If you're having a loud fight in public that's disturbing other people, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. This is as bad if not worse than parents that won't take their screaming kid outside. These two idiots at least could have prevented themselves from screaming in the first place, but chose not to.
They have no expectation of privacy. They should have an expectation of global shaming, it's all they deserve.
You're constructing an artificial dichotomy of blame here. You're attempting to say that we can only blame the couple or only blame the broadcaster.
Does the general sentiment that 'no one likes a gossiper' only apply to private information?
Example:
1. I'm with a friend in public
2. I pick my nose
3. No one notices but my friend
4. My friend then shouts at the top of his
lungs, "Hey everybody! This guy just picked
his nose."
Are you going to pin a medal on my friend because you dislike people that pick their nose in public?
You're constructing a strawman. No one is trying to pin a medal on anybody here.
Some people are trying to publicly crucify Boyle (the irony is delicious, by the way) for exposing to ridicule those who deserve nothing else.
You don't need to construe his actions as particularly meritorious in order to not find him ethically deficient.
Ethics, by the way, are what the blog post linked to brought up. Ethics are also not the determinate factor in the conduct of a friendship, so you're doubly off in the woods.
Have you ever actually gotten into a serious fight with someone in public? As tensions rise, you tend to become oblivious to the world around you. You don't need to be screaming to draw attention to a somewhat raised, agitated voice. Especially if everyone around you becomes silent. You can't expect rational behavior from two emotionally involved people being angry at each other.
They have no expectation of privacy
Which doesn't mean we shouldn't grant it to them. If we would only ever give people what they were legally entitled to, the world would be an awful place.
> Have you ever actually gotten into a serious fight with someone in public?
Being capable of self-restraint (a trait the author laughably tries to attack Boyle with rather than the childish twits fighting in a restaurant), the answer is emphatically no.
> Which doesn't mean we shouldn't grant it to them. If we would only ever give people what they were legally entitled to, the world would be an awful place.
"Expectation of privacy" isn't just a legal term with specific bounds, it is an exploration of the bounds of privacy that society is prepared to accept. Idiots fighting in public have clearly surrendered their privacy, not just legally, but morally and ethically.
"Being capable of self-restraint" does not automatically imply you are always, in any circumstance, capable of self-restraint. Conversely, finding yourself in a public argument of this magnitude does not automatically imply you are incapable of self-restraint. There's a lot of shades of grey here. People are emotional beings and that sometimes gets in the way of rationality. I've never been involved in a public fight, but I can readily imagine that happening, given the right person and the right provocation. I was attempting to elicit some empathy. A little consideration for the shortcomings of others goes a long way.
I certainly don't agree with your assessment of 'the bounds of privacy society is prepared to accept'. That's shifting the responsibility for your personal response onto 'society'. You are responsible for your actions, independent of what 'society' feels about it. That something is possible does not give you, you personally, the moral prerogative to act upon it. That's a naturalistic fallacy: taking the state of affairs as it is in the world and labelling it 'right', because it is the case.
This guy should not have tweeted and photographed the fighting couple, even if five other people were doing it simultaneously and even if they enabled it and even if they should have realized it could (would?) happen.
> childish twits fighting in a restaurant ... idiots fighting in public
Wow. You have already decided that these people are twits and idiots without even being there. Why? Because someone twitted about them having an argument in public, at some Burger Kind restaurant somewhere.
I find your sense of entitlement appalling. You feel you have the right to decide who deserves what kind of treatment -- based on your own comfort, no less -- and use that to justify the meanness of other people.
I disagree with author on one point:
In that Burger King, Andy Boyle thought he was listening to the disintegration of a couple’s marriage. He was really hearing the crumbling of his own ethics and self-restraint.
No, he wasn't. As you have so kindly helped demonstrate, we live in an increasingly hedonistic society, where our ethics is defined by our surplus of entitlement and our lack of self-restraint.
Why, exactly, is it more "entitled" to expect fights to be taken out of public than for those fighting to expect the people they're disturbing to grant them the privacy they have obviously chosen not to care about?
Because your 10 minutes of comfort is probably less important than the fact that a marriage might be falling apparent.
I understand if they were arguing whether to get #1 combo or #2 combo, then probably 10 minutes of your quiet eating comfort is a lot more important. If a marriage is on the verge of collapse, your 10 minutes of quiet comfort @ Burger Kind don't mean much.
You are trying to apply hard rules "yelling in public is always wrong and internet-wide shame and publicity seems to be a decent punishment" to social situations.
What if they just found out their friend was killed in an accident, or the women was pregnant and her water started breaking.
There could be crying, yelling and a lot ruckus probably. It would most definitely prevent you from quietly enjoying your whopper. So the obvious response is to twit _everything_ in hopes of teaching them a lesson?
But would you start twitting everything to 'teach them a lesson'? How about puncturing tires on their car?
So it was inconsiderate for them to shout in public, OK, it doesn't make it right for others to be assholes to try to 'teach them a lesson' or to somehow pimp out the incident for publicity.
Also, if one was to apply some kind of absolute morality to this, shouldn't the disintegration of a marriage be a bigger issue to worry about than having to hear public arguments?
> These two idiots.
Are you sure they are idiots? Have you personally tested their level of intelligence.
Remember you are also in public, if public display of emotions, loud noises, yelling, kids bother you _that_ much, you should stay more and more inside, as you have no choice but to be constantly irritated.
I completely agree. These people were violating the personal space of everyone within earshot. I would have liked to see them get arrested for disturbing the peace.
I guess they decided by doing a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis of the entire situation. One plausible scenario would be trying to get a free consolation burger.
They have no expectation of privacy. They should have an expectation of global shaming, it's all they deserve.