I agree that framing issues in a way that allows people to avoid feeling like they have done something wrong is more effective. I also think most activists are aware of this.
I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things.
When I see a protest right now I don't think about a carefully crafted campaign. I think about a tent revival[1]. Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity.
I think a lot of people mistake preaching to the choir as preaching poorly to the unconverted. It's not unique in any way to the left - people often mistake messages that are intended for the conservative faithful as outreach and mock it for its ineffectiveness.
Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed.
Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts.
QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many ways, our language, our music, our cultural patterns, our material prosperity, and even our food are an amalgam of black and white."
SOLUTIONS FOR GUILT AND FEAR:
Dr King mentioned in his speech that one can tackle guilt and fear through ACTION and COLLECTIVE EFFORT:
1. True integration - "Shared power, where black men and white men share power together, to build a new and a great nation"
2. White student generations of goodwill "who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of civil rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead" The action of whites here tackles their guilt while providing hope and reducing fear for blacks.
> If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being.
Nonsense.
You should feel thankful.
Thankful that you had the luck being born in the most prosperous time in human history, where you have access to better healthcare, transportation, human rights and democratic privileges, to name just a few.
Once you realize how good it is to live in this day and age and feel grateful, helping others who are a bit less fortunate will come naturally to you.
Working from positive emotions is a much better strategy, both for your own sake and - by extension - also for the sake of society at large.
The whole point of the posted article is to _not_ guilt people in to doing the right thing. You should push positive emotions about doing the right thing, not negative emotions.
From the article:
"These findings suggest that inducing people to consider positive rather than negative self-directed emotions might recruit more people to a climate-change mitigation agenda, and to prosocial behaviour more broadly."
There are more emotions than guilt and thankfulness. They also aren’t even the apparent dipoles you appear to imply. Being thankful doesn’t mean you’re not guilty. I’m sure there are plenty of scenes of Lex Luther being thankful on YouTube of something he should feel guilt over-might even.
There certainly are more emotions. To add on to what you're saying, being thankful doesn't mean you're not guilty. However, it also doesn't imply guilt either.
I think that what you're saying about how skin color doesn't make you immune to adversity is true. I also think that they are trying to say that you shouldn't focus on guilt and instead should focus on gratitude, that relatively speaking and from their perspective, white people are privileged.
I can see how in some ways, some subset of white people have had much better fortunes than others and people of color. There are, like you said, other subsets of white people who've had it worse or suffer similarly.
> Thankful that you had the luck being born in the most prosperous time in human history, where you have access to better healthcare, transportation, human rights and democratic privileges, to name just a few.
That's the whole point - people in poverty do not have many of these privileges. They don't have access to good education, healthcare, transportation, and they are consistently denied their human rights. After growing up without these privileges, they are funneled into dead-end jobs or prison. Minimizing the injustice to saying they are "a bit less fortunate" is frankly disgusting.
MLK said "large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity." That is just as true today as it was fifty years ago.
The fact is the US Government promised to keep treaties with indigenous Americans, and it didn't. It promised 40 acres to every survivor of slavery, and that was never delivered. What's the value of all the real estate in America plus 400 years of enslaved labor? Probably a lot less than what their descendants are asking for today.
So don't feel guilty. Be responsible. Be accountable. Do the right thing, and recognize that as a beneficiary you owe some of that debt.
Should you self-flagellate for being born in the situation you are in? How would that benefit anyone?
Guilt is a negative emotion, and in my opinion you shouldn't have to do penance for things you have no control over. Instead, you can use your position of privilege to do good in whatever way fits.
My small contribution, I run an online community (~1000 members in our Discord server) with a zero tolerance policy on racism, racist / sexist / orientation stereotypes, etc. It's ran and frequented by a highly diverse range of people from all over the world. It's not much, but I know I'm not contributing to the problem and I like to think my community is making the world a better place.
I don't tend to visit too many communities that are "run", but am member in quite a few where it works without zero tolerance policies. They tend to be more peaceful and honest in my opinion. Maybe they require common ground, but it works somehow.
Again, you shouldn't feel guilt for yourself, but you should feel guilt for your ancestors. Not self-flagellation. And you should attempt some penance if you are able - sometimes that just involves welcoming people into spaces with you.
What is not tolerable to me is to pretend you are not, at least in part, a result of a long string of advantages. That your relative power comes with responsibility. And to not put your head in the sand and grow hateful of the disadvantaged.
My ancestor died in the Civil War, on the Northern side. Other of my ancestors moved from nice safe Lawrence, Massachusetts, to Lawrence, Kansas, at a time when it was "Bleeding Kansas", to try to keep it non-slave.
Explain to me again why I should feel guilt for my ancestors?
I don't think that's what the article was getting at. Feeling guilty is the exact thing that you're supposed to avoid, if you want to help others. Instead, focus on the gratitude and how fortunate you are. From there, because you feel so grateful and compassionate, you want to help others alleviate their suffering.
Faulty assumption here. You do have control over maintaining the system of privilege that you were born into. That's how it continues from generation to generation, by white people holding on to their money and power instead of working on ways to distribute it.
>white people holding on to their money and power instead of working on ways to distribute it.
Why is the emphasis on white people and not wealth? There are so many different historical groups of "white people"
I completely fail to take a submissive approach to the whole us race debate. Sure you guys have massive issues that stem from a long line of segregationist policies. Europe has its problems, but implying that this should lead to some sort of White only redistribution of wealth will lead to bloodshed.
Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to equate class war with race war? Henry kissinger?
It’s a handy ideology. It allows Californians to feel super enlightened while having a ridiculous homeless population at the same time.
Precisely by making it a race issue instead of wealth distribution/class issue it becomes easier to shut people down who would support social programs, mostly by driving the well meaning masses into looking at it from the race perspective.
Keeping it as a race issue keeps the lower classes on eachothers throats. Heck I’ve seen arguments that Oprah, a billionare, is less privileged than a white hobo, because whiteness. And because it’s not about money but literally the amount of melanin in your skin there is no need to care about the money part.
Otherwise I wouldn’t care less what the yanks do but due to the large cultural dominance they have the issues spill to outside of US.
The most well known mind behind the modern form of that equation is that of Lee Atwater, one of the architects of the Republican "Southern Strategy" [1]. But using race to divide people who would otherwise be unacceptably likely to recognize and act on a common class interest is the oldest play in America, and it's always wild - by which I mean "unsurprising, but regrettable" - to see other white leftists in 2020 still falling for it.
> Why is the emphasis on white people and not wealth?
Because of the amount of violence that has and is taking place entirely on the basis of race rather than wealth.
Wealth is certainly a thing. But those who talk about how all these problems are just about economic class are sweeping the thousands of race-based and racist policies and actions under the rug.
> Why is the emphasis on white people and not wealth?
Because that's who has wealth [1] and they have it because they stole it from other groups via forced labor and literal theft of land and other resources and then explicitly disadvantaged them in post facto competition.
The ruling class stole these, not "white people". Throughout the history and the world, all places and races had their own class of oppressors, surprise - usually from the same race as the oppressed, and of course from a very wide racial variety. That US were built first from white colonists, who set the precedent for that place, does not mean whites are any different that other races in oppression. The ruling class also stole their wealth from the working class, including the white people in it, and if your aim is to bring equal racial representation, or a change on the dominant race, in the ruling class, rather than the abolishment of the present social and economoc structure, you are just maintaining the current situation and playing the capitalists' game.
Well said and reasoned; however, not all oppression is class based. My claim is that racism is a secondary oppression upon the first that you describe which white people (or whoever in other places) benefit from and participate in maintaining. It is true the inequality between the classes is much greater than any other but that doesn't mean that the others don't exist. I agree especially with your last point though and didn't intend to communicate otherwise.
> white people holding on to their money and power
That there is a racist statement. Yes maybe intergenerational wealth causes some issues but to cast it as a purely white issue is just stupid. Avarice is a feature common to all of humanity.
If white people are a monolithic entity, what possible incentive would we have to give our rivals more room to manouvre?
I see two options - either race doesn't matter to anyone worth listening to, or white people aren't being aggressive enough in securing our own interests. Or can you articulate a third position?
>You do have control over maintaining the system of privilege that you were born into. That's how it continues from generation to generation, by white people holding on to their money and power instead of working on ways to distribute it.
An alternative way to look at it: what did western civilisation do to grow such a huge amount of wealth compared to the rest of the world? What could the rest of the world learn from this, so that they could build wealth of their own? Fortunately the answer is relatively simple, as evidenced by how most east Asian countries have now become just as wealthy/developed as western countries: by embracing markets, the rule of law and personal responsibility.
> what did western civilisation do to grow such a huge amount of wealth compared to the rest of the world?
Many civilizations have taken turns at doing this, from ancient Mesopotamia, now part of the Middle East, and onwards. There's nothing exceptional about Western civilization, in this regard. Nor, I suspect, will the US hegemony -- which was gained by selling arms to both sides of 2 world wars which both crippled the former hegemony -- be exceptional.
They gained a lot of that wealth by fucking over the rest of the world with superior military power. I'm British, and the British empire was literally 1/3rd of the world at one point. A lot of the infrastructure in Britain which enables to compete favourably against other countries in competitive markets was built off the back of trade in goods that we forced the populations of other countries to produce then took the profits of for ourselves.
I'm not describing capitalism, I'm describing straight up military occupancy and subjugation of the local population. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj for example.
If you want a US perspective, then consider Cuba. Would you describe the US embargo against Cuba as capitalism? It's disingenuous for someone to say that countries have struggled because they failed to embrace markets when the US has actively interfered against governments that didn't embrace markets with sanctions and support for coups.
I’ve got bad news. Wealth isn't a number in your bank account that you can carve up and redistribute. Its the output of a properly managed system of assets and liabilities. If you just seize the outputs and give them away it will turn to ashes in the mouths of the recipients. They’ll have nothing after it’s spent while those who produce the wealth will have taken their knowledge and capabilities with them. All this has been tried before and it always fails because it’s the wrong way to solve the problem.
> You do have control over maintaining the system of privilege that you were born into.
Do I? I'd be (genuinely) interested to know what kind of power you think I have to change the system. Because from my perspective as a middle class white person I feel just as powerless to change the system as everyone else.
There's not much that any one of us can do alone. Refusing to make excuses for an unjust system, and finding ways to make the shitty bargains required for survival that at least minimize the extent to which we support it, is the best sort of start I can suggest. We may be forced by circumstance, especially those of us who have given hostages to fortune, to be complicit. But we can recover some agency at least over the extent of that complicity.
I'd like to be able to suggest some group or movement here, but I've never been much of a joiner. The BLM folks I've heard from seem to have good heads on their shoulders, though. You could do a lot worse than to consider their suggestions on the question of "how do I help?"
I definitely do understand feeling powerless. But remember also that, as a middle-class white person, especially if you're male and the head of a conventional family household, that puts you pretty close to America's own idea of what America is. Believe it or not, there's a subtle kind of power in that. Things that might likely be ignored when said by - oh, someone like me, for example, who while also middle-class-ish white is a weird queer redneck loner and always has been - often are taken more seriously when said by someone who presents a gestalt of commonplace American normalcy, simply because of the sort of person who's saying them.
That really is a power all its own. If your social and professional circles are anything like mine, you can often enough find opportunities there to wield that power - gently, of course, and with real care for those with whom you're talking; to be, or to be seen as, a humorless woke thought editor, is to fail - in a way that might help redress injustice in a small way simply by convincing someone else to think about whether they should see the world a little differently from how they have before.
It's a small thing, for sure. And it can on occasion be a risk; if nothing else, to speak honestly from the heart on any subject constitutes a degree of vulnerability, and people don't always treat that kindly. But little in my experience worth doing is entirely unattended by risk, and little in my experience does more to ameliorate a sense of powerlessness than to hear someone say "you've given me a lot to think about", and then to see over time that they have thought about it.
It's subtle, as I said. It's a small thing, and it doesn't always work. But it is something. And even when you fail - which you will, sometimes at least - at least you will have tried, and even in that there's a kind of consolation to be found.
>I definitely do understand feeling powerless. But remember also that, as a middle-class white person, especially if you're male and the head of a conventional family household, that puts you pretty close to America's own idea of what America is. Believe it or not, there's a subtle kind of power in that.
And if you change white to any other color the power that comes from embodying something people consider good is still there. Arguably a race other that white makes it more powerful because in some contexts that would imply successful social/economic mobility.
The power comes from embodying ideals. They're all boxes to check and depending on what square you start on you'll have an easier time checking some boxes than others. If you're a white guy born to a stable middle class family it's gonna be easy for you to get the power that comes from check the boxes that come with a stable middle class family of your own. But you'll never be able to check any of the boxes that come from overcoming the kind of adversity you never faced and climbing the rungs of the social ladder you never had to climb. Who's more respected the plumber who can afford a Corvette or the engineer who can afford the Corvette? Having a nice family in a nice house in a nice suburb won't give you any credibility if that's the kind of life you were born into and getting it yourself was just a case of going through the motions. If you have a nice family in a nice house in a nice suburb and you were born the son of a police officer in French Indochina in 1955 then you clearly put the effort in to get what you have.
It's not about race. It's about who you are and what you've done. Sometimes race can be shorthand for that but unless you are incredibly lucky/unlucky those are not the kind of events that dominate the arc of one's life.
Who's more respected? The white plumber whose Corvette is seen as the just fruits of diligent labor, or the black engineer whose BMW is regarded as clear evidence of foolish profligacy?
I'd be more inclined to credit what you're saying if I hadn't seen precisely that distinction so often expressed by people who, in contexts not influenced by their perspective on race, uphold pure meritocracy as the highest good, whose primacy is a uniquely American virtue.
And, in any case, people's perceptions aren't as simple as you make them out to be. I think it would be very nice if they were! But to behave in contravention of reality is the best way I know to betray myself into foolishness. Maybe you've had better results with the method.
that is not a fault endemic to white people, but people who are well off. please distance yourself from identarian narratives and treat people as individuals rather than groups of people
As reported in the link, median net worth of a white family is $171k. Which is just about enough to buy a median house... Meaning, that the median white family has a house they live in and little else. That's certainly not a position from which you can influence anything.
I am white, granted. However, I have no extraordinary power nor am I really wealthy.
Pushing these buttons, implying that I should be guilty for what I am, is only increasing the divide between the races.
Accusing me of playing an acitve part in supressing others is simply a false allegation.
This is racist. And you dont even realize!
Both sides will have to work on how they communicate with each other to improve things.
No, on two levels. First, nobody cares about how you feel, guilty or otherwise. Second, it's not about what you are either. It's about what you have, i.e. wealth and relative power, and what you do. Those are things within your control, unlike anyone's race.
> Accusing me of playing an acitve part in supressing others is simply a false allegation.
You do play that active part by asserting your property rights on wealth and other rights that were taken from others and given to you rather than working distributing them. Nothing false about that.
> Both sides will have to work on how they communicate with each other to improve things.
No, one side needs to give up its power over the other.
>If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel
I've never been a fan of the accusation that social justice uses "original sin" as an argumentative tactic, but here you are unambiguously using inherited sin.
Obviously people have a duty to live their lives honorably, but saddling someone with that kind of free floating guilt and anxiety seems like an attempt at setting them up for manipulation.
There's a theme in social justice where everything is systematic until it's people they don't like, then those people are personally morally culpable. It's like soc ail justice read a description of what it means for a social issue to be "systematic", without learning systems thinking. This lens on the issue is a way to gain insight for new systematic approaches to remedies, but instead it's been reduced to new "I'm right because I have bigger words than you" tech for pushing tired old tactics.
The point I was trying to make was not to feel guilt for yourself, but you SHOULD be aware of the advantages the sins of your ancestors have given you. And I would argue you have a responsibility to make up for them, in terms of righting the systemic wrongs. It was not my intent to place moral culpability here, though I understand how its easy to read that. None of that means you need to have free floating guilt and anxiety. But an awareness should naturally lend itself to wanting to help.
The truth is most people aren't aware of history at all. So many believe, internally, that there is a natural order or a superiority based on the economic and social outcomes they see. The more one knows about the true level of violence even in the recent history of the US, the more outraged one should become.
Slavery and racial oppression is not unique to America or White people. It's a small cross-section of the entire history of the world, spanning millennia and across the entire globe.
But to further your point, if you extend your comment to all groups of people (and not just White people), and the moment you use the term "gratitude" and "appreciate" instead of guilt, is when I can agree with you and we can collectively move forward as a society.
We need to appreciate and be grateful for the society, technology, stability and civilization that was built by our ancestors, through a lot of adversity, suffering, poverty and war. And as a corollary to that, we need to preserve, adjust and build on top of that instead of throwing it out entirely because "historic injustice" that at this point seems to be inescapable and ever present with no path to redemption. It almost seem like original sin, and I will have no part in paying penance and reparations for something I had absolutely no part in.
I think you're on to something here. That a lot of the most enraged people probably have some underlying condition that isn't being addressed. Furthermore en masse such folk are being actively manipulated to political ends. Sadly, professional treatment in certain jurisdicitons seems to involve prescription of opiates which likely just exacerbates things. Maybe that's the point.
I think the best clarification of this is to separate out fault from responsibility; and the analogy to explain was snow on your sidewalk. Is it your fault that there's a foot of snow and ice on the walkways in front of your house? No -- you had no control over that. Is it your responsibility to shovel it / put out salt to prevent people from falling and hurting themselves? Yes.
Similarly, if you're white and/or well-off, is it your fault that things are tilted your way? No. Is it your responsibility to try to do something to make the field more level? Yes.
I disagree, and others would call me a "SJW", not coming at it from an anti-left point of view.
You might feel guilt, but will ultimately have to work through it to be a productive person fighting for a just society. If you are motivated mainly by guilt, you can easily end up prioritizing whatever makes you "feel better", instead of trying to figure out what is actually most effective to change society for justice.
Plus the things in the OP article, and others; guilt is simply not an effective motivation, and a movement of guilty people can't build the liberatory society we need.
You should be OPPOSED to all that, you should realize your comfort is not because you "deserve" it but just the luck of the draw, but guilt isn't actually helpful.
> What we as individuals, groups, and societies need is active opposition to racialized discrepancies, not idle, unproductive self-reproach. From awareness grows motivation to make a difference. White guilt tends to warp or subvert the very sympathies that spurred a yearning for change to begin with.
> For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.
I'm sorry, but how did you come to this conclusion? The first thing that comes to mind is the new tactic used by activist, saying something to the effect of "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist." Which is what (I believe) lead to this thing: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-di...
So, to pivot back to my tent revival example: religions often have practices that turn off outsiders, but they often simultaneously are seeking to convert those outsiders. It's a balance!
I would say that "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist" is a message aimed squarely at those who already believe. It's urging people to do more to support the movement.
It makes me think of "All people are sinners except those saved by Jesus Christ." Both in that it's somewhat alienating to outsiders and that the people making the statements are quite serious about them!
Activists know this! They know that it would be better for recruitment to have a purely positive message to give people. That's just not where the movement is right now.
I don't think that you are correct. Well... maybe they do know it and are opting for an alternative approach, because guilt-tripping seems like a fairly common tactic, especially in the aforementioned activists.
I think there's a distinction in terminology here. "Activist" generally (among people I talk to at least!) refers to activist organizers, who mostly agree that stunts like this are both bad and strategically unhelpful. Unfortunately, it's in the nature of community organizing that sometimes the community goes off script.
The interesting corollary is that, while individual change may be positive, that's not what gets into the media. Just look at the news. What sells and gets clicks is violence, protest, and conflict. Only the occasional baby panda story makes its way through.
There was a story on HN recently about how protestors for the Micheal Brown case made headlines while the Eric Garner case did not, and it was because the Brown case had shades of grey, while the Garnet case was open and shut. Similarly, college rape cases with evidence don't make the headlines, while unsubstantiated accusations get picked up by feminist organizations and promoted. Another example, PETA makes waves with irritating campaigns that turn people off from the movement, while other animals rights organizations quietly do good.
But all those movements have a purpose. Even if they do not convince any individuals, while only preaching to the choir, they get important messages out there, expand the moral Overton window, and make their peer organizations' positive messages more likely to be heard and accepted.
Fully agree. Neither preaching nor ad financed well-being articles are particularly interesting if we are talking about news.
We still have the problem of overzealous banning of content/language/bad opinions. To suggest feel-good articles as a solution sounds a little bit too dystopian.
> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity.
Can this get expanded on a little bit? How does one recognise some else's validity?
I get the simultaneous feeling that leaving them alone isn't what they want, and me waving my hands and pronouncing them (eg, a young gay) valid is likely to get a very negative reaction. Who am I to decide what is and isn't valid. What exactly does that mean in a what-do-they-want sense?
My guess is they want other people to copy them so they can build a community, but I'm sure there are other interpretations.
Actually a very hard question with a million answers for a million different combinations of identity and scenarios.
At a high level I think recognizing validity takes the form of a social acknowledgement that someone else as "as much" right as us to be in public space. You can think about LGTBQ+ folks going out glammed-to-the-gills, or how the modern gay rights movement started after police raided a gay bar for no particular reason, or slut marches protesting sexual harassment. These are all people doing things in public that are taboo in a way that's related to their identity (gay people acknowledging their sexuality in public / people dressing in revealing ways) and demanding they be treated with respect. Often even if they are shouting rude things.
For a more heteronormative example you could think about the distraught parent who might break social norms when their child is hurt or killed. If you're a doctor and you have to tell the parents their child is dead and they scream at you, you don't treat them like they're random people on the street. You respect their validity and understand that they are dealing with a lot and your feelings aren't top of mind[1].
It can also be as small as not asking where someone who is a little racially ambiguous "where they're from" before you get to know them. Not because the question is rude exactly, but because it's probably a question they get a lot and it highlights the difference in your backgrounds.
[1] This is actually very hard on medical professionals even if we all understand!
Suppose you feel that you live in a society where being gay or atheist is looked down upon. Moreover, suppose at the same time that you are gay or atheist and not ashamed of that anymore. Then, it makes sense that you'd want your 'validity recognized' from people close to you. Besides that, I can see many such people making a wider argument to others that they should accept that being gay or atheist is a valid choice.
I personally think that, besides the above, a lot of the loudness comes from a feeling of freedom. Where all of a sudden you no longer need to hide who you are, which leads to a stronger expression of a part of you that was pent-up.
This means things like recognising that being gay is a thing, that it's a normal and perfectly ok way to be, and that the person in question is in fact gay and accepted into the group as such.
It's the opposite of the kind of parenting that makes people nervous to "come out" (which many gay kids will have grown up in).
> Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer.
I think this is a really good analogy I'd not thought of, but incorrect in the last part. I think there are (and historically, were [1]) plenty of casual participants in tent revivals, made to feel good because they are collectively part of something energetic and out of the ordinary that their peers were also part of. Such person thinks consciously or subconsciously "I may not buy (or even understand) what preacher-man is shouting about, but it sure is fun be with lots of people dancing, yelling, and letting loose, and they seem to like me when I participate. Maybe if I'm even more energetic than guy next to me, I'll get even more approval from these people." Not every participant, but I have to think that was one motivation in many cases. I'll leave to others to draw parallels to present day.
Yah, the comparison is pretty reductive to tent revivals (which, as you say, are diverse and not always fire-and-brimstone affairs).
There have also been people combining activism and protest with street fairs and free food (which makes me think of evangelical tent revivals), but that's been muted since the pandemic.
Exactly. The behavioral change is one thing, but who's gonna do the emotional work?
>I also think most activists are aware of this.
Maybe, but I suspect that often it's just as important to the activists/choir to wring an apology/conviction out of the others. Settling out of court (to mix metaphors) is not as satisfying.
> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity.
Back when I was in college (late 90's) I remember coming across a forum post where someone else was talking about this.
The gist of it was that they knew a gay women who came out when she was in college, and after she did everything became about sexuality. According to the poster, this woman was pretty annoying to a lot of people. "How do you know person X is gay? Don't worry, they'll tell you about it".
But then he talked about how he was friends with this woman over a lifetime and eventually you could know her for years and never realize she was gay. It stopped being the most important part of her identity and just became 1 thing in a 100. She would talk about it with her closest friends but it just wasn't something she needed everyone to know.
The explanation this person gave is that when you're new to something like that, you sort of wrap yourself up in it as an identity. But then over time, as it becomes familiar, you find that there are other aspects of your identity as well, and maybe your sexuality/religion/whathaveyou isn't the most important thing to communicate to other people.
Since then, I've seen this borne out twice in my life.
The first:
While in college I befriended a guy online who eventually told me he was gay. I never personally cared so for me it was whatever. But fast forward a few months and at one point I eventually blew up on him (over chat, we were strictly online friends) because I just got so tired of him equating everything to being gay. It would be completely innocuous things that somehow indicated someone was gay or disliked gays. He went offline after that and never came back and I sometimes wonder if he liked me. For me it was just an online friend, but I do sometimes think about it. I can't remember how we met, but I think it was while I was running a kingdom in the online game of Utopia (I'm pretty sure it's still around in some form).
The second:
I have a very good friend whom I've known for over 25 years. I'm closer to this guy than my own brothers. He grew up christian and at some point in college decided he was an atheist. And he turned into the stereotypical 'angry atheist'. I used to talk to him about it and ask him why he felt the need to be an asshole to someone just because they were a theist. Over the years he's calmed down a LOT and treats theists with a lot more respect than he used to. You'd probably never know he was atheist unless you asked him specifically.
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Anyway, I was just surprised to see this sentiment. It's one that I've kept with me for years and I very rarely ever see anyone else acknowledge it.
I am unable to source the proper quote presently, but something along the lines of:
Nature knows no greater zeal than that of the recently-converted.
The original context was religious, but I can document its applicability to sexual orientations, genres of music, operating systems, text editors, programming languages, and Ayn Rand.
Religion, whatever else it is, is part of the human experience. Religious traditions are some of the oldest organizations in existence. Whatever the nature of god, they all deal with reassuring the faithful and attracting the unconverted, which was why I thought they comparison was apt.
I agree that current protests are not "carefully crafted campaigns", but I think that that is largely due to the simplicity of the message: They want less police brutality and murders. The resulting system is not really set up to receive "sinners" or do any other quasi-religious things; it's merely a vehicle for conveying petitions for redress.
I remember being a young atheist; I thought that people believed in Christian and other hateful creeds because they were misled, miseducated, etc. Now that I'm a mature Pastafarian, I know that people believe in hateful creeds because people cannot divorce their identity from their beliefs and are not willing to risk their self-image merely for the sake of being more logical or historical, let alone more moral.
However, that's not why people are currently protesting; it's why people are counter-protesting, though.
The whole thing reminds me of how the post WWII German society was in turmoil because of the student protests in the 60s. The new generations didn't feel silence and not guilting the old Nazis was the appropriate thing to do.
What they did instead was going into the places where Nazis worked ("storm the institutions") themselves and started moving into official positions there. Over time they just replaced them.
I am not sure how German society would look like today if nobody dared to guilt the Nazis about being Nazis after WWII, but one thing is true: guilt alone doesn't work at all. You have to provide alternatives, make them attractive, allow people to take a new role within the new that you are planning (and be it repenting sinner).
Guilt-tripping isn't morally neutral. It's manipulation, exploitation, getting people to do what you want without giving them what they want. Doing it is evil and makes you evil.
In my late teens and early twenties I constantly guilt-tripped people close to me. It was my "thing". It hurt everyone a lot. Then one day I realized how sick it was, and stopped completely. Now I never do it to anyone for any reason, and push back whenever someone does it to me for any reason. I recommend this approach to everyone.
Whoa: hold on just a second there. I don't necessarily disagree with your wider point but we need to step away from this inflammatory and accusatory language.
You said that you used to guilt-trip people constantly when you were younger, and then you stopped when you realised how sick it was. Doing it didn't make you evil: it made you immature, and then you grew out of it.
Except that - and I sort of hate that I'm pointing this out - you haven't entirely grown out of it because you recommend people not do it but then brand them evil if they do. That's guilt-tripping, and it's manipulative and inflammatory. (Still, we all have our off days and revert to type from time to time, so please don't see this as a personal attack.)
Anyway, my wider point is this: part of maturing is developing better and more effective social skills. Hence many people change a lot between their late teens and mid-20s.
Not everybody does though. If guilt-tripping and similar kinds of manipulative behaviour become the pattern someone follows throughout their life (i.e., they don't choose to grow out of these behaviours) that might make them evil, but let's try to avoid almost literally demonizing vast numbers of people who are probably just immature.
Branding some behavior as evil isn't guilt tripping, it's just branding the behavior as evil. I agree with the person you replied to that guilt tripping is an evil behavior. People do all sorts of evil behaviors without realizing it, their lack of awareness doesn't make it any less evil.
Is it evil as in intentionally malicious? It's possible to harm people without intending to harm them, in the way one can accidentally step on another's foot, or an eager arm hits someone's face- neither of these are assault per se. I've always taken guilt tripping as a consequence of unhealthy mindset when approaching a concern.
People's mistakes happen in the most offhanded ways. Swept along from moment to moment, they fall into evil. Without reason, consideration or dedication, the next thing they know they're on the wrong path as if it were the only one.
Yet by contrast, "I was doing the right thing without realizing it", "The next thing I knew, I was doing good deeds", "In a moment of carelessness, I helped someone". You never hear those things and you surely never will. Righteousness cannot exist without intent and righteous action requires righteous intent. You can't do the right thing unless you consciously try to.
Under this view, unintentionally malicious actions, such as abusing guilt trips without being aware or caring about their harm, are still evil because by default, to prevent them, you have to be aware and paying attention, and if you aren't that's your failure to act righteously.
> Yet by contrast, "I was doing the right thing without realizing it", "The next thing I knew, I was doing good deeds", "In a moment of carelessness, I helped someone". You never hear those things and you surely never will.
I disagree with this statement. I carelessly do things and people tend to thank me for my kindness and helpfulness, even though I was never intending to do it. People will do the right things without realizing it all the time, in a thousand little ways. I can talk to a friend just to talk, but to my friend, it may have been a sudden, unexpected, and welcome reprieve from a dark and lonely mental space. I can share an otter video because I think otter youtube is great, and in doing so adjust someone else's viewing algorithm away from so much unhealthy/addictive/extremist stuff on that site.
People's actions are rarely with real justice or malice in intention. Most of the time it is nuances of grey, thoughtlessly. Humans don't have the mental capacity that would be required of thinking otherwise.
>People's actions are rarely with real justice or malice in intention. Most of the time it is nuances of grey, thoughtlessly.
My point is that thoughtlessness is by definition evil and that working under that assumption is better than not. You disagree and that's fine. We won't really reach an agreement over this by arguing I don't think.
You haven't addressed the thing I'm confused about. I can do things thoughtlessly and people thank me for being helpful. This goes against your statement that goodness cannot happen without just intent.
Righteous action requires rightful intent because it always requires effort. Thoughtless action doesn't and is also subject to the whims of the environment. In your examples, your "good" actions are nice, small things that required nothing out of you, they just required you to act like how the environment (other people) expects you to act. The more you increase the effort necessary to carry out a "good" action, the more conscious effort will be necessary, and the more the phrases I mentioned will become true.
Additionally, as I mentioned, thoughtless action is subject to the changing environment. What is considered good now is different from what was considered good 100 years ago and what will consider good 100 years from now. If your actions are thoughtless you are simply a product of your environment, no matter how warped and disgusting it may be.
If your environment rewards small good actions, you're not actually acting righteously, because you're just reproducing what's expect by your environment. When the environment turns sour and what's considered good starts becoming more and more warped, you will not have the will to resist it because your actions are thoughtless and not righteous. You will fall into evil, like everyone else, swept moment by moment, without caring about what you're doing as long as the environment responds well.
I have had the same experience as you of thoughtlessly doing things that benefit others and had the same objection as you to his statement. For what it’s worth I think you are correct.
Calling guilt tripping manipulation is a little dramatic given that people use the expression to encompass anything that makes them feel guilty whether it's intended to or not. If you drive an efficient car, ride a bike, or walk, some people, varying numbers according to where you are, will be righteously outraged that you're guilt-tripping them.
Also, "manipulation" suggests unfair trickery. If you're guilt-tripped for speeding in a school zone, is that unfair trickery? There are rules that are meant to constrain people from infringing on other people's rights and security. How are we supposed to enforce them? Should every anti-social activity be enforced by a fine or prison time? That's considerably harsher than a moment of social discomfort when you realize someone is shaming you.
Finally, calling this "evil" is exhausting your evaluative vocabulary too quickly. Guilt-tripping someone for anti-social behavior can certainly be less harmful than guilt-tripping them for pro-social behavior, which is less harmful than the anti-social behavior itself, and so forth.
Indeed. The number of times I've heard that driving an electric car or a bike is "virtue signaling" is amazing.
I think, if you're so focused on the "signaling" -- the notion that someone is just doing that to provoke an emotional response -- then all that's saying to me is that it's provoking guilt in you, and that's made you feel angry.
Are you contending that virtue signalling isn't real, or that what is claimed to be virtue signaling isn't and so the phrase becomes a kind of slur?
My opinion is that virtue signalling is real, and, further, that "signalling" doesn't just have an effect on other people, it can change our own disposition.
The use of the phrase "virtue signalling" is sometimes applied in reverse, describing someone that is insufferably smug and exudes a sense of unearned moral superiority and ascribing those traits to their desire to signal their piety to others. Oddly, I find that a kindness as it means these undesirable traits have an external cause and can therefore be corrected.
I am saying that doing actions that are actually pro-social -- "virtuous," if you will -- such as reducing pollution, are not "virtue signaling," or at least not with the negative connotation the term has taken on in the past decade, which generally implies hollow statements without value.
When I hear someone look at somebody doing something good in the world, and dismiss them as mere "virtue signaling," it tells me more about the person doing the labeling that the person labeled. They can't conceive of someone doing something pro-social for its own sake, and instead ascribe cynical "signaling" to justify their own lack of morals.
It’s entirely possible that a person is riding their electric scooter to advertise their virtuous concern for the environment (ignoring how likely this is to be true for any given scooterist) AND that someone else is being a shitty person for being dismissive. Note that the dismissive person is specifically shitty for doing their own virtue signaling—hollowly criticizing someone else to signal their own virtue. Of course, it’s easy to mistake an earnest scooterist or critic for a virtue signaler (ultimately motive is hard to assess) so we should take care about these accusations as with any accusation of motivation (in the same way that no decent person would loosely sling accusations of racism, sexism, etc).
It is not used to provoke a response, it is more about signaling political affiliation.
I think virtue signaling is synonymous with dog whistling, but different jargon is used by different partisan groups.
It depends what messages and from whom. From corporations? From politicians? From advertisers? In CVs? I think it would be prudent to consider motivation in some cases, but it is a subjective assessment still, as might be the message.
I hope car/bike choice will never be a political statement. That would be a loss for everyone. Not everything should be regarded as that as it would suggest severe bitterness.
> given that people use the expression to encompass anything that makes them feel guilty whether it's intended to or not
This argument feels like splitting hairs. My understanding is that we're talking about guilt-tripping in the sense of actively engaging with someone in order to produce a desired outcome from that someone. Merely seeing someone biking to work doesn't really pass that litmus test, as the cyclist isn't immediately interested in what you do based on your opinion of his commuting choice.
In Nonviolent Communication by Marshal Rosenberg (nice summary: https://medium.com/s/please-advise/the-essential-guide-to-di...), instilling guilt (and shame) is considered to be a violent way of communicating. First, I had a problem with this definition of violence. Then I saw it fits the framework of violence: "either you do as we say, or we will intentionally make you suffer".
I say "we" because, in many cases, it is not a single individual but a community or any social group.
I find it best to claim that “yes, I’m selfish”. It tends to move the conversation to a more constructive place since then they have to provide reasons to induce my behavior.
I had exactly the same realization about the same time. And now I strongly push back against it to this day.
Unfortunately, most people don't even realize they're being manipulated. Whenever I get visibly upset at being manipulated, people question it. Almost inevitably, they don't understand the manipulation and think it's fine.
This has always been obvious to me. I have actually struggled with the opposite, where I have at times struggled to pursue what I want at cost to others, not understood how to set boundaries, or failed to hold people accountable to even their own principles.
It's funny that people can have such different backgrounds and life experiences, and that, as it turns out, end up in similar places because maturity results in finding a balance. At least in my opinion.
I feel that guilt induced by a loved one (a la guilt-tripping) and societal guilt are somewhat different. We all carry at least some emotional baggage from past episodes of guilt tripping by family members, but I don't think that should be a factor in this particular topic.
There’s a motivational difference between persuasion and coercion/manipulation. Pointing out that an act is evil isn’t inherently manipulative, but implying shame and guilt in order to coerce someone into changing their behavior is. It’s a fine line and it’s hard to litigate because the distinction is motivational.
The thing with guilt tripping is that it tries to bypass the will and judgement of the victim and coerce them to do something against these self properties through the guilt. Calling out someone to better their behavior is an open criticism, not guilt tripping.
This isn't about manipulating to have people do something for you. The article is about people feeling guilty for throwing trash on the ground instead of in the trash can.
If that is evil then I don't know where your morality is centered around but certainly not "morally neutral".
Wait, this is great. It means the guilt trip is very good at entrenching a viewpoint. So if you want to fuck someone over, find something he's doing that's hurting him and guilt trip him till he doubles down.
You can do this at the whole society level: for instance, no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participation.
So you can then blame them for all sorts of things. Guilt trip the Arabian nations for low participation of women, the Mississippis of America for low black participation. They'll double down and not correct. Then you beat them by just being better at using your people.
Sadly the article only hypothesizes this and doesn't talk about concrete evidence for the entrenching effect but one can hope.
> no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participation.
But this is not necessarily a good thing. Labor participation of an enslaved group is surely higher and they work more hours per day...
Nor is it clear that other ethical practices outgrow societies that don't practice those ethics, e.g. China (and many other examples) and democracy.
Nor would you want to entrench a non-ethical viewpoint when it comes to nuclear warfare ( first strike / nonproliferation) / climate change.
The word 'efficient' is intended to be significant in the quoted sentence. Efficient labour participation is different. It means that a guy who can become a lawyer performs law. It means that a guy who can operate as a bricklayer lays bricks. And it means that a guy whose peak is unskilled labour is only going to perform unskilled labour. If you put your lawyers into ditch digging and your bricklayers into coffee delivery you can get 100% labour participation without efficient workplace participation.
This is commonly the flaw with Arab nations' use of their workforce of women. They are all working a lot of the time. It's just a huge waste of what they're capable of.
Slavery is similar. You just flatten everyone into unskilled labour. You lose. People will better fall on to the curve where they can participate the best in a free society than a slave society.
Another way to spin this thought that sounds less "evil" is that you can guilt trip people over good behaviors in order to entrench the good behavior.
This sounds likely to fuck people up in the head and also to hurt your relationship, so I wouldn't do it myself but it is interesting to think about. The ends don't justify the means.
Debt is much more effective than slavery. Unless misery is your goal, you can do a much better job at extracting value from people and keep a population working for your benefit with debt. It has a way of making both sides feel like what is happening is “right” while having the same effects.
I guess we'll see. The test is in front of us. There are nations using indentured servitude and de-facto slavery and there's the Free World. If the other guys are better at it, let's see them beat us.
I'd rather humanity survive through slavery than be extinct through freedom, but I don't think I need to make that choice since I think free people self-organize into more resilient societies so long as they do not assume too much load of taking care of the non-adapted.
Not a native speaker. Pronoun use was intended to represent neuter/indeterminate gender. Would alter to 'them' if this interpretation had high priors. Unfortunately this forum software does not permit edits past some short duration.
The point was that in a geopolitical sense, we can make Arab states weaker by encouraging their oppression of their citizens by telling them it's bad to oppress their citizens.
If the manner of their oppression is ethnic, then encourage that. If it's gender-based, then encourage that.
Some people will respond better to one or the other. Also, the carrot of 'feeling good about yourself' has many nuances.
An anecdote:
We used to live in a village that had a few kilometers of semi-rural 2 lane road leading to it. Even though this road was outside city limits, it had many driveways and side streets on it so the speed limit was 50 km/h. At the time we had 2 cars, one regular family car (VW) and one luxury car (BMW).
I always drove at the 50 km/h speed limit. However, when I drove the VW 70% of drivers would overtake me, while when I drove the BMW nearly all drivers would fall in line behind me. This was consistent over years, and extremely obvious once you noticed it. Apparently people are influenced by the behavior of others, but how that influence is achieved can depend on subtle factors.
Another example: For decades there where 'informational feel good' campaigns trying to get drivers to stick to the speed limit on the town's ring road. Decades without any result. When finally a plethora of speed cameras were introduced, the speeding problem was solved in a few months.
I think the best approach is usually a combined one. Think about drinking and driving.
Just shaming/punishing people for it isn't going to solve it, if there aren't e.g. pull factors like practical solutions to avoid driving when drunk, recognition for people who don't drink when driving needs to be done etc.
I think often the worst thing is existing culture. So things like: "It is not manly/cool to wear a seatbelt." Would a Hollywood action hero wear a seatbelt? Certainly not!
Things like these are very hard to get rid off and take time and maturity. Endangering yourself and others is neither cool nor manly, it is a mechanism to show others how invincible you feel you are: the modern day equivalent of banging on your chest. Ironically people who are actually strong and secure rarely ever need to do all that chest banging.
> I think often the worst thing is existing culture. So things like: "It is not manly/cool to wear a seatbelt." Would a Hollywood action hero wear a seatbelt? Certainly not!
In one TV show called "Forever" (spoilers, btw.) there's a nice scene where one of the characters is driving a car at gunpoint and gets out of the situation by driving into a wall and releasing the bad guys seatbelt right before impact.
There's nothing inherently uncool about seatbelts; it's just a matter of how it's presented. "Heroes don't need seatbelts to drive a car" makes as much sense as "Heroes don't need guns for a gunfight".
This proves that the rules of coolness can sometimes be shifted away from valuing recklessness. The same effect might be possible for other areas as well.
Guilt is as much a tool as pride. I think the way Martin Luther King, Jr. frames the goal of direct action in “A Letter from Birmingham Jail”[1] is helpful in understanding the power of internal guilt in changing things:
> You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
You can then use both the stick (tension that leads to confronting a crisis) to lead people to the carrot (pride for confronting that crisis).
It does depend on the community’s ability to internalize that tension, though. I’m concerned that is much harder than it used to be. I think for many American Republicans in particular that is no longer possible, because they’ve created parallel information streams that scrubs out all of that tension. If that’s true, I don’t actually know what the right tactic is to help them understand the tension that exist in so many issues, or even if there is a plausible tactic.
I've been trying really hard to replace all my usage of "you're wrong" with "yes and".
Another good one I'm trying recently is: "You're right to think that given the information you know, and here's some more information you should consider."
Oh and: "That's a great hypothesis, here's another one."
This is a mutually respectful dialogue. You don't pretend to know better. You're just each sharing your ideas, and if they conflict, you'll open a dialogue into why they think it is 5? And here's why I think it is 4. And then you can both try to resolve the conflict and see why you think differently and what the correct answer actually is now that you've considered both.
In your example, it might seem a bit silly, because of how certain we all are that 2+2=4. That said for anything less clear cut, you can really see where saying "Yes and" is better.
A: Unit tests are more important than integ tests.
B: Yes, and I believe integ tests add more value than unit tests.
That said, it really depends who you're talking too. If someone is super open minded and welcomes disagreement and are constantly trying to test their knowledge, you probably won't need any of this. But if someone is less receptive, less confident, has a big ego, etc., Then you do need to manipulate their emotions to have them be more receptive.
What if one really knows better though, eg talking about life at a place where you've been, but the other person never was there and is just guessing?
I'm thinking a problem then can be the bystanders / co-workers: now they're going to think 5 is a fairly ok answer, when you didn't very clearly disagree about that?
Especially if the other person sounds self confident.
Any thoughts about how to strongly disagree, in a polite way, when the other person is crazily wrong in a slightly harmful way?
But I think too that in most cases, especially when talking one and one, the Yes-and or sth like that probably is a good approach
> Any thoughts about how to strongly disagree, in a polite way, when the other person is crazily wrong in a slightly harmful way?
If the other person is actually trying to misinform, it'll be hard. If they're really genuine, I think doing the above gives the bystanders enough info to choose for themselves. Like, you still should disclose the information you have, so say you have been there, and that it wasn't at all like that from your first hand experience, etc.
The thing is, you won't convince everyone, but you'll have a better chance at convincing others if they hear you out and consider what you're saying openly. So that's kind of the idea here.
B: Yes, in structural engineering (or rocket science) 2+2=5, and in cosmology 2+2=10, and in computer engineering 2+2=2, and as we're doing arithmetic here, 2+2=4.
People aren't idiots. If you're just replacing "you're wrong" with doublespeak people are gonna figure it out real quick. There is no substitute for engaging in Quality(TM) communication with people even if the end result is disagreement.
I agree, quality communication starts by recognizing the other person's ideas and considering them first before you shut them down. Saying "you're wrong" as the first thing after they've told you what they thought is pretty dismissive, especially if they feel confident or have put effort into their thoughts.
So to me, that's the reason for change in language. First I want to express that I'm listening to what you said, I'm considering it, and I think it's really good, but there are certain aspects that I'm unsure about, and now I'd like them to consider those.
Those are both pretty condescending. Convincing someone is the same as correcting a math problem, work through the chain of reasoning until you find the error. The problem is you need to establish trust and good will to do this. Building rapport first and agreeing that you will both act in good faith before going through the reasoning. Just saying “you’re right” and “that’s great” are pretty weak attempts and will be seen as patronizing more often than not.
Out of context they might appear condescending. The reason I have more than one is different ones are appropriate in different contexts.
Basically, "you're wrong" is dismissive of the other person's intelligence. That's why I want to avoid it.
So when someone is saying something I mostly agree with, but I just want to expand on it, instead of saying "but" or "not quite" or "that's not it", I will say "yes, and". Because I recon that's very much what I think as well with just a few minor additions.
If someone has an idea and I think there are better ideas, I won't say, "that's dumb", or "no", I will say, "oh that's a good idea, can I propose one too?" Because that's what I want to express, like good job with that idea, nothing against it except I'd like us to consider if this other one might be better, which it might not be.
That ranks right up there with "You do realize that X, right?" It's like, not only am I going to tell you you're wrong, but I'm also going to imply it's because you're too stupid to have put any thought into your opinion.
"The potential of positive self-directed emotions has largely not been embraced by activists. The worry could be that it might make those engaging in the cause appear self-satisfied or selfish. But these studies suggest that, instead of focusing on ‘doom and gloom’ messaging that zooms in on people’s shortcomings and risks alienating them, policymakers and strategists might find that positive messaging, speaking to people’s positive sense of self, might be a more powerful lever of behavioural change."
getting results like this from giving study subjects a questionnaire is nice, but is there an actual real world, macro example of somehow inducing positive self-images on a large scale and seeing the desired effect?
I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
And to pick up the examples from the article, environmentally-friendly behaviour, haven't we seen real results after we began, often with aggressive campaigns, how ruining the environment is both wasteful and harmful, having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame?
(This is pop-psych so take it with a grain of salt.) One way it’s been explained to me is that guilt and shame are tools for suppressing action and passion. They’re really good tools to get someone to stop doing something; but terrible tools to get someone to start. To start a new initiative you want to be motivated. But guilt/shame are tools of disengagement. They suppress our capacity for proactive action.
You see it, especially with racial issues, that when (mainly white activists) shame other white people for being white (and ergo automatically racist), those being shamed generally retract even further away from potentially engaging with the issues
> I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case.
Actually, occasional and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the best way to change behavior. Slot machines (and the most successful games) are based on this principle.[0]
> One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
Have you lived within any of these cultures enough to understand what motivates those within them? How do you know how much pride is a factor for them?
I can imagine authoritarian rule, and brutal punishment, or a history of either, may change the behaviour of people. But that is very different to the passive mechanism of guilt.
Without having lived there, but from reading: Shame and guilt is basically non-honor, so the positive emotion used for positive inforcement is a feeling of honor.
What I've noticed in Japan, is people who have cultivated a positive self image, who think of themselves as a good person, will be motivated to behave in a way consistent with that image, just the same as everywhere else. People who are motivated to to avoid external judgements, risks to pride or status, will just do the bad thing when no-one is looking, or in a way that sufficiently "launders" the connection between their actions and their social status.
And the byproduct of all the external social pressure is a lot of psychological pain, self censorship, crippling risk aversion, and acceptance of bullying dominant personalities.
> I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
I think negative reinforcement can work to get people to stop doing things. If you get people to associate feelings of shame or fear with doing things you don't want them to do, then they'll stop. If all you want is obedience, and you're working in a culture where reputation and avoiding shame is a big deal, this can work well.
But if you want more than obedience, if you want people to actually agree with what you're saying, and do (or don't do) things because they truly believe those things are good (or bad), then shame and fear probably won't get you far.
> And to pick up the examples from the article, environmentally-friendly behaviour, haven't we seen real results after we began, often with aggressive campaigns, how ruining the environment is both wasteful and harmful, having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame?
Sure, and my opinion, at least in the US, is that it hasn't been anywhere near as effective as we need it to be. There are a lot of people here who just don't care about recycling or reducing waste, and many who don't even believe that burning fossil fuels is changing our climate.
Yes, we do have a lot of people who are genuinely trying to do the right thing. Some of that is due to fear of what will happen to them if they don't (which isn't ideal). In some places you can get fined for putting recyclable items in the trash bin; I expect many of the people who mainly recycle because they don't want a fine would likely just stop recycling if the threat of fines went away.
Others actually do believe in the cause of environmental protection, and believe that we need to take care of our planet for future generations; that's a positive-reinforcement outcome, though admittedly an uncertain-future one. Saving money on renewables (when that's possible) is a great positive that makes people feel like going that route is the right thing. I even remember in years past people considering reusable grocery bags as a sort of status symbol, as petty as that may seem.
Side note. Stores really need to fix their approach to reusable grocery bags. People will always forget to bring them and will go with the other option because of convenience. They need to factor that in. Maybe just charge a deposit on the reusable bags and allow people to return them at their leisure for a refund?
Lead by example would be even more simple and effective. First step would be to describe what the writer proposes to be changed. It might not be constructive in the first place.
> I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
You will always loose most intellectuals with that amount of paternalism and you are doomed to fail at some point. Not a good strategy at all. Singapore is a benevolent dictatorship and works to some degree, but it still requires participation. And force doesn't work, maybe for a short while, but it actually inhibits values getting entrenched. And it wouldn't work for any demographic, people would just laugh at you and in most cases it is actually deserved.
> having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame
We did that since Abraham and probably long before.
In different countries, the same law with the same penalty has different rates of law-breaking, so you can't necessarily draw a clear line of "this works, this doesn't" in every country/case. Yes, being harsh can have results. Does that mean its results are better than a different tact? The evidence of one method alone doesn't show you that, you have to experiment or study the same situation with both methods.
There is evidence that, for example, treating prisoners more humanely and giving them trust and responsibility can lower recitivism rates, while there's also ample evidence to suggest that harsh fines and imprisonment for minor crimes creates greater recitivism. But this may vary by country and implementation.
You can see it in the current political party in power in India.
It never acknowledges any problem with their policies or nation or even its people. Atleast that's what comes from their supreme leader.
As a result lots of people have developed blind faith in this particular supreme leader and any criticism is met with "anti national" tag.
Untill now I had believed those were paid trolls and IT cell employs but my own relatives are not tolerating any word said against the political party so it seems all have been colored in the faith and belief of this party.
> One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan
And I definitely wouldn’t want to live in China and I would be very uncomfortable living in Japan. Singapore really just depends on how much money you have and how easy it is to vacation elsewhere. Aggressive environmental shaming seems to have created a deep divide and shows the exact behaviour warned about in the article where people become defensive and then further entrench their beliefs with some deciding to lean into it and flaunt their “shameful” behaviour in the faces of those trying to shame them. How are these good examples?
Positive messaging has been used in effective leadership for a long time. If you can frame the behavioral change in a way that someone thinks it's their idea, they're more likely to buy into it. Breaking out the punishment stick only works if the person has no option but to deal with the punishment. Negative messaging always starts from the position of "you should stop doing what you want", where positive messaging starts with "if you do this, it'll be good for you".
Eating all meat is great for you. You'll feel better. They seem pretty successful.
Church and religion, I would say mostly works on positivity.
The argument would be these campaigns degrade to negativity. This certainly seems like it's playing out. Movement X goes more extreme. The internal members chose negativity over positivity.
The stereotype of the Chinese is they will work towards a common goal but leave a traffic accident victim on the street. Not sure how true that is. And not sure what the actual goal is.
> Church and religion, I would say mostly works on positivity.
Depends on the religion, I guess. I was raised Catholic, and a lot of it was about making people fell guilty about their sins and telling them if they keep doing bad things and don't repent, they'll spend an eternity in hell.
Not exactly positive, IMO. Sure, there was always mention of how if you're a good, Christ-believing person, you'll get eternal rewards, but that always felt like a relative afterthought to me.
> The stereotype of the Chinese is they will work towards a common goal but leave a traffic accident victim on the street.
It's funny that you mention that; just today a friend in San Diego saw a car accident out his window (driver was unconscious after crashing into a parked car). He ran downstairs to see if the guy needed help, and saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video. He asked if anyone had called 911, and no one had.
I guess that's not exactly the same as ignoring an accident victim, but it's just as bad, if not worse.
Competing with alternative ideas as they run negative campaigns.
I totally think guilt works, I just can't workout how well, I do know it can spark a organised backlash, guilt in the church probably strengthens Atheism but might also strengthen current members.
> saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video.
Like the Chinese examples I'm always cautious how to interpret these stories/footage. Rough rule in life, people are good as long as you make it easy for them to be good.
I'm not sure panicked propaganda that's there to plead with lapsed Catholics to return to the fold is particularly representative of doctrine. It's advertising, so by its very nature is designed to be manipulative.
And using guilt to keep people in a belief system is just psychological manipulation. It doesn't matter if it works; it's disgusting and dishonest, the opposite of what these people laughably claim to believe in.
> people are good as long as you make it easy for them to be good.
It's not all that hard to press four buttons on a phone, wait a few seconds, and say some simple words about what happened and where. But no, that would distract from making a "cool" crash video to share on Instagram.
I get that my story is a third-hand story to you, and you have no idea who I am, so you have no idea if I'm relating it faithfully (or if I even know enough to relate it faithfully). But I know who I am, and I know the person who told me this story (and, after calling 911, took and sent a photo of the useless gawkers), and it greatly troubles me.
Yes, my association with the catholic church ist also mostly about guilt and fear. Scaring people to make them do the right thing.
In general the church was the dark symbol of fear. Have you ever been to the vatican? The same in big. Everything there is big, with the intention of making you small and fear them. At least that was my impression. Other people I was with had different experience
The catholic religion in itself is also a lot about loving and doing the right thing out of love and wanting to help for the sake of it.
But yes, for me it mostly comes down to doing good things out of the fear of bad things happening to you.
"and saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video. He asked if anyone had called 911, and no one had."
And wow, I have to say I cannot imagine this happening here in germany. Except maybe for some very dark areas on a bad time of the day.
> Have you ever been to the vatican? The same in big. Everything there is big, with the intention of making you small and fear them.
Yup. Religious architecture is generally designed to make humans feel insignificant and powerless. Which is true, in the universal scheme of things, if you think about it. But religions use this as a carefully curated tool of propaganda, manipulation, and control.
I sadly can very much imagine this happening here in Germany... Almost exactly the same story happened to me too -- and it was not a "very dark area on a bad time of the day", it was one of the nicest cities around here at lunchtime. I assume it can happen everywhere, it is even more likely the more people are around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
Once again modern psychology confirms the intuitive wisdom of Dale Carnegie. The very first maxim in How to Win Friends and Influence People is "don't criticize, condemn of complain". And the reason for this:
"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity..."
I like Adam Smith's version in The Theory of Moral Sentiment. People want to be loved and to be worthy of love. People will act if they think they're actions will promote both of those things.
It kind of gets at the limitations of flattery too - people will re-act positively up to a point (they want to be loved and what's flattery if not a declaration of love?) but if they suspect that they're not worthy of the love being offered then they'll reject it.
Guilt trips are frequently the reverse of that. They put too much emphasis on what it takes to be worthy of love but not enough that doing whatever if it is will cause the person to be loved. But then again if you believe someone is doing something wrong it's possible you might make that person understand they're doing something wrong - it's a lot harder to convince them you'll like them for not doing it. People understand resentment too much I think.
Not totally comfortable discussing that book in this context. It seems that book is very much about manipulation though I admittedly haven’t read it completely. But yes if even it points out that guilt should be used sparingly and only for very good reasons that reinforces the concept.
Anecdotal, but in Detroit we don't have recycling pick up. One of our recycling centers started making recycling an event, you show up, organize everything by it's proper number and you get a free concert, and then they also throw pretty awesome parties (pre-covid, for everything) for the full moon and Detroit specific events. It's not perfect, but it was exciting to see people recycling for fun
I have been innsulted by social justice individuals for defending my friend who was being insulted by them.
Whether right or wrong, insults are not the way to cooperation. Everyone is challenged differently and some less than others. What matters is not my prestige or wealth compared to another, what matters is that I am content and live with dignity. I will never be treated as another nor do I want to, I am me. I have dignity and although I am not fully content of my situation, I am joyful because I have faith what I am doing is right and will lead to contentment.
The problem is an identity centered around attributes. The solution is an identity centered around objectives.
Color is minor. Respectfulness is not. For being treated without respect by SJWs I now avoid them. I have dignity as they do. I will not tolerate being mistreated.
Stupid is the idea that attributes physical or spiritual as sufficient to determine your tribe. Goals are better. People change, spiritually and physically.
Goals are ideas in action.
If I had to write a hierarchy of identity defining objects I would go with: 0) Goals (what I want) 1) Spirit (what I think) 2) Body (how I look)
As far as I understand, it is already like that. Looks trickle from ideas which trickles from goals.
That is why a common enemy is a cause for union. i.e. a common goal. This is why the race to the moon united americans (common goal, again).
The last thing I need from a dentist, and the first thing I will get from a dentist, is a lecture about what brought me in to the dentist.
I know why I need to go see a dentist. I don't need them to repeat back to me what I've been telling myself but with a flavoring of guilt-trip, I need to know how bad it is and what to do to move forward.
You need to cut them some slack too, they're just human. Every doctor will think the part of the body they're responsible for is the most important.
If people actually followed all the different doctors' advice, they'd be healthier, sure, but only because they spend every waking moment taking care of their X body part.
> Best way to get people to do the right thing: pay them to do it.
This is strictly not the best way because it both requires the extra cost of reinforcement to be administered, and tragically fails for anything we haven’t installed that mechanism for. It is practically impossible to install reinforcement points for every single agent and for every single thing they do.
Intrinsic motivation is simply much cheaper, making people want to do the right thing by their internalized codes, by reinforcing the frame in which they see themselves as moral people, reinforcing the benefits of reciprocity and gift economy.
This is why purity codes are much stronger in rural communities where most of the transactions are not through money but good moral standing. Granted, those codes themselves can easily get outdated, and distributed moral standing calculations basically limit the practical group size to a function of Dunbar number, but the alternative of codifying desired behavior in monetary or legal terms is just too blunt and easily gameable.
There has been numerous research showing that money rewards led to worse outcome. That was especially true do it creative tasks. Eg curiosity, fun, purpose, development was much better motivation.
Of course in real life job situation good money has to be on the table. But once they are are there, international motivators make all.the difference. I recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_...
The most effective way is for them not to consciously realise there's any alternative. Making the right thing the default or far easier option next. Reward/punishment are quite low on the motivation/incentive scale.
Wow. I feel like I just read a line from some kind of James Bond comic book villain. I know he was serious, and that he's probably right, but still, wow!
The context appropriate response would have been: “great of you to share this mention and also the close-to-correction on the author’s name. You may also find it interesting that Andre C...“
Though to go meta on myself, your humor here is wonderful. You might enjoy an even stronger response with ...
We are more animal than human. In other words, our emotional brain is far larger and far faster than the neocortex.
There are far fewer "adults" than you might think.
As one spiritual master said: "Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don’t believe them. Don’t believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. “Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.” This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That’s all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful."
Everyone is capable of growing into an “adult”. There are a lot of perverse incentives in our society that prevent this. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be undone before we can all continue to move forward.
Unfortunately people don’t work that way. People are highly influenced by the way things are presented. There are numerous examples of this. See Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for a good primer.
Is this inherent to all people, or is behavior reinforced by the way the problem is presented? Those first two sentences seem to indicate different possibilities.
This article frames motivation as based on either a positive or negative self-image, but it doesn't question whether motivation based on self-image is the best option.
I haven't seen any evidence that self-image is universally the primary motivation across cultures, so the degree to which people are motivated by it would seem to be influenced by the way things are presented.
Reason is one other potential motivation that could be considered a special case of acting in accordance with perceived transcendent principles. Loyalty to others or aspirations for collective achievements are other motivations that are not always centered on self-image. These aren't inherently more valuable, and they can be just as positive or negative as self-image, but they present alternatives.
> Give them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision?
If that actually worked we wouldn't be having this conversation. People, particularly in large groups, use emotion, tribalism and ego protection over reason.
If reason and fact worked well to change minds, we wouldn't have idiots "rolling coal".
People “roll coal” because they perceive your ham handed attempts at reasoning with them as an attempt to force them into a sudden change that will probably have some immediate negative consequences for them. It’s a defensive reaction provoked by attacking them.
I don't think that's the full picture. I think people "roll coal" because they get pleasure from causing frustration by their actions. It's all about "owning the libs" or similar.
I drive a prius, and several times I have seen coal rollers cross several lanes of traffic to sit in front of me with their stacks spewing. They don't know anything about me other than the brand of car I choose, but it's enough to make them go out of their way. It's got to be a positive reinforcement mechanism.
I think the reason why you can't have a rational discussion is that it will play directly into this cycle! Give someone a choice between an uncomfortable analysis of their own behavior versus a pleasurable peel out with yet another frustrated do-gooder in their wake, and they'll choose the latter each time.
Honestly I think they'll just have to get bored before they stop.
> Frustration among the people they perceive to be trying to screw them over is the key part you're missing.
Right, but the original conversation was in respect to giving people the tools and information they need to make good decisions.
At this point those tools and that information has been out there for a long time.
So if they perceive that people are trying to screw them over, then we've just come full circle and proved the point - Treating them like adults and giving them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision has not worked.
This is actually a pretty naturalistic explanation and probably mostly wrong. I think people quickly see that you perceive them as idiots and then the ego does indeed run its course. and rightly so.
Not everyone can take rational decisions. Even if they are in a position to take rational decisions, external factors like greed, pride, social pressure and situation hugely affect those decisions. For example, if there's a plantation programme in the community, and my buddies want me to hang out for a drink at the same time, I will most likely decide to go to the plantation programme, but the buddies will make me hang out with them as much as they can.
I guess the issue is that, like with evolution, the marketplace of ideas does not necessarily reward the ideas that people would think of as "best", but selects for fitness in other ways.
The "marketplace of ideas" cannot reward what is "best" since disparate people have differing ideas of what best means. Indeed, the marketplace "solves" this problem precisely by invoking another fitness function, a compromise that is predicated by a certain cultural tension and virtually guaranteed to produce results that appear sub-par from every perspective.
Because we'd pull out the guillotine. We know exactly what happens with populist rationalist movements.
This might not be a morally bad thing, or an overall net negative in terms of utility; when politicians are bad enough, executing them really does have an affect on the upper class. But it's seditious, which is why folks don't want to talk about it; they don't want to be arrested nor first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
The amount of abuse that the upper class has committed upon the typical person is so large that there's no way to peacefully empower them anymore. 10% of the USA is impoverished, 30% cannot afford to own housing, 40% are financially insecure, and our Pareto 80/20 distribution of wealth has slid over the past two decades to nearly 90/10 [0]. Honestly, that last number doesn't stress it enough: Fewer than a thousand people have over half the wealth of the USA [1] and it gets worse with each recession.
Rationally, how would you correct this situation? The guillotine crowd has a solution, and the only cons are that it's illegal and that it can get out of control quite quickly. Meanwhile, the closest thing to a mainstream political solution comes from Bernie and the Democratic Socialists, and their reforms are widely unpopular among the political establishment.
I think what makes it harder with social
movements is that they’re often rooted in anger. I’m sure “fund social programs” would have a wider appeal than “de-fund the police” (which is sort of two sides of the same coin), but people are angry at the police so that’s where the focus is.
I think getting through that anger and encouraging people to find a positive and affirmative way to express the same sentiment is an extremely difficult task, and really asking a lot of people.
Ah, propaganda 101: "If you want to influence your enemy, make sure he/she sympathizes with you". I also read an interesting article about this, that conservatives do care about the environment if you give it the correct emotional cue.
E.g. instead of saying they have to save the environment for the future generation (which perhaps generates a guilty feeling), we want to preserve nature to keep it as it is (which they view as a positive thing, preservation of that which is good), they suddenly gave a lot more money to the cause.
Same here in the Netherlands, conservatives here fight for gay rights. Simply because it is part of our tradition. They also fight with all their might for Black Pete, look it up, because there is the constant blame game being played and they feel that the tradition is attacked.
And how much I love the tradition, the current Black Pete has some stereotypes baked in. And am I a nationalist and conservative, a rare breed in my country ^_^
I am curious what happens if there is a positive sound. E.g. tell them to go back to an older tradition, Black Pete as ferocious demon helper of Saint Nikolaas. Would they still oppose change? My guess would be that there is less of an issue then and people will experiment with new image.
I'm not familiar with conservatism in the Netherlands, but I don't think that is accurate description of conservatism in the US. A conservative sees inherent value in clean air, water, land for future generations and for preservation. They are often avid fishers, hunters, outdoorspersons, and want pristine environment both for future generations and it's own sake. They simply disagree on the best ways to go about preserving the environment, and often on the tactics used by liberals (including guilt discussed above) and the proper role of government in said preservation. They like clean water as much as the next person, but don't believe that a city council banning straws at their favorite restaurant is really relevant to that goal.
In the corporate world we learn to take everything we can get and are rewarded for it. For our direct benefit like compensation. Not saying understatement isn't something a good image of a leader requires today, but most people know it is dishonest in practice and are just fine with keeping up appearances.
Why should I not apply that to the resources of our environment? Future generations? Right, they will be okay as it is. Leading by example might help, but modesty isn't something we transport in pop or corporate culture.
Conservatives were the original environment protectors in the US. Probably politics that drove them away from it. In the current political climate dogmatism is spread pretty evenly.
>Conservatives were the original environment protectors in the US. Probably politics that drove them away from it. In the current political climate dogmatism is spread pretty evenly.
I like this observation. We should drive them back again though. I think they are not that hard to move if you bring the message in the correct way.
Conservatives are by nature conservative. They prefer gradual change to over night revolution. They want to see the proof that something will work. Instead of saying “we must eliminate the internal combustion engine” say “we must continue to improve the automobile” and instead of “we need a green economy” “we need an efficient and independent economy”. You do have to live up to your words though, conservatives are also very detail oriented and will call you out if you don’t deliver.
> conservatives are also very detail oriented and will call you out if you don’t deliver.
Do you have any evidence that conservatives are more detailed oriented? Anecdotally conservative US presidents Regan (response to AIDS crisis), George W. Bush (War in Iraq), and Trump (COVID response) did not seem to care about policy details. Policies such as lowering tax rates to increase total tax revenue (Laffer Curve) does not seem detail oriented.
I don't really get this obsession with preserving the status quo. It is not universally good and by doing so we may prevent good things from happening.
Just like how changing things is not universally good. Let's not get into that discussion ^_^ I am a mixed bag on that anyway, sometimes change is good and sometimes preserving things is better.
I would argue that there is a lack of understanding of how well the status quo prevents bad things from happening. We take for granted how many problems we've solved, because many of these problems didn't exist in our lifetimes.
From a systems point of view, the conclusion makes sense: one is an unstable equilibrium in your mind (guilt vs. desire) while the other sets up a virtuous cycle.
You want all people to do the right thing? Fine them if they don't. It's the only thing that's helped us get the virus under control.
Greetings from Melbourne, Victoria, currently on stage 4 lockdown because enough people are selfish and don't care (unless threatened).
EDIT: (Leaving my original text unmodified above) Agree that this sounds crass, and probably not very cultivated by HN's standards, but it's from the point of view of extreme frustration with the situation - having done all the right things myself, only to see it undone by others who just don't care.
I did observe significant changes of behaviour after the fines started getting press coverage. I believe it is indeed incredibly hard to reach out and educate the masses, but when the health of our society depends very much on the last few %s doing the right thing, and this segment is so hard to get to, then drastic measures do have a play. It definitely ought to be backed up by other educational efforts though.
This crisis is making me think hard about where we draw the lines on individual freedom, when they can cause harm to others. Also, having said the above, a number of breachers were in the upper echelons of society financially wise - so it's definitely not a clear cut thing about who needs to start caring more.
> Greetings from Melbourne, Victoria, currently on stage 4 lockdown because enough people are selfish and don't care (unless threatened).
Much of the second wave was due to mishandling of the hotel quarantine program. Given the complexity of such operations it was more likely bad luck than mal-intent. It does, however, highlight the problem of using un-vetted privatized staffing for such critical operations, and then under-training them.
Add to those blunders Melbourne's excellent public transport system that everyone depends on, a lack of mandatory mask policy, and you have the perfect storm.
"Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist Dr Prof Charles Alpren told the inquiry that for Victorians who had developed symptoms over the past month, 1,589 had been genetically sequenced. Of those, 1,577 were linked to the cluster from Rydges, and 12 from Stamford. There were no other genetically linked clusters in Melbourne."
>Greetings from Melbourne, Victoria, currently on stage 4 lockdown because enough people are selfish and don't care (unless threatened).
It's because your governor adopted a stupid policy that doesn't account for human nature. How well has banning drugs and teen drinking worked to limit those? It failed completely. How could anybody in their right mind believe the same heavy-handed approach is optimal for dealing with a public health emergency? It's not the people's fault, it's the governor's fault for adopting a policy that's doomed to failure and them blaming other people when the inevitable happens.
It's like designing an organisation. If it's possible for one single human failure to bring down the whole thing, if it's possible for one guy to accidentally delete the prod database, the fault doesn't lie with the guy who fucked up, it lies with the person who designed the system.
> It's because your governor adopted a stupid policy
The 'Premier' of Victoria, was one of the first to move, and the policies in place were holding up. Mismanagement of the mandatory hotel quarantine system caused an outbreak just days after restrictions were being lifted across the country. Using under-trained security guards was a mis-step, but for the outbreak to happen at this crucial moment was more a failure in execution of the policy, than the policy itself.
You (well, at least I) can't actually down vote immediate replies to your own comments.
I wonder what our leadership would make of the book "Turn the ship around". I'm not sure how they'd go about defining responsibility - it seems to be all about passing the buck and CMA.
> You (well, at least I) can't actually down vote immediate replies to your own comments.
Yeah good point. Was just unusual that that comment was downvoted (twice?) long after the submission had left the front page, but not the adjacent one where I say basically the same thing. Seemed targeted.
> I wonder what our leadership would make of the book "Turn the ship around". I'm not sure how they'd go about defining responsibility - it seems to be all about passing the buck and CMA.
Not aware of the book, but leaders of democracies are as accountable as much as their citizenry makes them.
Nobody can argue fines for socially unacceptable behaviour don't work. They do.
The problem is that this method of ruling only goes so far.
Eventually you run into situations where a significant enough portion of the population believes something different from another.
Its in these situations, fines and laws prohibiting actions (alcohol, abortion), that things start to fail and where positive reinforcement starts to win out.
All this is with the caveat that I don't want to live in a non free society, if that's on the table, then yes, negative reinforcement works fine, if you don't mind attending the odd struggle session in a north Korean death camp.
Yes, same goes for following traffic rules. You cannot just fix the traffic problems by patting people on the back for stopping at the red light. You need to fine people as much as possible; the higher the fines, the lower the cases of traffic rules violation.
Sure you might get the traffic on I95 to actually go the posted limit of 55 with North Korea-esque enforcement but if your goal is to prevent traffic from having an absurd differential it's probably better for everyone to increase the number on the sign.
Same goes for intersections that violate people's expectations of what should be a stop vs a yield.
Traffic is all about making interactions predictable so people know what to do and how to do it right. Reducing variance in behavior is far more important than what the speed is or how any given traffic control device is treated.
Traffic rules are all about dumbing down these complex fuzzy patterns into something we can codify, enforce and build consistent signage/markings for.
With the number of un-legislated edge cases ratcheting up fines is a recipe for resentment among the populace (possibly leading to different voting patterns not in favor of whoever driving the push for fines). Strict enforcement usually comes with the nasty side effect of being regressive and having demographically uneven outcomes. Lax enforcement results in variable behavior. For example some people stop religiously at a certain sign, some people don't, body language indicating someone is going to do one and then they do the other can lead to unpredictability in the eyes of the other road participants (e.g. pedestrian trying to cross there) and bad outcomes.
The modern thinking (borne out by studies) regarding traffic is that the best approach is to make it easy and natural for people to do the right thing. Want people to take a stop sign seriously instead of mostly yielding, turn your Y intersection into a T. Want to slow people down without reducing visibility? Paint narrower lanes.
I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things.
When I see a protest right now I don't think about a carefully crafted campaign. I think about a tent revival[1]. Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity.
I think a lot of people mistake preaching to the choir as preaching poorly to the unconverted. It's not unique in any way to the left - people often mistake messages that are intended for the conservative faithful as outreach and mock it for its ineffectiveness.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_revival [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8rjtsi/young_athei...