesogenic and the cult of eating ‘special’ food every day, must send food manufacturers into swoons of delight. They probably push the movement against fat shaming. It’s profitable for them for obesity to be normalised. But it’s not normal. Something north of 60 per cent of the British population is overweight. It contributes to personal misery and poor health outcomes everywhere. It is evidence of malnutrition and yet we accept it and are now asked to embrace it. It’s too bizarre.
Strangely, those who end up fat don’t eat much fat, due to over half a century of ‘eating fat is bad’ propaganda.
Those who do eat plenty of fat (and avoid ultra-processed foods) tend to be slimmer.
Strangely, those who end up fat don’t eat much fat, due to over half a century of ‘eating fat is bad’ propaganda.
Those who do eat plenty of fat (and avoid ultra-processed foods) tend to be slimmer.
Good article. The rise of obesity and attempts to normalise it says something is really unbalanced in our society. The astonishing ease with which high calorie food can be procured, the use of additives that are obesogenic and the cult of eating ‘special’ food every day, must send food manufacturers into swoons of delight. They probably push the movement against fat shaming. It’s profitable for them for obesity to be normalised. But it’s not normal. Something north of 60 per cent of the British population is overweight. It contributes to personal misery and poor health outcomes everywhere. It is evidence of malnutrition and yet we accept it and are now asked to embrace it. It’s too bizarre.
My problem with the author is this. She is lamenting the loss of prior standards, while at the same time never having her own worldview that would create those same standards. She wants shame to come back, but only for pragmatic reasons hollowed out of any meaning beyond their secular utility.
She laments the destructive and chaotic effects of sex unmoored from any universal standards, and yet argues for them only for cultural utility. Is masturbating hurting anyone else? Is her own husband denied intimacy for her self-focused indulgence? Who or what is she thinking of when she does this to herself? Is feeding that secret desire having no effect at all on her marriage relationship?
I think what is missing there is motives, and desires of the heart are important too. It’s not simply our external actions, but Jesus got to the heart of the issue in the Sermon on the Mount. Character begins in the heart and mind, but really she has no interest in the transcendent objective standards that her parents raised her with, only the fruit of it, stripped of the universal truths that gives meaning to the particular fruits and actions.
This is sort of like the prodigal son who wanted the inheritance without the faither. He wanted the benefits and the good things without the true relationship, but he took that and simply used and squandered it, winding up with nothing and eating with pigs.
Lionel, you can’t have the particulars without the transcendent universal that gives meaning to the particulars. These are the basic philosophical categories, universals, and particulars we find in Platonism and Aristotelianism. There must be a universal objective reality giving meaning to the particulars of our finite subjective lives or else even the particulars we rely on will begin to lose their meaning, and as you have observed, chaos ensues. To be brief, you can’t have your previously more just and ordered society and ditch God. You can’t ditch the Christianity and it’s previously accepted standards, and still have the world function. It’s going to fall apart into something much darker.
Not sure how natural to the feminine sensibility transcendent standards and principles really are. We are blessed instead to live in the triumph of feminism.
Oh please, spare us the righteousness. I’d suggest to you that Lionel has transcendent standards that transcend the limitations of a world view based upon the premise that Christ was, or was related to, a deity. It’s the very failure of that deification that’s led to a change in mores, not because somehow humans are “fallen” (for goodness sake).
Christianity has some fine principles, there’s no doubt about that; but those principles have no objective backing by a non-existent god. Pretending otherwise is an utterly retrograde step for us all.
Are there particulars from which universals might be drawn? Isn’t that the question? Schopenhauer claims to have set Hume straight on it. Did he?
I was listening this week to Sam Harris recounting a conversation with a leading American preacher who said that were it not for his faith in God, he’d have nothing to hold himself back from sin – killing, raping etc. He seemed to genuinely believe this. What a tragic, pernicious idea – that humans are only good through God (the lie that we have no innate, of humanistic morality) – you end up thinking everything of something that isn’t, and nothing of something that is. Falsely trying to outsource your moral sense; reducing a human to something that should just obey holy rules, without reflection. It may be no coincidence that America is the most religious developed country, and the main source of tragic and immoral behaviour.
The Mongols and their cousins did not have any problem killing and murdering those they conquered. They managed to kill 1+M in day and Gengis Khan probably slaughtered 40M.
The Aztecs sacrificed 80K in year.
Not many religions give any value to life outside of the tribe.
Yes, there is that! Religion also tells you that the voice in your head – be that, ‘help this poor person’, or ‘kill the heathens’, is God’s word (both sentiments are in the Holy books). Probably makes both acts a little easier – but even the postive act is lessened , if you think it was someone else’s idea.
If we look at periods of mass human migration, end of Bronze Age Middle East, Collapse of Western Roman Empire and nomad migration from 410 AD to Timur The Lame 1400 AD, communism and nazism, we can see that humans are easily capable mass slaughter . I would say the Abraham Faiths, Greek and Roman religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism limit the willingness to undertake mass slaughter and limit arbitrary acts of violence by ruler on ruled. Somethings better than nothing.
If we look at periods of mass human migration, end of Bronze Age Middle East, Collapse of Western Roman Empire and nomad migration from 410 AD to Timur The Lame 1400 AD, communism and nazism, we can see that humans are easily capable mass slaughter . I would say the Abraham Faiths, Greek and Roman religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism limit the willingness to undertake mass slaughter and limit arbitrary acts of violence by ruler on ruled. Somethings better than nothing.
Yes, there is that! Religion also tells you that the voice in your head – be that, ‘help this poor person’, or ‘kill the heathens’, is God’s word (both sentiments are in the Holy books). Probably makes both acts a little easier – but even the postive act is lessened , if you think it was someone else’s idea.
The Mongols and their cousins did not have any problem killing and murdering those they conquered. They managed to kill 1+M in day and Gengis Khan probably slaughtered 40M.
The Aztecs sacrificed 80K in year.
Not many religions give any value to life outside of the tribe.
In the absence of God…if there is no heaven, no hell, then everything is permissible and the only thing which separates A from B is the degree to which the choice fulfills my particular, of the moment, appetite.
The recognition that there is, indeed, an Absolute anchors every judgement in the Transcendent (however poorly we may understand it). It says there is that which is Morally Right and that which is Morally Wrong. It tells us there is something sacred beyond sheer mundane utility.
In fact Christian principles are indeed backed by God and it is through our efforts to understand and worship God that those principles you value have been created. Why would you believe such Faith to be retrograde….especially when every nation or culture founded on the absence of faith (Soviet Union / China both come to mind) have been characterized by nothing so much as bloody terror?
Your comment could usefully be used as an example in a Philosophy 101 class on logical fallacies.
Undoubtedly….but probably not in the way you intend.
Undoubtedly….but probably not in the way you intend.
Your comment could usefully be used as an example in a Philosophy 101 class on logical fallacies.
Are there particulars from which universals might be drawn? Isn’t that the question? Schopenhauer claims to have set Hume straight on it. Did he?
I was listening this week to Sam Harris recounting a conversation with a leading American preacher who said that were it not for his faith in God, he’d have nothing to hold himself back from sin – killing, raping etc. He seemed to genuinely believe this. What a tragic, pernicious idea – that humans are only good through God (the lie that we have no innate, of humanistic morality) – you end up thinking everything of something that isn’t, and nothing of something that is. Falsely trying to outsource your moral sense; reducing a human to something that should just obey holy rules, without reflection. It may be no coincidence that America is the most religious developed country, and the main source of tragic and immoral behaviour.
In the absence of God…if there is no heaven, no hell, then everything is permissible and the only thing which separates A from B is the degree to which the choice fulfills my particular, of the moment, appetite.
The recognition that there is, indeed, an Absolute anchors every judgement in the Transcendent (however poorly we may understand it). It says there is that which is Morally Right and that which is Morally Wrong. It tells us there is something sacred beyond sheer mundane utility.
In fact Christian principles are indeed backed by God and it is through our efforts to understand and worship God that those principles you value have been created. Why would you believe such Faith to be retrograde….especially when every nation or culture founded on the absence of faith (Soviet Union / China both come to mind) have been characterized by nothing so much as bloody terror?
A deep and insightful answer, with which I profoundly agree
Not sure how natural to the feminine sensibility transcendent standards and principles really are. We are blessed instead to live in the triumph of feminism.
Oh please, spare us the righteousness. I’d suggest to you that Lionel has transcendent standards that transcend the limitations of a world view based upon the premise that Christ was, or was related to, a deity. It’s the very failure of that deification that’s led to a change in mores, not because somehow humans are “fallen” (for goodness sake).
Christianity has some fine principles, there’s no doubt about that; but those principles have no objective backing by a non-existent god. Pretending otherwise is an utterly retrograde step for us all.
A deep and insightful answer, with which I profoundly agree
My problem with the author is this. She is lamenting the loss of prior standards, while at the same time never having her own worldview that would create those same standards. She wants shame to come back, but only for pragmatic reasons hollowed out of any meaning beyond their secular utility.
She laments the destructive and chaotic effects of sex unmoored from any universal standards, and yet argues for them only for cultural utility. Is masturbating hurting anyone else? Is her own husband denied intimacy for her self-focused indulgence? Who or what is she thinking of when she does this to herself? Is feeding that secret desire having no effect at all on her marriage relationship?
I think what is missing there is motives, and desires of the heart are important too. It’s not simply our external actions, but Jesus got to the heart of the issue in the Sermon on the Mount. Character begins in the heart and mind, but really she has no interest in the transcendent objective standards that her parents raised her with, only the fruit of it, stripped of the universal truths that gives meaning to the particular fruits and actions.
This is sort of like the prodigal son who wanted the inheritance without the faither. He wanted the benefits and the good things without the true relationship, but he took that and simply used and squandered it, winding up with nothing and eating with pigs.
Lionel, you can’t have the particulars without the transcendent universal that gives meaning to the particulars. These are the basic philosophical categories, universals, and particulars we find in Platonism and Aristotelianism. There must be a universal objective reality giving meaning to the particulars of our finite subjective lives or else even the particulars we rely on will begin to lose their meaning, and as you have observed, chaos ensues. To be brief, you can’t have your previously more just and ordered society and ditch God. You can’t ditch the Christianity and it’s previously accepted standards, and still have the world function. It’s going to fall apart into something much darker.
A few years ago the University of Utrecht hosted one of its alumni to come speak to its students about entrepreneurship. She was a successful business lady who had started her own sex agency. After her talk she handed out brochures for any female students interested in working for her. The university’s course applauded her initiative and approved the kind of work she was offering as a viable means of paying for college tuition and avoiding study debt. The Dutch government has so infantilized its own people that they have come to see this form of servitude as a means to personal liberation.
The Dutch have always had a much more relaxed attitude to life though. I’ve known a good few over the years and most seem to believe that people should be left to do as they please, as long as it doesn’t adversely affect others
I’m certainly a believer in “live and let live”, and yet the rise in obesity has clearly become a cost to society. Not on an individual level perhaps, and that’s where the ‘thinking’ of those who would seek to do away with previous stigmas fall short.
I’m not suggesting you were implying the Dutch were right, btw, simply describing their mindset.
Strangely enough I never came across any fat Dutch on my travels that I can remember.
Strangely enough I never came across any fat Dutch on my travels that I can remember.
I’m certainly a believer in “live and let live”, and yet the rise in obesity has clearly become a cost to society. Not on an individual level perhaps, and that’s where the ‘thinking’ of those who would seek to do away with previous stigmas fall short.
I’m not suggesting you were implying the Dutch were right, btw, simply describing their mindset.
The Dutch have always had a much more relaxed attitude to life though. I’ve known a good few over the years and most seem to believe that people should be left to do as they please, as long as it doesn’t adversely affect others
A few years ago the University of Utrecht hosted one of its alumni to come speak to its students about entrepreneurship. She was a successful business lady who had started her own sex agency. After her talk she handed out brochures for any female students interested in working for her. The university’s course applauded her initiative and approved the kind of work she was offering as a viable means of paying for college tuition and avoiding study debt. The Dutch government has so infantilized its own people that they have come to see this form of servitude as a means to personal liberation.
Those who decry a particular stigma generally use stigma as a weapon to defend their position and attack dissenters accusing those who disagree with them of being some kind of phobist or just an ist.
Those who decry a particular stigma generally use stigma as a weapon to defend their position and attack dissenters accusing those who disagree with them of being some kind of phobist or just an ist.
Good article. It is an interesting paradox that many of the same non-judgmental leftist civic leaders in places like San Francisco and Portland are ok with using the guilt gun to manipulate those who disagree with them, firing shots of label-shaming and cancellation to silence them.
Good article. It is an interesting paradox that many of the same non-judgmental leftist civic leaders in places like San Francisco and Portland are ok with using the guilt gun to manipulate those who disagree with them, firing shots of label-shaming and cancellation to silence them.
I have trouble seeing any “refusal to make judgments” – aren’t we just re-directing the stigma and deflecting it back through an inverted stigma? When we call out ‘fat-shaming’ – we are shaming the speaker and stigmatizing those who would advocate self discipline and healthy living. It’s a way of turning the tables – vice is virtuous and virtue is vice. But what happens when we weaken or eliminate all social forces that help to point us toward self discipline? Well – look around, the experiment has begun. I think we will find that the amount of misery, poverty, sloth, addiction, disease and anti-social behaviour will increase dramatically. Then who will we blame?
I have trouble seeing any “refusal to make judgments” – aren’t we just re-directing the stigma and deflecting it back through an inverted stigma? When we call out ‘fat-shaming’ – we are shaming the speaker and stigmatizing those who would advocate self discipline and healthy living. It’s a way of turning the tables – vice is virtuous and virtue is vice. But what happens when we weaken or eliminate all social forces that help to point us toward self discipline? Well – look around, the experiment has begun. I think we will find that the amount of misery, poverty, sloth, addiction, disease and anti-social behaviour will increase dramatically. Then who will we blame?
Interesting article. But it somewhat conflates two quite different forms of stigma: which I think can be classified as ‘moral’ and ‘the rest’ (aesthetic, health conscious, fashion conscious, etc). Moral stigma comes from a belief that something is immoral, and that therefore moral people ought to avoid it. ‘The rest’ come from various versions of opinion, which might be defended by recourse to reality, or common sense, or the use of reason, but are nonetheless an output of opinion. I suggest this conflation is unhelpful other than as a general commentary on the way that the anti-judgemental moral permissiveness of The West also has some rather bad effects when it is extrapolated into non-moral areas (aesthetics, health, fashion, etc). Now in fairness the author does make this commentary, and rather well. But the rather obvious corollary of showing that anti-judgemental permissiveness has harmful effects when it is used as a rule in these other areas, is that perhaps it was rather a bad rule in the sphere of morality, too. This trick, something of an open goal, the author missed. I suspect intentionally.
Incidentally, the stigma attached to m*sturbati*n may certainly have been expressed in post-puritan (usually protestant) societies as ‘puritanical discomfort with sexual pleasure’, but that is not at the root of the stigma, or the shame, or the moral prohibition: that has to do with continence and the ideal of chastity. This – somewhat obviously, I think – is also at the root of the ‘NoFap’ online movement: young men (both religious and not, apparently), dislike being controlled by their desires, rather than vice versa. That morality places these desires in a ‘proper’ environment (for example, with Christians, marriage) and defines what is outside the boundaries of this as ‘improper’ therefore stands to reason. And anyway, the clear history of large families in the Christian tradition (including Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism) suggests to me that the alleged ‘discomfort with sexual pleasure’ is just a rather silly slur.
Interesting article. But it somewhat conflates two quite different forms of stigma: which I think can be classified as ‘moral’ and ‘the rest’ (aesthetic, health conscious, fashion conscious, etc). Moral stigma comes from a belief that something is immoral, and that therefore moral people ought to avoid it. ‘The rest’ come from various versions of opinion, which might be defended by recourse to reality, or common sense, or the use of reason, but are nonetheless an output of opinion. I suggest this conflation is unhelpful other than as a general commentary on the way that the anti-judgemental moral permissiveness of The West also has some rather bad effects when it is extrapolated into non-moral areas (aesthetics, health, fashion, etc). Now in fairness the author does make this commentary, and rather well. But the rather obvious corollary of showing that anti-judgemental permissiveness has harmful effects when it is used as a rule in these other areas, is that perhaps it was rather a bad rule in the sphere of morality, too. This trick, something of an open goal, the author missed. I suspect intentionally.
Incidentally, the stigma attached to m*sturbati*n may certainly have been expressed in post-puritan (usually protestant) societies as ‘puritanical discomfort with sexual pleasure’, but that is not at the root of the stigma, or the shame, or the moral prohibition: that has to do with continence and the ideal of chastity. This – somewhat obviously, I think – is also at the root of the ‘NoFap’ online movement: young men (both religious and not, apparently), dislike being controlled by their desires, rather than vice versa. That morality places these desires in a ‘proper’ environment (for example, with Christians, marriage) and defines what is outside the boundaries of this as ‘improper’ therefore stands to reason. And anyway, the clear history of large families in the Christian tradition (including Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism) suggests to me that the alleged ‘discomfort with sexual pleasure’ is just a rather silly slur.
Criminals have been using destigmatisation for centuries under the rubric, ‘Everyone does it.’
Criminals have been using destigmatisation for centuries under the rubric, ‘Everyone does it.’
It was probably inevitable that over-valorizing “judge not lest ye be judged” would create a downward spiral of self-congratulatory indulgence of ever more horrific behavior. We must be close to the bottom point at which mass revulsion of what we’ve talked ourselves into accepting prompts a very unpleasant and possibly violent backlash.
It was probably inevitable that over-valorizing “judge not lest ye be judged” would create a downward spiral of self-congratulatory indulgence of ever more horrific behavior. We must be close to the bottom point at which mass revulsion of what we’ve talked ourselves into accepting prompts a very unpleasant and possibly violent backlash.
What was wrong with calling a spade a spade, other than the WOKE obvious? THE truth has been subsumed into MY truth and as a result we are losing a grip on reality. We have got to turn this tide of increasing madness and prioritise logic and reason not feelings.
What was wrong with calling a spade a spade, other than the WOKE obvious? THE truth has been subsumed into MY truth and as a result we are losing a grip on reality. We have got to turn this tide of increasing madness and prioritise logic and reason not feelings.
Fabulous article Lionel, love this one line referring to absolution of fault: “distances people from their own decisions and deprives them of agency. ” Correct – self determination is what makes us humans. In a brutal sense this is survival of the fittest. I personally do not understand why society would shield people from their own failure to take the necessary steps to survive.
You are right to point out the schism between this “mindless moral neutrality” and the diabolical shaming of a small section of individuals for being strong enough not to accept “vaccinations”. However I would have enjoyed your eloquence referring to my experience (hearing friends and family wish death upon me, being denied travel etc) without knowing that you were triple vaxxed. Was that addendum a reflection of your potential perceived shaming?
I and those like me are deeply sorry for all of you who fell for government and media (MSM) lies and coercion to go and get three + shots. You were hoodwinked, tricked, hypnotised by government and big pharma – it is not entirely your fault. But please remember for next time, because there will be a next time.
Self determination, ladies and gentlemen, is a thing more people should believe in. Agency and the power to affect your own outcomes is not a thing that should be discouraged in society.
Well said Nic.
“why society would shield people from their own failure” Good point. The only thing I can think of is that todays society with technology, free goodies from governments, and other taken-for-granted comforts physically permits it by largely shielding people from their “own failures”. In days past your own failures had a much more direct impact on your ability to find food and shelter. That in turn, on average, made for a much sturdier human.
Well said Nic.
“why society would shield people from their own failure” Good point. The only thing I can think of is that todays society with technology, free goodies from governments, and other taken-for-granted comforts physically permits it by largely shielding people from their “own failures”. In days past your own failures had a much more direct impact on your ability to find food and shelter. That in turn, on average, made for a much sturdier human.
Fabulous article Lionel, love this one line referring to absolution of fault: “distances people from their own decisions and deprives them of agency. ” Correct – self determination is what makes us humans. In a brutal sense this is survival of the fittest. I personally do not understand why society would shield people from their own failure to take the necessary steps to survive.
You are right to point out the schism between this “mindless moral neutrality” and the diabolical shaming of a small section of individuals for being strong enough not to accept “vaccinations”. However I would have enjoyed your eloquence referring to my experience (hearing friends and family wish death upon me, being denied travel etc) without knowing that you were triple vaxxed. Was that addendum a reflection of your potential perceived shaming?
I and those like me are deeply sorry for all of you who fell for government and media (MSM) lies and coercion to go and get three + shots. You were hoodwinked, tricked, hypnotised by government and big pharma – it is not entirely your fault. But please remember for next time, because there will be a next time.
Self determination, ladies and gentlemen, is a thing more people should believe in. Agency and the power to affect your own outcomes is not a thing that should be discouraged in society.
We are evolutionary beings. Our prehistoric ancestors could not have survived if they were obese, and thereby immobile, or highly dependent on other human beings in any way. Our genes demand that we be able to survive in a harsh environment, we are equipped both mentally and physically for it.
The problem seem to appear when we live in societies that makes rules based on the limit of our intellect. It does not feel natural to be obese, to mutilate your body excessively, even to steal just as it does not feel natural to want to accumulate excessive wealth.
When we form societies that sanctify marriages as the only healthy and acceptable physical relationship , the balance comes from prostitution and promiscuous behaviours of all types. It’s not ideal but understandable that societies make rules and sometimes those rules can be incredibly limiting and we get people who cannot conform for one reason or another and are shunted to the margins.
The solution possibly can be to keep as balanced as possible, and understand why such failures have & will always exist.
This is our society, these are our people and our problems. Perhaps too much tolerance doesn’t help, but neither does lack of tolerance. Murder is inexcusable but it is inevitable in a territorial society, like wars justify murder and all sorts of inexcusable acts of aggression.
“solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant”,* as the British Chieftain Calgacus said, according to Tacitus.
(*’They” make a desert and call it PEACE.)
modernised to ‘they make a dessert, and call it peace’?
modernised to ‘they make a dessert, and call it peace’?
“solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant”,* as the British Chieftain Calgacus said, according to Tacitus.
(*’They” make a desert and call it PEACE.)
We are evolutionary beings. Our prehistoric ancestors could not have survived if they were obese, and thereby immobile, or highly dependent on other human beings in any way. Our genes demand that we be able to survive in a harsh environment, we are equipped both mentally and physically for it.
The problem seem to appear when we live in societies that makes rules based on the limit of our intellect. It does not feel natural to be obese, to mutilate your body excessively, even to steal just as it does not feel natural to want to accumulate excessive wealth.
When we form societies that sanctify marriages as the only healthy and acceptable physical relationship , the balance comes from prostitution and promiscuous behaviours of all types. It’s not ideal but understandable that societies make rules and sometimes those rules can be incredibly limiting and we get people who cannot conform for one reason or another and are shunted to the margins.
The solution possibly can be to keep as balanced as possible, and understand why such failures have & will always exist.
This is our society, these are our people and our problems. Perhaps too much tolerance doesn’t help, but neither does lack of tolerance. Murder is inexcusable but it is inevitable in a territorial society, like wars justify murder and all sorts of inexcusable acts of aggression.
An excellent and penetrating article.
You could argue that “…an accelerating, positively demented refusal to make judgments.” is, in fact, quite Biblical. Judge not lest you be judged.
Some people are so frightened of social disapproval, stigma, that they are willing to throw all social judgements under the bus in case they are applied to themselves at some point. To be fair there are so many people living in close proximity and so connected through vicious social media that avoiding stigma is a full time activity (and quite distanced from any consequences). Signalling virtue and social status are deeply connected to successfully living in a society.
The trick is, I think, to let the pendulum swing back from extreme individualism towards a kind collectivism but not as far as extreme collectivism. Good luck with that.
“Signalling virtue and social status are deeply connected to successfully living in a society.”
Yes, but there’s a big difference between virtue and signaling virtue–that is, between righteousness and self-righteousness. The former is an ideal, the latter a form of hypocrisy now known as wokism.
And the Bible has a lot to say about hypocrisy. Jesus repeatedly attacked the outwardly pious but inwardly corrupt as “whited sepulchers.” But I think that the problem is not merely self-righteous dishonesty. Worse than that is self-righteous divisiveness. The targets, who merely disagree with some prevailing orthodoxy, don’t react well to being ridiculed or shamed, which is therefore a recipe for the polarization of society.
About ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’.
I also feel that a reluctance to criticise others often stems from the need to escape criticism for one’s own failings.
One charming aspect of the woke approach, though, is the marvellous licence it affords for shrill condemnation of others. In other words, the (unperceived) paradox of saying ‘I publicly criticise you for criticising him, when we all know that criticising people is evil.’
And they think this signals their logic and their virtue.
“Signalling virtue and social status are deeply connected to successfully living in a society.”
Yes, but there’s a big difference between virtue and signaling virtue–that is, between righteousness and self-righteousness. The former is an ideal, the latter a form of hypocrisy now known as wokism.
And the Bible has a lot to say about hypocrisy. Jesus repeatedly attacked the outwardly pious but inwardly corrupt as “whited sepulchers.” But I think that the problem is not merely self-righteous dishonesty. Worse than that is self-righteous divisiveness. The targets, who merely disagree with some prevailing orthodoxy, don’t react well to being ridiculed or shamed, which is therefore a recipe for the polarization of society.
About ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’.
I also feel that a reluctance to criticise others often stems from the need to escape criticism for one’s own failings.
One charming aspect of the woke approach, though, is the marvellous licence it affords for shrill condemnation of others. In other words, the (unperceived) paradox of saying ‘I publicly criticise you for criticising him, when we all know that criticising people is evil.’
And they think this signals their logic and their virtue.
An excellent and penetrating article.
You could argue that “…an accelerating, positively demented refusal to make judgments.” is, in fact, quite Biblical. Judge not lest you be judged.
Some people are so frightened of social disapproval, stigma, that they are willing to throw all social judgements under the bus in case they are applied to themselves at some point. To be fair there are so many people living in close proximity and so connected through vicious social media that avoiding stigma is a full time activity (and quite distanced from any consequences). Signalling virtue and social status are deeply connected to successfully living in a society.
The trick is, I think, to let the pendulum swing back from extreme individualism towards a kind collectivism but not as far as extreme collectivism. Good luck with that.
Stigma is a very useful thing indeed, if not taken too far. It is a way of promoting, or even enforcing, pro-social behaviours, without having to bring in the coercive power of the state.
Stigma is a very useful thing indeed, if not taken too far. It is a way of promoting, or even enforcing, pro-social behaviours, without having to bring in the coercive power of the state.
Stigma is a powerful force, yes. And yes, there is a place for stigma. But let us push this consideration just a small step further.
Stigma comes from Standards…the faith that there is a Right & Wrong, Good & Bad. And Standards themselves are derived from Absolutes. which are, of course, the bane of the Progressive Post-Modernist for whom the only ‘absolute’ is ‘Feels Good’.
If it feels good — Do It! Love the one you’re with…have a little Afternoon Delight…in the Back of My Chevy Van….vouler vous couchez avec moi, c’est soir… but will you still love me tomorrow…and, whatever you do, don’t blame it on me!
Ms.Shriver tells us that “On balance, all these historically recent permissions probably make life better”. Probably. Maybe. Possibly? But do they? Or do they simply make life easier, less cumbersome….lighter (as Kundera might say)??
Stigma dies when Standards die…and Standards die when Absolutes are shattered. In a world absent Truth or any sense that there is a God and thereby a hard line between Right & Wrong… In a world empty of Sin in which every act is simply self-expression struggling for acceptance in an Oppressively Heteronormative Racist Sexist Transphobic Nightmare of an Existence: “a little time of which the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere.”… how do these emergent permissions make it all better?
She tells us, that in this brave, new world, “Men and women aren’t stuck married to spouses they detest.” And this is true. But marriage is not a thing which happens to people; it’s not like the downpour which turns roads into seas of mud in which, quite literally, the unwary do indeed get ‘stuck’. Marriage is created as commitment & promise by the very same two people who now ‘feelz’ inextricably mired. Dissolution of the Covenant seems a solution, I suppose…but the non-stigmatized freedom to break covenants hardly seems like a better place to be…nor can we truly say that our ‘post-birthday world’ (to borrow a phrase!). given the moral normalization of divorce, is indeed a better one.
“Having been around the sexual block meant that when I hooked up with my husband, I knew we were a good fit.” Lionel, I don’t buy that. Perhaps it felt like that, but however deep our sexual resume may be it tells us nothing about love or marriage…and whatever it tells us about ‘sexual fit’ we knew before our underwear hit the floor. Sexual fit is a given, given love. And, as your Mother knew, sex in the absence of love is just itch-scratching.
As for masturbation (“Don’t knock it — it’s sex with someone you love.”) the reason we feel that lingering, residual sheepishness is not really so much the ‘puritanical discomfort with pleasure’ but rather our own discomfort with the superficiality of an experience which is only pleasure. And though that passing frisson feels passingly ecstatic, we also recognize in that thrill the Oblomovian temptation that self-indulgent pleasure represents. (After all, it feels good, doesn’t it??? Why not do it MORE!)
In the end, she agrees, ‘stigma isn’t always bad’. Indeed.
But let us go that one step further and embrace the fact that stigma, by and large, is not just ‘not bad’, it’s good. And it’s good because it is the consequence of Sin… the consequence of willfully wrong misbehavior as measured by Standards derived from our understanding of the Absolute.
We feel bad about meaningless sex because — it’s meaningless….because it cheapens what is most sacred….because it separates love from the act which should be most emblematic of love.
We recognize beauty because — it’s beautiful. And because, like Keats, we link our glimpse of that transcendent beauty (whether it is in a face or a sunset or some marble shaped by Bernini) with the Divine. Beauty resonates within us ineluctably, regardless of how much we may pretend that ‘Everything is beautiful in its own way’.
“Stigma has its place”…Ms. Shriver tells us, if only to ‘make the country more liveable.’ But efficiency and national livability is not why Stigma is important. It’s important because it is the natural human consequence of wrong acts….of behaviors which violate our moral sense of what is Right and what is Wrong. We feel revulsion because what we are considering is revolting, in the truest sense of the word.
And the problem, in the here & now, is when we cruelly & wrongly attach false and arbitrary ‘stigma’ (like ‘cancellation’) to whatever behaviors we wish to discourage, like being UnWoke, we betray ourselves…and commit the very act that Stigma is designed to discourage and prevent.
Stigma is a powerful force, yes. And yes, there is a place for stigma. But let us push this consideration just a small step further.
Stigma comes from Standards…the faith that there is a Right & Wrong, Good & Bad. And Standards themselves are derived from Absolutes. which are, of course, the bane of the Progressive Post-Modernist for whom the only ‘absolute’ is ‘Feels Good’.
If it feels good — Do It! Love the one you’re with…have a little Afternoon Delight…in the Back of My Chevy Van….vouler vous couchez avec moi, c’est soir… but will you still love me tomorrow…and, whatever you do, don’t blame it on me!
Ms.Shriver tells us that “On balance, all these historically recent permissions probably make life better”. Probably. Maybe. Possibly? But do they? Or do they simply make life easier, less cumbersome….lighter (as Kundera might say)??
Stigma dies when Standards die…and Standards die when Absolutes are shattered. In a world absent Truth or any sense that there is a God and thereby a hard line between Right & Wrong… In a world empty of Sin in which every act is simply self-expression struggling for acceptance in an Oppressively Heteronormative Racist Sexist Transphobic Nightmare of an Existence: “a little time of which the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere.”… how do these emergent permissions make it all better?
She tells us, that in this brave, new world, “Men and women aren’t stuck married to spouses they detest.” And this is true. But marriage is not a thing which happens to people; it’s not like the downpour which turns roads into seas of mud in which, quite literally, the unwary do indeed get ‘stuck’. Marriage is created as commitment & promise by the very same two people who now ‘feelz’ inextricably mired. Dissolution of the Covenant seems a solution, I suppose…but the non-stigmatized freedom to break covenants hardly seems like a better place to be…nor can we truly say that our ‘post-birthday world’ (to borrow a phrase!). given the moral normalization of divorce, is indeed a better one.
“Having been around the sexual block meant that when I hooked up with my husband, I knew we were a good fit.” Lionel, I don’t buy that. Perhaps it felt like that, but however deep our sexual resume may be it tells us nothing about love or marriage…and whatever it tells us about ‘sexual fit’ we knew before our underwear hit the floor. Sexual fit is a given, given love. And, as your Mother knew, sex in the absence of love is just itch-scratching.
As for masturbation (“Don’t knock it — it’s sex with someone you love.”) the reason we feel that lingering, residual sheepishness is not really so much the ‘puritanical discomfort with pleasure’ but rather our own discomfort with the superficiality of an experience which is only pleasure. And though that passing frisson feels passingly ecstatic, we also recognize in that thrill the Oblomovian temptation that self-indulgent pleasure represents. (After all, it feels good, doesn’t it??? Why not do it MORE!)
In the end, she agrees, ‘stigma isn’t always bad’. Indeed.
But let us go that one step further and embrace the fact that stigma, by and large, is not just ‘not bad’, it’s good. And it’s good because it is the consequence of Sin… the consequence of willfully wrong misbehavior as measured by Standards derived from our understanding of the Absolute.
We feel bad about meaningless sex because — it’s meaningless….because it cheapens what is most sacred….because it separates love from the act which should be most emblematic of love.
We recognize beauty because — it’s beautiful. And because, like Keats, we link our glimpse of that transcendent beauty (whether it is in a face or a sunset or some marble shaped by Bernini) with the Divine. Beauty resonates within us ineluctably, regardless of how much we may pretend that ‘Everything is beautiful in its own way’.
“Stigma has its place”…Ms. Shriver tells us, if only to ‘make the country more liveable.’ But efficiency and national livability is not why Stigma is important. It’s important because it is the natural human consequence of wrong acts….of behaviors which violate our moral sense of what is Right and what is Wrong. We feel revulsion because what we are considering is revolting, in the truest sense of the word.
And the problem, in the here & now, is when we cruelly & wrongly attach false and arbitrary ‘stigma’ (like ‘cancellation’) to whatever behaviors we wish to discourage, like being UnWoke, we betray ourselves…and commit the very act that Stigma is designed to discourage and prevent.
Masterful analysis, absolutely brilliant. I was about to dive in on the matter of the aesthetic relativism of the fat acceptance movement at one point, but a couple of paragraphs down the author did so anyway, to which I’ll add my agreement: it is not only technically infeasible to redefine aesthetic senses through activist-driven cultural change, it is in any case pointless, because all it will do is place a new type of appearance at the bottom of the pecking order. The pecking order itself will still be there, and it will still be a judgment system relating to things that people mostly cannot change.
That might make quite a good movie actually: a world where fat acceptance was so successful that the most beautiful people are the fattest, and diet tips are how to eat 6000 calories a day and to avoid strenuous exercise at all costs. It would have to be a comedy obviously, but in the event that anyone tries to make a serious version, I predict everyone will still be laughing at it anyway.
Masterful analysis, absolutely brilliant. I was about to dive in on the matter of the aesthetic relativism of the fat acceptance movement at one point, but a couple of paragraphs down the author did so anyway, to which I’ll add my agreement: it is not only technically infeasible to redefine aesthetic senses through activist-driven cultural change, it is in any case pointless, because all it will do is place a new type of appearance at the bottom of the pecking order. The pecking order itself will still be there, and it will still be a judgment system relating to things that people mostly cannot change.
That might make quite a good movie actually: a world where fat acceptance was so successful that the most beautiful people are the fattest, and diet tips are how to eat 6000 calories a day and to avoid strenuous exercise at all costs. It would have to be a comedy obviously, but in the event that anyone tries to make a serious version, I predict everyone will still be laughing at it anyway.
Author is right – stigma, or rather some shame or disgrace associated with a form of behaviour, has an essential role in any society. This is the first question and suggestions there is no role for disgrace/shame must be resisted.
We can still be kind and supportive though – even if it’s tax dodging (we can offer structured repayment models!).
The second question is – do we generally agree about the behaviours that should generate some shame/disgrace? One suspects we would coalesce around a significant core, but at the margins there will always be dispute and somethings moving in and out. That’s healthy isn’t it?.
I referred to tax dodging deliberately in first para. For some that’s not a disgraceful behaviour that should be more stigmatised for others it is. Which behaviours do us the most collective damage might be quite a debate. I suspect the morbidly obese wouldn’t be close to the top of such a list.
Author is right – stigma, or rather some shame or disgrace associated with a form of behaviour, has an essential role in any society. This is the first question and suggestions there is no role for disgrace/shame must be resisted.
We can still be kind and supportive though – even if it’s tax dodging (we can offer structured repayment models!).
The second question is – do we generally agree about the behaviours that should generate some shame/disgrace? One suspects we would coalesce around a significant core, but at the margins there will always be dispute and somethings moving in and out. That’s healthy isn’t it?.
I referred to tax dodging deliberately in first para. For some that’s not a disgraceful behaviour that should be more stigmatised for others it is. Which behaviours do us the most collective damage might be quite a debate. I suspect the morbidly obese wouldn’t be close to the top of such a list.
As the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed more than a decade ago,
“What was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned; what was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.”
But even more importantly, she added,
“As deviancy is normalized, so what was once normal becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral – the ‘bourgeois’ family as it is invidiously called – is now seen as pathological and exclusionary, concealing the worst forms of psychic and physical oppression.”
As the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed more than a decade ago,
“What was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned; what was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.”
But even more importantly, she added,
“As deviancy is normalized, so what was once normal becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral – the ‘bourgeois’ family as it is invidiously called – is now seen as pathological and exclusionary, concealing the worst forms of psychic and physical oppression.”
The author seems to be saying that “stigma” should attach to behaviors she doesn’t do and circumstances she is not in. An actual principle would be more persuasive.
She tried to make “cost to society” the principle, but couldn’t be consistent. “Children in care” have a cost in public funds and personal misery just like obese people in hospitals or drug addicts on the streets.
The author seems to be saying that “stigma” should attach to behaviors she doesn’t do and circumstances she is not in. An actual principle would be more persuasive.
She tried to make “cost to society” the principle, but couldn’t be consistent. “Children in care” have a cost in public funds and personal misery just like obese people in hospitals or drug addicts on the streets.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Stigma against behaviour that we know doesn’t make the world a better place has been replaced by stigma against today’s New Blasphemy. Saying a bloke in a wig isn’t a woman; that fat is unhealthy and unattractive; that Afro Caribbeans do worse than Africans.
And so on. We’re as critical as ever. But our criticism has turn into witch-hunt against some pretty innocuous speech, rather at being usefully deployed to discourage people from making bad choices.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Stigma against behaviour that we know doesn’t make the world a better place has been replaced by stigma against today’s New Blasphemy. Saying a bloke in a wig isn’t a woman; that fat is unhealthy and unattractive; that Afro Caribbeans do worse than Africans.
And so on. We’re as critical as ever. But our criticism has turn into witch-hunt against some pretty innocuous speech, rather at being usefully deployed to discourage people from making bad choices.
What a strong, well-made case, in Lionel Shriver’s highest good-humored and fairminded style. And what a notable contrast between the clickbait headline “Western Society Is Built On Stigma” and her actual boiled-down argument: “Stigma has its place [but] some stigma is still both poisonous and unjustified”.
I was all set to find grotesque overreach, but instead found myself on another thoughtful and worthwhile Shriver-piloted journey. Given her personal investment and topical insights, I’d like to read her novel Big Brother, though it will have to follow a growing shortlist of books I’ve already bought and must read (or at least try to and sell back, donate, or recycle) before buying more.
“Is sex work the right path for your child? Attend our parent-child seminar and decide as a family!”. In Defense of Looting…wow. What version of a deluded progressive or rabid libertarian/anarchist would you need to be to think this represents an improvement?
No sort of libertarian could support looting. Libertarians believe in the freedom to do what you want as long as as it does not directly impact another without their consent.
So a libertarian-anarchist–I’m told they exist and have encountered self-professed examples at Reason.com–would never, could never support forcibly seizing the perceived ill-gotten gains of corporations or larcenous individuals?
You’ve given the fundamental, JS Mill definition of the philosophy or “ism” but there are other branches now. Anarchism bears a more clear association with looting or vandalism though.
So a libertarian-anarchist–I’m told they exist and have encountered self-professed examples at Reason.com–would never, could never support forcibly seizing the perceived ill-gotten gains of corporations or larcenous individuals?
You’ve given the fundamental, JS Mill definition of the philosophy or “ism” but there are other branches now. Anarchism bears a more clear association with looting or vandalism though.
No sort of libertarian could support looting. Libertarians believe in the freedom to do what you want as long as as it does not directly impact another without their consent.
What a strong, well-made case, in Lionel Shriver’s highest good-humored and fairminded style. And what a notable contrast between the clickbait headline “Western Society Is Built On Stigma” and her actual boiled-down argument: “Stigma has its place [but] some stigma is still both poisonous and unjustified”.
I was all set to find grotesque overreach, but instead found myself on another thoughtful and worthwhile Shriver-piloted journey. Given her personal investment and topical insights, I’d like to read her novel Big Brother, though it will have to follow a growing shortlist of books I’ve already bought and must read (or at least try to and sell back, donate, or recycle) before buying more.
“Is sex work the right path for your child? Attend our parent-child seminar and decide as a family!”. In Defense of Looting…wow. What version of a deluded progressive or rabid libertarian/anarchist would you need to be to think this represents an improvement?
I find it bizarre that stigmatising obesity – regardless of the cause, something entirely within each of our abilities to change- is wrong in modern society yet stigmatising the height of any man under 6′ tall (and christ, lets hope you’re not 5’7″ or 5’8″!) is perfectly acceptable yet limited by a genetic lottery………
As for ‘sex work is real work’….well lets see your tax returns then.
Good example.
What about stigmatizing ugliness…not just the lack of beauty but the presence of the actively discomfiting….the snaggled teeth, the unsymmetric face, the scarred cheeks, the fat lips (though strangely that seems to have migrated, for some, into the ‘beautiful’ camp)?
It’s illegal, unconstitutional, and roundly considered to be seriously morally wrong to refuse to hire someone because they’re of a certain color or gender…. frowned upon, but not illegal, to refuse hiring the obese….and ignored completely the prejudicial hiring of the beautiful.
Good example.
What about stigmatizing ugliness…not just the lack of beauty but the presence of the actively discomfiting….the snaggled teeth, the unsymmetric face, the scarred cheeks, the fat lips (though strangely that seems to have migrated, for some, into the ‘beautiful’ camp)?
It’s illegal, unconstitutional, and roundly considered to be seriously morally wrong to refuse to hire someone because they’re of a certain color or gender…. frowned upon, but not illegal, to refuse hiring the obese….and ignored completely the prejudicial hiring of the beautiful.
I find it bizarre that stigmatising obesity – regardless of the cause, something entirely within each of our abilities to change- is wrong in modern society yet stigmatising the height of any man under 6′ tall (and christ, lets hope you’re not 5’7″ or 5’8″!) is perfectly acceptable yet limited by a genetic lottery………
As for ‘sex work is real work’….well lets see your tax returns then.
Good article. I’m all for fat shaming; it saves lives.
When, a few years ago, I went from 13 to 17 stones during my 4 years 160 mile round trip daily commute to an office (toxic lifestyle – up at 6 am or earlier, no / minimal breakfast, rubbish coffee “lunch” on the run, 5 hours round trip drive daily, home c 9pm, later dinner, etc), of course no young person would mention that my power to weight ratio had gone backwards.
No such niceties from old family friends, older folk, friends of my late parents:
“Good God man! You’re looking prosperous! Herself feeding you well, I see, ho ho!” etc etc
And I found it very useful. As is the way when you gain weight, if you’re a bloke, you don’t realise it. Blokes tend to have reverse body dysmorphia, in that we see ourselves as being better than we are lol.
But a few friendly OAP insults later, and you think, after the initial disbelief, “hmm, maybe the plain-talking older generation have a point lol”.
And that kick-starts you into doing something about it.
What do you weigh now may I ask?
Yes, a good point about ‘blokes’. My wife has two words for obesity. For strangers she says, ‘Fat’ but for friends and family she says, ‘Big’. If I get them mixed up I’m being nasty.
I think the Irish have a splendid word :HEFTY!
I’m rather surprised McCusker didn’t use it.
I think the Irish have a splendid word :HEFTY!
I’m rather surprised McCusker didn’t use it.
What do you weigh now may I ask?
Yes, a good point about ‘blokes’. My wife has two words for obesity. For strangers she says, ‘Fat’ but for friends and family she says, ‘Big’. If I get them mixed up I’m being nasty.
Good article. I’m all for fat shaming; it saves lives.
When, a few years ago, I went from 13 to 17 stones during my 4 years 160 mile round trip daily commute to an office (toxic lifestyle – up at 6 am or earlier, no / minimal breakfast, rubbish coffee “lunch” on the run, 5 hours round trip drive daily, home c 9pm, later dinner, etc), of course no young person would mention that my power to weight ratio had gone backwards.
No such niceties from old family friends, older folk, friends of my late parents:
“Good God man! You’re looking prosperous! Herself feeding you well, I see, ho ho!” etc etc
And I found it very useful. As is the way when you gain weight, if you’re a bloke, you don’t realise it. Blokes tend to have reverse body dysmorphia, in that we see ourselves as being better than we are lol.
But a few friendly OAP insults later, and you think, after the initial disbelief, “hmm, maybe the plain-talking older generation have a point lol”.
And that kick-starts you into doing something about it.
When LS draws on her own experience to recommend the contemporary sexual settlement, it’s worth noticing that the marriage she celebrates was entered into when she was 45 years old or so (b.1957, m.2003). I worry that she may have rather missed the point.
When LS draws on her own experience to recommend the contemporary sexual settlement, it’s worth noticing that the marriage she celebrates was entered into when she was 45 years old or so (b.1957, m.2003). I worry that she may have rather missed the point.
Normally I’m an avid reader of Lionel Shriver’s work, even if she does have a self-adopted nom de plume which is the American equivalent of “Hornby Dublo”, but I think she has missed a key point here.
The whole purpose of the Radical Left’s assault on standards and religion is quite clear and specific; it is to establish that there cannot be any source or moral authority higher than ideology.
This dates from the French Revolution – the well-spring of all such thought – and continues to the modern day.
Normally I’m an avid reader of Lionel Shriver’s work, even if she does have a self-adopted nom de plume which is the American equivalent of “Hornby Dublo”, but I think she has missed a key point here.
The whole purpose of the Radical Left’s assault on standards and religion is quite clear and specific; it is to establish that there cannot be any source or moral authority higher than ideology.
This dates from the French Revolution – the well-spring of all such thought – and continues to the modern day.
There is a problem if someone is feeling shame instead of guilt related to their obesity. An interesting aspect of shame is that it is most functional at the group or societal level, but tends to be dysfunctional at the individual level. That is to say shame helps keep people in line by presenting the threat of ostracism –nobody wants to be a pariah, so shame represents the threat of being an outcast that tends to help regulate society. However, at the individual level, the coping behaviors for shame are not specifically uplifting. Unlike guilt–with its focus on the transgression rather than the self–toward which individuals generally respond with recompense (thereby making themselves better individuals), with shame–and its focus on the self–individuals tend to cope by minimizing the perceived negative attribute (and/or transgression if there is one), or externalize the cause (rather than attribute to their own control), and the effect shame has on anger can often be ugly. On the other hand, guilt combines with anger in more constructive ways. So your point about how shame is powerful and innate and evolved to facilitate social harmony is well taken, and moreover, to try to program it out is both ill considered and futile. The trick is to try to shift or transform feelings of shame into feelings of guilt so that the coping behaviors for the individual are more self-improving rather than painful and debilitating.
There is a problem if someone is feeling shame instead of guilt related to their obesity. An interesting aspect of shame is that it is most functional at the group or societal level, but tends to be dysfunctional at the individual level. That is to say shame helps keep people in line by presenting the threat of ostracism –nobody wants to be a pariah, so shame represents the threat of being an outcast that tends to help regulate society. However, at the individual level, the coping behaviors for shame are not specifically uplifting. Unlike guilt–with its focus on the transgression rather than the self–toward which individuals generally respond with recompense (thereby making themselves better individuals), with shame–and its focus on the self–individuals tend to cope by minimizing the perceived negative attribute (and/or transgression if there is one), or externalize the cause (rather than attribute to their own control), and the effect shame has on anger can often be ugly. On the other hand, guilt combines with anger in more constructive ways. So your point about how shame is powerful and innate and evolved to facilitate social harmony is well taken, and moreover, to try to program it out is both ill considered and futile. The trick is to try to shift or transform feelings of shame into feelings of guilt so that the coping behaviors for the individual are more self-improving rather than painful and debilitating.
Not so much an article as an avalanche of verity. But there are those of us who will make judgements: and we have a vote.
Not so much an article as an avalanche of verity. But there are those of us who will make judgements: and we have a vote.
I fully agree that the current “it’s fine to be fat” cultural message is unhelpful, although as I understand it, the psychological problem with shame and stigma is that it frequently backfires – shame a fat person and they may well respond with a comfort eating binge.
Can we therefore respond creatively to the situation in such a way that reliably supports people to make healthy choices, without backfiring and without demonising people who may already be struggling badly to cope?
I fully agree that the current “it’s fine to be fat” cultural message is unhelpful, although as I understand it, the psychological problem with shame and stigma is that it frequently backfires – shame a fat person and they may well respond with a comfort eating binge.
Can we therefore respond creatively to the situation in such a way that reliably supports people to make healthy choices, without backfiring and without demonising people who may already be struggling badly to cope?
I really enjoyed this article and Lionel addressed what came up in my mind every time. Thank you
I really enjoyed this article and Lionel addressed what came up in my mind every time. Thank you
Wonderful points! Thanks for posting.
Wonderful points! Thanks for posting.
This is missing the point completely! When someone become clinically or morbidly obese it is very often because food has become an emotional crutch, food is their comfort and reassurance. I myself underwent a gastric sleeve operation a year ago because I was clinically obese.
So many people don’t understand the downward spiral a destructive relationship with food, triggered by depression, low self esteem or insecurity can create. Everyone seems to be under the apprehension that to shout “just eat less” is the answer ( including many doctors). However, would you simply tell an alcoholic to ” just stop drinking” or a drug addict to ” just stop”. No!
I believe society contributes hugely in creating addictions through a failure to identify economic/social trigger points or mental and emotional turmoil or through the constant projection of a utopian consumerist driven existance that for many is unachievable, while media projects the perceived right for immediate gratification of your every desire. And yet when people are deeply scared or emotionally damaged, it fails to offer the appropriate support, they are left as collateral damage of the consumerist dream. Drug addicts are “maintained” on a stabilising dose of methadone , not cured, alcoholics rely on AA or similar charitable organisations and food addicts are told to diet!
There is, (and rightly so), a need for personal ownership of your own reality, however, as any recovering addict will tell you there has to be a bottoming out and a realisation that things need to change before this can happen . Simply following the old colonial British approach of shouting louder and louder at ‘a foreigner’ in English to make them understand is futile, the same is true for those who suffer with addiction.
I think you’ve missed the point of the article. Nobody is saying you shouldn’t have sympathy for the obese, addicts or alcoholics. Most as you say use their addictions as a crutch and do require help to turn their situation around, but that doesn’t mean we should accept their behaviour as normal
After 60 years of smoking, my father quit cold turkey. Well done, he!
Addiction is a psychological / physiological / habitual / discipline issue.
What about our duty to our brotherhood and sisterhood taxpayers? Is it right that we take measures to not minimalise our need for demanding resources from our communal health system? Shouldn’t we feel guilty about gratuitously using NHS services?
Isn’t someone who takes the lift, rather than using the stairs, effectively perpetrating a micro aggression against society’s taxpayers who fund the NHS? Perhaps not, if one subsequently does 10 minutes on the exercycle at some point later in the day … as a penance at least?
But someone is more socially responsible, more morally pure, if one both takes the stairs AND uses the Exercycle. Shouldn’t I be on the Exercycle NOW, instead of writing this response? What cost this sense of permanent guilt and anxiety?
Right, I’m off to walk the dogs… that’s one last virtue-signal before finishing. Yes, I will also inform the planet of my good intentions via Twitter and Facebook. I hope I get lots of ‘likes’, otherwise it will ruin my day!
Thank you for sharing and well done for getting on top of your weight and food addiction. I don’t think anyone denies that there is an emotional and/or psychological issue behind overeating. Lionel has experienced this close to hand with her brother who sadly did not manage to escape his obesity.
But, are we as a society all responsible then for everyone else’s emotional well-being and the choices they make as a result, possibly turning into addiction and poor life quality? Are we somehow to make everyone happy?
Perhaps, knowing that it is really only that particular person that can make himself happy, we should focus on teaching our children the skill of being content and happy in themselves.
‘Society’ has certainly contributed to the obesity epidemic. Telling people to avoid fats and eat lots of carbohydrates has merely replaced any fat-induced heart attacks with diabetes and obesity fuelled by lots of rubbish ‘fast food’.
That ‘society’ could be substituted with the words ‘non-science’, since there are no worthwhile studies showing that dietary fat alone causes heart problems. However, over the last 7 decades, it has become ‘The Science’ with no need to back it up with data.
Not unlike Fauci’s claim that mRNA vaccines would be ‘a dead end’ for covid.
I think you’ve missed the point of the article. Nobody is saying you shouldn’t have sympathy for the obese, addicts or alcoholics. Most as you say use their addictions as a crutch and do require help to turn their situation around, but that doesn’t mean we should accept their behaviour as normal
After 60 years of smoking, my father quit cold turkey. Well done, he!
Addiction is a psychological / physiological / habitual / discipline issue.
What about our duty to our brotherhood and sisterhood taxpayers? Is it right that we take measures to not minimalise our need for demanding resources from our communal health system? Shouldn’t we feel guilty about gratuitously using NHS services?
Isn’t someone who takes the lift, rather than using the stairs, effectively perpetrating a micro aggression against society’s taxpayers who fund the NHS? Perhaps not, if one subsequently does 10 minutes on the exercycle at some point later in the day … as a penance at least?
But someone is more socially responsible, more morally pure, if one both takes the stairs AND uses the Exercycle. Shouldn’t I be on the Exercycle NOW, instead of writing this response? What cost this sense of permanent guilt and anxiety?
Right, I’m off to walk the dogs… that’s one last virtue-signal before finishing. Yes, I will also inform the planet of my good intentions via Twitter and Facebook. I hope I get lots of ‘likes’, otherwise it will ruin my day!
Thank you for sharing and well done for getting on top of your weight and food addiction. I don’t think anyone denies that there is an emotional and/or psychological issue behind overeating. Lionel has experienced this close to hand with her brother who sadly did not manage to escape his obesity.
But, are we as a society all responsible then for everyone else’s emotional well-being and the choices they make as a result, possibly turning into addiction and poor life quality? Are we somehow to make everyone happy?
Perhaps, knowing that it is really only that particular person that can make himself happy, we should focus on teaching our children the skill of being content and happy in themselves.
‘Society’ has certainly contributed to the obesity epidemic. Telling people to avoid fats and eat lots of carbohydrates has merely replaced any fat-induced heart attacks with diabetes and obesity fuelled by lots of rubbish ‘fast food’.
That ‘society’ could be substituted with the words ‘non-science’, since there are no worthwhile studies showing that dietary fat alone causes heart problems. However, over the last 7 decades, it has become ‘The Science’ with no need to back it up with data.
Not unlike Fauci’s claim that mRNA vaccines would be ‘a dead end’ for covid.
This is missing the point completely! When someone become clinically or morbidly obese it is very often because food has become an emotional crutch, food is their comfort and reassurance. I myself underwent a gastric sleeve operation a year ago because I was clinically obese.
So many people don’t understand the downward spiral a destructive relationship with food, triggered by depression, low self esteem or insecurity can create. Everyone seems to be under the apprehension that to shout “just eat less” is the answer ( including many doctors). However, would you simply tell an alcoholic to ” just stop drinking” or a drug addict to ” just stop”. No!
I believe society contributes hugely in creating addictions through a failure to identify economic/social trigger points or mental and emotional turmoil or through the constant projection of a utopian consumerist driven existance that for many is unachievable, while media projects the perceived right for immediate gratification of your every desire. And yet when people are deeply scared or emotionally damaged, it fails to offer the appropriate support, they are left as collateral damage of the consumerist dream. Drug addicts are “maintained” on a stabilising dose of methadone , not cured, alcoholics rely on AA or similar charitable organisations and food addicts are told to diet!
There is, (and rightly so), a need for personal ownership of your own reality, however, as any recovering addict will tell you there has to be a bottoming out and a realisation that things need to change before this can happen . Simply following the old colonial British approach of shouting louder and louder at ‘a foreigner’ in English to make them understand is futile, the same is true for those who suffer with addiction.
Thanks for the article. I think an important distinction is whether we’re stigmazing the harm of others.
Obviously, shoplifting isn’t victimless. Likewise, prostitution is not victimless. The reason the shame still adheres to the prostituted person instead of their legal rapist is because we are blind to how the purchase of usually young and often underage trafficked sex slaves is legal rape, not a civil right. It’s like blaming a slave for being sexually used for 10 years, instead of the slaveowner and/or their overseer (pimp).
I don’t think we have the civil right to beat certain people up every day for a fee. Pimps can’t open up plasma-selling services that they run like a stable where they take 75% of the profit and their plasma-donators have to drug themselves because they’re invaded by needles 20 times a day and are too weak to live or earn money any other way. How is it okay for hundreds of men to rent the inside of a woman’s body–imagine, being invaded by strange, nasty, smelly, fat, ugly, insult-spewing, grunting men who’re sticking their parts inside of your most intimate body while grabbing your hair and throwing you around a bed. Go to Julie Bindel and read about the Nordic Model of illegalizing the purchase, not the human.
Similarly, MAP is pedophilia and obviously harmful. And most trans-activist behavior is aimed at violating female rights and using them as part of an exhibitionist fantasy. Sending woman-face autogynephiliac men into preschools is a crime of exhibitionism. This is coercion. Forcing us to watch men’s autogynephilia, esp when they intrude into our spaces, is illegal exhibitionism. Sex crime. Lia Thomas’ teammates had to watch him undress and he got to watch them undress and he’s a heterosexual male. This is a violation of someone else’s civil rights to safety and to not watch someone else’s sexual behavior unless they choose.
When we get to stigma about behavior wherein a society bears the cost, that’s harder…..those are obvious areas of legit debate. But de-stigmatizing harming others is bullshit.
Thanks for the article. I think an important distinction is whether we’re stigmazing the harm of others.
Obviously, shoplifting isn’t victimless. Likewise, prostitution is not victimless. The reason the shame still adheres to the prostituted person instead of their legal rapist is because we are blind to how the purchase of usually young and often underage trafficked sex slaves is legal rape, not a civil right. It’s like blaming a slave for being sexually used for 10 years, instead of the slaveowner and/or their overseer (pimp).
I don’t think we have the civil right to beat certain people up every day for a fee. Pimps can’t open up plasma-selling services that they run like a stable where they take 75% of the profit and their plasma-donators have to drug themselves because they’re invaded by needles 20 times a day and are too weak to live or earn money any other way. How is it okay for hundreds of men to rent the inside of a woman’s body–imagine, being invaded by strange, nasty, smelly, fat, ugly, insult-spewing, grunting men who’re sticking their parts inside of your most intimate body while grabbing your hair and throwing you around a bed. Go to Julie Bindel and read about the Nordic Model of illegalizing the purchase, not the human.
Similarly, MAP is pedophilia and obviously harmful. And most trans-activist behavior is aimed at violating female rights and using them as part of an exhibitionist fantasy. Sending woman-face autogynephiliac men into preschools is a crime of exhibitionism. This is coercion. Forcing us to watch men’s autogynephilia, esp when they intrude into our spaces, is illegal exhibitionism. Sex crime. Lia Thomas’ teammates had to watch him undress and he got to watch them undress and he’s a heterosexual male. This is a violation of someone else’s civil rights to safety and to not watch someone else’s sexual behavior unless they choose.
When we get to stigma about behavior wherein a society bears the cost, that’s harder…..those are obvious areas of legit debate. But de-stigmatizing harming others is bullshit.
We shouldn’t beat up progressives too much, they are always well intentioned. I think what started out as sympathy for people facing the difficult task of recovery, from situations they got themselves into, morphed into removing the stigma in the hope that it would make their recovery easier then morphed further into thinking they didn’t have to recover at all. The proverbial slippery slope.
The problem with progressives is that their good intentions have gone massively awry, and they have gone off the rails. I have given up on hoping they will come to their senses because we now live in a culture where admitting you are wrong carries the greatest stigma of all.
“We shouldn’t beat up progressives too much, they are always well intentioned.”
Really? You believe that?
Indeed; I can feel a bridge-selling opportunity approaching…
Indeed; I can feel a bridge-selling opportunity approaching…
Progressivism is evil masquerading as compassion.
“We shouldn’t beat up progressives too much, they are always well intentioned.”
Really? You believe that?
Progressivism is evil masquerading as compassion.
We shouldn’t beat up progressives too much, they are always well intentioned. I think what started out as sympathy for people facing the difficult task of recovery, from situations they got themselves into, morphed into removing the stigma in the hope that it would make their recovery easier then morphed further into thinking they didn’t have to recover at all. The proverbial slippery slope.
The problem with progressives is that their good intentions have gone massively awry, and they have gone off the rails. I have given up on hoping they will come to their senses because we now live in a culture where admitting you are wrong carries the greatest stigma of all.
Reminds me of a preacher’s speech sampled by Tribe Called Quest – went something like this:
“This feeling of embarrassment, this shyness, this bashfulness; if you take that out of the people, then these people will do whatever they want to do; and that is the very definition of America today; a people who have no shame and therefore do whatever they want to do”
I wonder if it is particularly true in America not so much due to a lack of religious values, but an abundance of them – when you locate your values externally (from God) rather than internally (humanism) – it sets us up for a variety of problems.
Reminds me of a preacher’s speech sampled by Tribe Called Quest – went something like this:
“This feeling of embarrassment, this shyness, this bashfulness; if you take that out of the people, then these people will do whatever they want to do; and that is the very definition of America today; a people who have no shame and therefore do whatever they want to do”
I wonder if it is particularly true in America not so much due to a lack of religious values, but an abundance of them – when you locate your values externally (from God) rather than internally (humanism) – it sets us up for a variety of problems.
Elite luxury opinions are soon enforced as laws upon the lower classes.
(Sorry Shriver’s stuff is so interesting I can’t help commenting!) As a denizen of DTLA, I have no idea how many of our sans-logis are there in those tents because they were first addicts. What I would like to know is how many hold PhD’s? (BA’s? MA’s?)
Do there perhaps remain degrees of stigma? If to “you’re a b*****d. AND you’re fat,” Austin Powers added: “AND you’re a looter”? Why would that punchline not work? (UnHerd not the author bowdlerized that B-word. Further thought: why might adding “And you’re a wanker” not necessarily ruin the joke?)
Reminds me of something Mark Lilla said: “Some wanted a more tolerant society with greater private autonomy, and now we have it, which is a good thing — though it has brought us more out-of-wedlock births, a soft pornographic popular culture, and a drug trade that serves casual users while destroying poor American neighborhoods and destabilizing foreign nations. Others wanted to be free from taxes and regulations so they could get rich fast, and they have — and it’s left the more vulnerable among us in financial ruin, holding precarious jobs, and scrambling to find health care for their children. We wanted our two revolutions. Well, we have had them.”
Well, after all, a murderer is really only an extroverted suicide . . .
I do not see it as stigma. It seems to be the agreed cultural rules of living in a civilised society. It was not stigma to not getting divorced; it was a promise made to God. Most of these cultural rules were more powerful that the secular laws (made to be broken).
I do not see it as stigma. It seems to be the agreed cultural rules of living in a civilised society. It was not stigma to not getting divorced; it was a promise made to God. Most of these cultural rules were more powerful that the secular laws (made to be broken).
Thanks again Lionel for championing truth and common sense in the face of spineless lemming like ‘conformity’. In my experience much of this nonsense occurs because most people are naturally cowards – and are ignorant. Way easier to accept something than to challenge it – or to even research it. Way easier to go with the flow with children rather than to actually demonstrate adult leadership. The main problem is, I think, that many people are, actually , pretty sensible, but it is those who Machiavellian-like, worm their way into positions of power that cause damage way beyond their numbers . Many of us just sigh and think that ‘this to will pass’ – however, tragically many many lives will be severely damaged before it does pass . Sad – but many thanks for pushing back on our behalf !!
Lionel, I absolutely loved your “Big Brother” novel. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me despair and it gave me hope. A work of genius.
And this is a good article.
Lionel, I absolutely loved your “Big Brother” novel. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me despair and it gave me hope. A work of genius.
And this is a good article.
A splendid article.. Describing – as my sainted Irish grandmother would have it, how – “Everything is still the same as it always was really … Only different.”
UnHerd continues to shy away from data that complicates the narrative. Here are a few facts that suggest something more complex is happening than destigmatization
American high schoolers are having less sex than ever before (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-having-less-sex-whether-theyre-teenagers-or-40-somethings/) . Teen pregnancy rates have fallen every year since 1991 (https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm). Divorce rates are the lowest they have been since 1971 (https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-year-low). Walgreens’ CFO on an earnings call in January said that the company perhaps cried a little too loudly about theft (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstated-theft-concerns.html). Homicide rates in 2020 were 6.52, which was a 30% increase from 2019, but still represents 2001 levels. 1990 was near 10 per 100k.
Despite the increase in crime, it is very difficult to argue that today’s world (statistically) is worse than the heady days of the 1990s or even 1970s. Every metric cited is lower than the rambunctious baby boomer and Gen X generations. In fact, I would even go so far to say that Millenials and Gen Z should have been more risk-taking. Teen pregnancy is not stigmatized to the extent it was in the 1980s (there are plenty of Teen Mom shows) yet the rate is far lower. Divorce is no longer stigmatized yet the rate is dropping. Sex is more liberated…yet the data reflect less sex among the youth. From this perspective, how is it logical to argue that stigmatization will lower undesired behaviors when these 3 very examples are less stigmatized than ever before, yet the rates are dropping or at historic lows? Like I said, the world is complicated. UnHerd really, really needs to incorporate data in its articles. The journalism will only improve when you incorporate the nuance of real world data.
Averaging data across a nation can be meaningless. There is a adage ” 90% of Police time is spent dealing with 10% of the population ” and probably only 1% is violent. All the statistics mentioned will be based upon the activties of very few people in a small area and when it comes to violence, often at certain times.
Some cities can vary from one side of a street to another, from a luxury condo 50m away from a crime infested block of appartments.
What needs to be done is examine conditions in the crime infested block of appartments over time. Of course the criminals could move elsewhere as a result of gentrification.
That’s a point lost on many that population-level data obscure or distort more varied narratives lurking beneath smoothened numbers. However, I think the author (and many at UnHerd) still paint with a very broad brush. At some level, you have to address the surveys that run counter to your narrative. Maybe the surveys have horrific methodology. Maybe they are highly biased. Either way, these are the only numbers we have and they do not support the notion that stigmatization increases desired behavioral outcomes. I would have no issue with this article if it at least spent a couple paragraphs explaining why social surveys cannot be trusted.
That’s a point lost on many that population-level data obscure or distort more varied narratives lurking beneath smoothened numbers. However, I think the author (and many at UnHerd) still paint with a very broad brush. At some level, you have to address the surveys that run counter to your narrative. Maybe the surveys have horrific methodology. Maybe they are highly biased. Either way, these are the only numbers we have and they do not support the notion that stigmatization increases desired behavioral outcomes. I would have no issue with this article if it at least spent a couple paragraphs explaining why social surveys cannot be trusted.
Averaging data across a nation can be meaningless. There is a adage ” 90% of Police time is spent dealing with 10% of the population ” and probably only 1% is violent. All the statistics mentioned will be based upon the activties of very few people in a small area and when it comes to violence, often at certain times.
Some cities can vary from one side of a street to another, from a luxury condo 50m away from a crime infested block of appartments.
What needs to be done is examine conditions in the crime infested block of appartments over time. Of course the criminals could move elsewhere as a result of gentrification.
UnHerd continues to shy away from data that complicates the narrative. Here are a few facts that suggest something more complex is happening than destigmatization
American high schoolers are having less sex than ever before (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-having-less-sex-whether-theyre-teenagers-or-40-somethings/) . Teen pregnancy rates have fallen every year since 1991 (https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm). Divorce rates are the lowest they have been since 1971 (https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-year-low). Walgreens’ CFO on an earnings call in January said that the company perhaps cried a little too loudly about theft (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstated-theft-concerns.html). Homicide rates in 2020 were 6.52, which was a 30% increase from 2019, but still represents 2001 levels. 1990 was near 10 per 100k.
Despite the increase in crime, it is very difficult to argue that today’s world (statistically) is worse than the heady days of the 1990s or even 1970s. Every metric cited is lower than the rambunctious baby boomer and Gen X generations. In fact, I would even go so far to say that Millenials and Gen Z should have been more risk-taking. Teen pregnancy is not stigmatized to the extent it was in the 1980s (there are plenty of Teen Mom shows) yet the rate is far lower. Divorce is no longer stigmatized yet the rate is dropping. Sex is more liberated…yet the data reflect less sex among the youth. From this perspective, how is it logical to argue that stigmatization will lower undesired behaviors when these 3 very examples are less stigmatized than ever before, yet the rates are dropping or at historic lows? Like I said, the world is complicated. UnHerd really, really needs to incorporate data in its articles. The journalism will only improve when you incorporate the nuance of real world data.
“These denizens of faeces-strewn pavements are almost all drug addicts or alcoholics who may also be mentally ill.”
OTOH, when a mere working person has to chose between eating and heating, and decent folks are forced to live on the street or in their cars, it is not surprising that hopelessness and thence drugs and mental illness will follow.
“These denizens of faeces-strewn pavements are almost all drug addicts or alcoholics who may also be mentally ill.”
OTOH, when a mere working person has to chose between eating and heating, and decent folks are forced to live on the street or in their cars, it is not surprising that hopelessness and thence drugs and mental illness will follow.
Since the majority of people in the UK are at least overweight, it is democratic to believe that overweight is normal. If the majority believes that fat is good, then it is good? If the minority was to protest in the street shouting ‘Down with fat’, they would be squashed immediately.
My wife has two names for obese people. For strangers, they are ‘Fat’. For friends and family they are ‘Big’. She has a big family and if I say that one of them is fat, that is me living in the shed for a while.
“Squashed” is quite a vivid choice of verb.
“Squashed” is quite a vivid choice of verb.
Since the majority of people in the UK are at least overweight, it is democratic to believe that overweight is normal. If the majority believes that fat is good, then it is good? If the minority was to protest in the street shouting ‘Down with fat’, they would be squashed immediately.
My wife has two names for obese people. For strangers, they are ‘Fat’. For friends and family they are ‘Big’. She has a big family and if I say that one of them is fat, that is me living in the shed for a while.
Brilliant. Mind those jabs, though…
Brilliant. Mind those jabs, though…
You appear to be positing a scale with harmless non-conformism such as divorce at one end, and murder and pedophilia at the other, clearly reprehensible end. But none of the behaviours cited are without downsides. Even masturbation, which you portray as wholly neutral, can have downsides in that it can make your sexual activity with a partner less fulfilling, partly as you are likely to conjure up images of partners who are more attractive, and partly as you are likely to desensitise yourself physically.
And where you place your flag on that continuum depends partly on your religious affiliations. At the extreme end you eschew not only most sexual activity but even the rights of women to govern their own lives, preferring the patriarchy. So you need to ask what is the attraction of a belief system that at its most innocuous imposes restrictions on the paid up members of the institution, such as forbidding contraception and abortion, and at its most intrusive seeks to control everyone outside the institution, as with the Roe vs Wade scandal.
So you need to distinguish between the use of shame to regulate our behaviour and reduce the damage we do to ourselves and each other, and the use of shame as an agent of control. Life is much less threatening if your wife and kids are loyal and obedient.
I used to find it confusing seeing women wearing head coverings in the Middle East, until I watched a married couple in a restaurant in Qatar, and got a very clear message that the wife was happy to endure the inconvenience of wearing a covering that she had to lift every time she wanted to eat or drink, as part of a bargain which ensured that her husband wouldn’t leave her for a younger model once he hit his mid life crisis. Even prayer is a form of control: please God, give me an unfair advantage in my exams and job search, and make sure my family and friends have better health than all the others in hospital.
You appear to be positing a scale with harmless non-conformism such as divorce at one end, and murder and pedophilia at the other, clearly reprehensible end. But none of the behaviours cited are without downsides. Even masturbation, which you portray as wholly neutral, can have downsides in that it can make your sexual activity with a partner less fulfilling, partly as you are likely to conjure up images of partners who are more attractive, and partly as you are likely to desensitise yourself physically.
And where you place your flag on that continuum depends partly on your religious affiliations. At the extreme end you eschew not only most sexual activity but even the rights of women to govern their own lives, preferring the patriarchy. So you need to ask what is the attraction of a belief system that at its most innocuous imposes restrictions on the paid up members of the institution, such as forbidding contraception and abortion, and at its most intrusive seeks to control everyone outside the institution, as with the Roe vs Wade scandal.
So you need to distinguish between the use of shame to regulate our behaviour and reduce the damage we do to ourselves and each other, and the use of shame as an agent of control. Life is much less threatening if your wife and kids are loyal and obedient.
I used to find it confusing seeing women wearing head coverings in the Middle East, until I watched a married couple in a restaurant in Qatar, and got a very clear message that the wife was happy to endure the inconvenience of wearing a covering that she had to lift every time she wanted to eat or drink, as part of a bargain which ensured that her husband wouldn’t leave her for a younger model once he hit his mid life crisis. Even prayer is a form of control: please God, give me an unfair advantage in my exams and job search, and make sure my family and friends have better health than all the others in hospital.
Quelle suprise?! Nu britn is now run and controlled by the ” ooh what will the neighbours think” jumped up, Pooteresque petit bourgeois, (just look at Shapps and Raab) … As Rupert Murdoch famously said when asked my he bought different newspapers in England, he said that the British have one key obsession… their view of other peoples view of them…. Now, I must get on the net and buy myself a new Tesla, set of golf clubs and book Kayleigh, Courtenay and Tiger Jayde into minor public schools, after I have bought myself 6 pairs of Frantalle Lobotomi white designer trainers….
Quelle suprise?! Nu britn is now run and controlled by the ” ooh what will the neighbours think” jumped up, Pooteresque petit bourgeois, (just look at Shapps and Raab) … As Rupert Murdoch famously said when asked my he bought different newspapers in England, he said that the British have one key obsession… their view of other peoples view of them…. Now, I must get on the net and buy myself a new Tesla, set of golf clubs and book Kayleigh, Courtenay and Tiger Jayde into minor public schools, after I have bought myself 6 pairs of Frantalle Lobotomi white designer trainers….
“Western society is built on stigma. Shame can protect us from self-destruction”
Is this not true of all cultures?
“Both my parents claimed to be virgins before they wed, and I don’t even think they were lying”
They probably were. Gotta check that you are not getting hitched to a dud. I mean, would you take the chance?
Autres temps, autres moeurs.
Caveat emptor.
Caveat emptor.
Try before you buy!
I was too drunk to remember half of them though so it wasn’t much of a test drive
If you were that drunk Billy, then probably not. Three martinis turn a man into a lothario, half-a-dozen into a fantasist. Yes, I do speak from experience. The world is full of ups and downs.
If you were that drunk Billy, then probably not. Three martinis turn a man into a lothario, half-a-dozen into a fantasist. Yes, I do speak from experience. The world is full of ups and downs.
Indeed. I once read that in olden days, if a girl asked for an annulment on the ground of non-consummation, the unfortunate man could be taken aside by mature ladies and tested out. I don’t know whether I believe it or not, but it is gruesome enough to be true. The mere threat! A verdict of dud presumably follwed a man round for the rest of his life.
It certainly wouldn’t have… ahem… preceded him.
It certainly wouldn’t have… ahem… preceded him.
I was too drunk to remember half of them though so it wasn’t much of a test drive
Indeed. I once read that in olden days, if a girl asked for an annulment on the ground of non-consummation, the unfortunate man could be taken aside by mature ladies and tested out. I don’t know whether I believe it or not, but it is gruesome enough to be true. The mere threat! A verdict of dud presumably follwed a man round for the rest of his life.
Autres temps, autres moeurs.
Try before you buy!
“Western society is built on stigma. Shame can protect us from self-destruction”
Is this not true of all cultures?
“Both my parents claimed to be virgins before they wed, and I don’t even think they were lying”
They probably were. Gotta check that you are not getting hitched to a dud. I mean, would you take the chance?