The Shame Sham
30th March 2014
Jim Goad finds that his Bullshit Detector has gone off.
Like all societies before it, our society considers nothing more shameful than to be shameless. Thus, the Internet—which binds our society together like cheese binds a colon—is crammed with so much public shaming, it should be ashamed of itself.
Sticking your fist into the electronic beehive, you will be bitten by a thousand types of public shaming: age-shaming v. youth-shaming, slut-shaming v. virgin-shaming, fat-shaming v. skinny-shaming, and poor-shaming v. wealth-shaming. You will find liberals shaming liberals in the ongoing intersectionality wars, resulting in gay-on-gay shaming and black-on-black shaming.
Ain’t that a shame? Yes, it is. It’s a shame indeed, but don’t expect the public shamers to feel ashamed of their public shaming. Have they no shame? No, not for themselves. Like all moralists, they exist only to shame others.