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If you've been on twitter in or around the tpot space the last few days, you may have seen Aella blowing up and deciding to go private. I won't recount the whole story, but it is in screenshots in the link earlier.
Suffice to say, apparently she searched her name and saw a ton of vitriolic attacks and discussions around her online presence. She claims that the worst part is the "overwhelming hate with nobody defending me. People are ashamed publicly to support me, they don't want to be called a simp or cringe."
Long story short she basically said that she is heartbroken, is "so sad the world is shaped this way," and decided to quit twitter and go locked for the foreseeable future.
For some quick background, aella is a prostitute. She is extremely successful, and has built up a huge presence on twitter as well as a cult following in rational spheres. She does data science work as well, and claims to be autistic. She is polyamorous and openly promotes and campaigns for that lifestyle, as well as doing drugs. Some of her stunts include things like tattooing her name on the body of men who have sex with her, having orgies while sharing details of who got to get in, etc.
A few darker claims are that she pushed her two younger sisters into sex work (one of them, by her own admission on twitter, was doing camgirl jobs before she turned 18.) She has also said some... problematic things that are edging around support for pedophilia, although she's canny enough not to come right out and say it.
Now as I'm sure many people here agree with, I don't exactly agree with aella's views or lifestyle. That being said I am still torn, the world is a cruel place. At the same time, aella has probably caused harm to a lot of others with her lifestyle and especially her approach to promoting it online.
This equivocation points to an actual underlying tension/confusion I have around liberal expression. On the one hang I think polyamory, sex work, and some of the.... encouragement aella has around minors watching point &c is quite bad, and should not be allowed to happen in the public square. I think a certain amount of shaming is absolutely good and necessary.
However, perhaps I'm frail hearted or something because it does hurt to see so many attack her so viciously, when they clearly have so much hate in their hearts. Perhaps it's Pollyannaish but I wish that we could do our shaming in a more dignified, and less clearly antagonistic way. It seems that most of the people shaming her, from my read at least, clearly enjoy looking down and judging someone harshly, seeing themselves as better than her. From my perspective, that's not just as bad as what she's doing, but still bad.
I'm wondering, I suppose, whether there's a way we can employ shame in a truly good way as a society? Can we somehow shame people without turning into monsters ourselves, in order to protect our children and especially young girls from (imo) degenerate and overall unhealthy lifestyles?
Shame should be for those you love, and for when you can feel pride about them in equal or greater measure.
I think it works well as a tribal adaptation, for when someone else's actions can reflect on you personally, or when you realize that your own actions have caused a great decrease in social standing among you and your closest people.
The weaponization of shame against your out group just leads to your out group being inoculated against all shame. It is unlikely to stop their behavior long term.
I see shame as the most powerful tool in the social toolbox. It needs to be used sensibly, and using it too much and too trivially is going to make it harder to use it for the things it needs to be used for.
The modern West is in bad shape precisely because it no longer uses shame. No job? Fine. Do lots of drugs? Can’t read or speak in complete sentences? Rob people, break property? Even lower level stuff like going out in public looking deranged/half-naked/just-rolled-out-of-bed? We no longer think a person should feel ashamed of themselves for doing that. As a result, we have wide swaths of society that no longer bother with anything but the bare minimum, and some even expect to be rewarded for that. Like, Yes, you got off drugs and applied for a job at Wendy’s. It’s an improvement, sure, but it doesn’t mean much.
I think it is more of a symptom of the breakdown of communities. Shame works pretty well for someone within your congregation.
Someone with no attachments to others? No family, no religious community, no coworkers, etc. it's gonna bounce right off them.
I mean I agree with that, but also that, as a culture we’ve kinda given up on even the idea of certain behavior being shameful or holding ourselves to a decent standard. In the case of Aelia this would include not being a prostitute, and certainly not promoting it online. But even in other areas, it’s like all of our ideas about how one ought to behave are seen through the idea of “it doesn’t bother me, therefore it’s fine,” almost to the point that pointing out these obvious deviations from desired behaviors are not to be noticed let alone remarked upon and only a scold would think of telling the person to stop making these bad decisions even if they are horrible for them, people around them, or society at large. And 8 think this is ultimately the cause of a lot of social rot.
I don’t think we can ever get back to small communities or whatever, but I think especially for public figures, calling out bad behavior is generally useful in maintaining some decency in society.
Of course we'd give up on that idea.
For that idea to propagate successfully it needs to confer some kind of tangible benefit. In an atomized society where people can pick and choose their communities at will, why would you feel shameful or hold yourself to any standard whatsoever?
If you were shamed you used to be ostracized from your community. Nowadays, what's the point?
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