Pragmatic Stigmatizing Or Bullying

[go_utes01]

The history of social shaming isn't encouraging. IMNTBHO education on the prevention of spread of any disease, and ongoing research into cures is the most effective and humane way to accomplish that goal. With AIDS teach your children not to have sex with anyone that has the AIDS virus, and don't swap needles to use illicit drugs.

Seriously? Do you think smokers are likely to be rounded up and put in camps soon? This is ridiculous.

[Stone holm]

Don't you think you are being a bit hyperbolic? So far there have been comparisons to lepers, Japanese internment, Nazi Germany (or perhaps that meant other europeans in the 30s and 40s), scarlet letters, physically assaulting homosexuals - do you really believe this is the inevitable outcome of some measure of social shaming. Could there possibly be less drastic measures and society stop short of these extremes? This is getting silly.

I was not the one that made reference to Europe, I made reference to Vermont and eugenics. Well, there has been talk about quarantining via social shaming and other methods as to contain Aids and STDs. Both of which are linked to promiscuity. Wenglund has attempted to make the counterintuitive linkage of gay marriage which should discourage promiscuity to increased STDs. I suspect that the studies cited do not really establish that causal link. I will admit, that there is a perception of a link of gay homosexuality with promiscuity. However, I also am aware that some gays who lived in the summer in Cherry Grove on Fire Island, New York that straights seemed to show up in their community and take it as license to engage in innappropriate public sex. I suspect that the de facto quarantining of gays via stigma may well have added to this public perception.

One of the impacts of social stigmatization is a form of de facto quarantining and sometimes that morphs into de jure quarantining. For example, there is a social stigma towards trailers which resulted in there being quarantined to special subdivisions and which bled over into stigmatization of those who reside in trailers ("trailer park trash"). Sometimes, however, these can cause those who are thus stigmatized to form communities -- see for example the recent edition of Pacific Standard with respect to trailer park residents. The same is true with certain minorities whether they be racial, religious, ethnic, or gender orientation. Hence black ghettoes, Jewish neighborhoods, Chinatown, and the Village.

[thesometimesaint]

Seriously? Do you think smokers are likely to be rounded up and put in camps soon? This is ridiculous.

Smoking itself isn't a disease, though it certainly contributes to disease. I live in California where smoking is permitted in fewer and fewer places each year. You have the absolute right to smoke, you have no right to force the unwilling to breath in your smoke.

[go_utes01]

Smoking itself isn't a disease, though it certainly contributes to disease. I live in California where smoking is permitted in fewer and fewer places each year. You have the absolute right to smoke, you have no right to force the unwilling to breath in your smoke.

This is the exact type of social shaming/stigmatization we are talking about. Do you think this will inevitably lead to smokers being assaulted or rounded up in camps? Those absurd conclusions from some reasonable social shaming of objectively harmful/risky behavior/lifestyles is what I was criticizing.

[thesometimesaint]

I don't see the connection. I've never called for the quarantining of any group of people, including smokers. Education is still the key. I'm so old that I say "Thank You" when I'm asked for my ID at the grocery store when I buy the occasional bottle of wine. I don't drink the stuff. I use it to cook with. I sure don't force anyone to eat the dinners I make.

[Stone holm]

I don't see the connection. I've never called for the quarantining of any group of people, including smokers. Education is still the key. I'm so old that I say "Thank You" when I'm asked for my ID at the grocery store when I buy the occasional bottle of wine. I don't drink the stuff. I use it to cook with. I sure don't force anyone to eat the dinners I make.

USU78 was the one who called for quarantining.

Why is it, then, "reasonable" for the life of an innocent and genetically unique human organism to give way for the convenience of its incubator . . . at the whim of the incubator . . . yet it's not reasonable for a person's movements to be temporarily curtailed for the good of an entire society?

Your thinking is upside down.

[go_utes01]

Interesting. Trying to decide under those circumstances whether leper colonies were cruel. Are quarantines the same as stigma? How about the Japanese-American internment camps, most were loyal American but they got interned anyway because there might have been some Japanese spies or fifth columnists. How does that work with teenage pregnancies, do we go back to expelling them from school? Maybe some kind of scarlet letter they could wear to warn people away -- damaged goods. Course there is the extreme stigma under Sharia law, the girl is out all night with a man so her parents or siblings shoot her -- that ought to be pretty effective in curbing teenage pregnancies and the spread of STDs via promiscuity.

You were the one that mentioned internment camps and shooting girls that stay out though - as if that is the logical conclusion of any social shaming.

[USU78]

Quarantining , I suppose could be seen as a form of stigma, as could eugenics. Calvin Coolidge thought certain bloodlines, such as that of the Abenaki tribe were inferior and so to avoid contamination of the rest of society, he supported sterilisation. Which is the reason that Vermont has no tribal reservations because those with Abenaki blood who didn't get sterilised went into. Hiding as far as their lineage was concerned. These types of extreme stigma are, in my opinion incompatible with a nation which prides itself in its concepts of personal liberty. Social stigma not of these extreme forms may be compatible.

This is just Godwinesque hysterics. A temporary quarantine of a very small group of persons known to be infected, until they're no longer infectious, is quite a different thing from eugenics, the systematic sterilization and extirpation of undesirables. It is the difference between the scalpel and the broadaxe.

[thesometimesaint]

USU78 was the one who called for quarantining.

I know that. However the idea of quarantining of AIDS suffers isn't unique to him.

[USU78]

The only thing I have said about Abortion is that I agree with the Church. That abortion is permissible in certain rare cases.

It is not reasonable in a free society to force a person into a state of house arrest for the rest of their lives. AIDS is not a temporary disease, and is not easily spread.

If it's not easily spread, why has its reach become, in so short a time, worldwide?

Sex is almost as fundamental to human existence as eating and breathing. This argument you make is the same one that releases the homicidal maniac on his honor to keep himself medicated because we weep for his lonely state . . . and wring our hands at our helplessness at his later rampages.

Our segregation of a very small sample of humanity and forbidding its "right" to infect others is not wrong, your present handwringing notwithstanding.

Edited May 22, 2013 by USU78

[thesometimesaint]

This is just Godwinesque hysterics. A temporary quarantine of a very small group of persons known to be infected, until they're no longer infectious, is quite a different thing from eugenics, the systematic sterilization and extirpation of undesirables. It is the difference between the scalpel and the broadaxe.

AIDS isn't a temporary disease. I don't know of any STD that is temporary without proper medical intervention.

[thesometimesaint]

If it's not easily spread, why has its reach become, in so short a time, worldwide?

Sex is almost as fundamental to human existence as eating and breathing. This argument you make is the same one that releases the homicidal maniac on his honor to keep himself medicated because we weep for his lonely state . . . and wring our hands at our helplessness at his later rampages.

Our segregation of a very small sample of humanity and forbidding its "right" to infect others is not wrong, your present handwringing notwithstanding.

For some odd reason people like to have sex, and not just for procreation.

What on God's green earth are you talking about? Do we now make having a disease a crime? Punishment for crime is largely a separate issue from the controlling the spread of disease. If someone is out there knowingly/deliberately infecting others with the AIDS virus, or any other disease, I have no problem with prosecuting that person to the fullest extent of the law.

That worked out real well for the Japanese Americans during WW2.

[Stone holm]

This is just Godwinesque hysterics. A temporary quarantine of a very small group of persons known to be infected, until they're no longer infectious, is quite a different thing from eugenics, the systematic sterilization and extirpation of undesirables. It is the difference between the scalpel and the broadaxe.

Oh my apologies, I thought we were talking about stigmatizing an entire group of people and justifying on the basis of a portion of them carrying a deadly disease. Didn't realise the topic had shifted to disease control. The whole disease thing was interjected by Wenglunds interesting assertion that the legislative authorisation of SSM resulted in an increase of reported STDs. So I thought you were arguing that we could justify social stigmatisation of a group of people because of a higher proportion of a disease in that population. Didn't know you were only talking about temporary stigma. How does temporary stigma for disease control work as a scalpel? I take it you would not stigmatise blacks over sickle cell anaemia .

[USU78]

Oh my apologies, I thought we were talking about stigmatizing an entire group of people and justifying on the basis of a portion of them carrying a deadly disease. Didn't realise the topic had shifted to disease control. The whole disease thing was interjected by Wenglunds interesting assertion that the legislative authorisation of SSM resulted in an increase of reported STDs. So I thought you were arguing that we could justify social stigmatisation of a group of people because of a higher proportion of a disease in that population. Didn't know you were only talking about temporary stigma. How does temporary stigma for disease control work as a scalpel? I take it you would not stigmatise blacks over sickle cell anaemia .

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic adaptation in Africans that helps them survive malarial infection. It also has bad side effects which aren't as bad as malaria. Lots of Americans, particularly those having ancestry going back to subSaharan Africa, have the genetic condition. There is no rational reason to stigmatize the condition, as it doesn't appear to affect behavior in any way that is or might be threatening.

Just what does this have to do with reasons one might stigmatize a behavior in order to discourage it?

[thesometimesaint]

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic adaptation in Africans that helps them survive malarial infection. It also has bad side effects which aren't as bad as malaria. Lots of Americans, particularly those having ancestry going back to subSaharan Africa, have the genetic condition. There is no rational reason to stigmatize the condition, as it doesn't appear to affect behavior in any way that is or might be threatening.

Just what does this have to do with reasons one might stigmatize a behavior in order to discourage it?

Because people have the unfortunate habit of not being willing to separate the sin from the sinner.

[USU78]

How does temporary stigma for disease control work as a scalpel?

Temporary stigma is a temporary remedy for a temporary problem: think war-time assessments of particular persons and businesses in order to protect those persons and businesses (and everybody else) from the threats to persons and property that led to the war. As part of the social contract, we agree to such things . . . just as we agree to be put into isolation if we are infected with, say, Ebola, or one of the other, particularly nasty, diseases. This isolation may be for a a matter of a few days or a few weeks, since the diseases have a known incubation period and controlling the plague is in society's best interests, including the greater interests of the ones infected or exposed.

AIDS is not all that different a case, despite efforts to make it so (because it's still, despite all the favorable press, by and large a "gay/bisexual" disease). There's no compelling public reason to release the rats with their fleas into the suburbs because we feel sorry either for the rat vector or the fleas they carry. Rats behave as they behave. We don't rely on their good intentions not to bit us or get into our living space looking for food.

With AIDS, of course, we have other considerations, but why did we and why do we put people "on their honor" not to do that which which we know spreads the virus? Once we found out how it was spread, we were compelled to throw up our hands because it's not nice to isolate known threats to public health. We do it for the Ebola patient and those who might have been infected by him. But we didn't and don't with AIDS.

Because somebody gets her panties in a bunch?

That's the child's argument (I don't wanna go to bed now! It's not fair!).

[go_utes01]

Do those arguing against social shaming/stigmatization believe that all shaming/stigmatization is inherently bad? For example (since the smoking one has not seemed to bring clarity), do you believe that unwed pregnancy or teen pregnancy should be viewed and treated by society as equally good and praiseworthy as married couples becoming pregnant? Or the choice to eat unhealthily even when morbidly obese be seen as an equally good and praiseworthy choice by society? Or the choice to play video games/watch television instead of studying? I am just curious where the line between good and bad shaming is for you. Thanks.

Edited May 22, 2013 by go_utes01

[thesometimesaint]

Do those arguing against social shaming/stigmatization believe that all shaming/stigmatization is inherently bad? For example (since the smoking one has not seemed to bring clarity), do you believe that unwed pregnancy or teen pregnancy should be viewed and treated by society as equally good and praiseworthy as married couples becoming pregnant? I am just curious where the line between good and bad shaming is for you. Thanks.

I don't know about inherently bad or good. What those are is ineffective. Did stigmatizing/shaming pregnant unmarried women eliminate those pregnancies? We all need to feel loved and wanted. Did stigmatizing/shaming those women suddenly make them feel more loved, and wanted by the important people in their lives, or their mate?

Ps. Do you want to punish people or solve the problem? Seldom if ever can you do both at the same time.

Edited May 22, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[go_utes01]

I don't know about inherently bad or good. What those are is ineffective. Did stigmatizing/shaming pregnant unmarried women eliminate those pregnancies? We all need to feel loved and wanted. Did stigmatizing/shaming those women suddenly make them feel more loved, and wanted by the important people in their lives, or their mate?

Ps. Do you want to punish people or solve the problem? Seldom if ever can you do both at the same time.

If you think stigmatizing harmful behavior is punishing people, then we have different definitions of punishment. So, to be clear, you believe that society should view/treat as equal the different behavioral choices I presented before, e.g. unwed pregnancy, poor eating habits, video games/tv over studying? Still curious.

[Stone holm]

Temporary stigma is a temporary remedy for a temporary problem: think war-time assessments of particular persons and businesses in order to protect those persons and businesses (and everybody else) from the threats to persons and property that led to the war. As part of the social contract, we agree to such things . . . just as we agree to be put into isolation if we are infected with, say, Ebola, or one of the other, particularly nasty, diseases. This isolation may be for a a matter of a few days or a few weeks, since the diseases have a known incubation period and controlling the plague is in society's best interests, including the greater interests of the ones infected or exposed.

AIDS is not all that different a case, despite efforts to make it so (because it's still, despite all the favorable press, by and large a "gay/bisexual" disease). There's no compelling public reason to release the rats with their fleas into the suburbs because we feel sorry either for the rat vector or the fleas they carry. Rats behave as they behave. We don't rely on their good intentions not to bit us or get into our living space looking for food.

With AIDS, of course, we have other considerations, but why did we and why do we put people "on their honor" not to do that which which we know spreads the virus? Once we found out how it was spread, we were compelled to throw up our hands because it's not nice to isolate known threats to public health. We do it for the Ebola patient and those who might have been infected by him. But we didn't and don't with AIDS.

Because somebody gets her panties in a bunch?

That's the child's argument (I don't wanna go to bed now! It's not fair!).

Okay, exactly what do you mean by "isolate known threats" -- are you saying quarantine all confirmed cases of AIDS heterosexual and homosexual? What about other STDs that are not associated particularly with homosexuals? Are we really even talking about stigma here?

[Stone holm]

If you think stigmatizing harmful behavior is punishing people, then we have different definitions of punishment. So, to be clear, you believe that society should view/treat as equal the different behavioral choices I presented before, e.g. unwed pregnancy, poor eating habits, video games/tv over studying? Still curious.

What do you consider "view/treat as equal"? Does that mean not calling the unwed mother a "slut", the obese person "fat"? If not, then exactly how would this social stigma work?

[USU78]

Okay, exactly what do you mean by "isolate known threats" -- are you saying quarantine all confirmed cases of AIDS heterosexual and homosexual? What about other STDs that are not associated particularly with homosexuals? Are we really even talking about stigma here?

I'm unaware of any other incurable venereal disease.

There's a duty to track down those whom one may have infected when it's discovered that one has contracted chlamydia so that those exposed can get treated. This nobody seems to have a problem about: The State steps in and nobody questions that it's right that it do so.

I'm not proposing anything in particular on AIDS, but wouldn't those thousands who received their death sentences have been better off had they known the risks when they ... accepted the transfusion, flirted with that there guy, agreed to have that heart installed north of the solar plexus. What of these ruined lives? What of their pain? What of their families' pain?

How many years? Still no cure. How many deaths?

Where is the compassion? Are only the few entitled to it? What about the many whose lives are at risk constantly because of the lack of will to act in society's best interests?

I'm decidedly unimpressed by the childish argument, "It's not fair that I can't be free to infect everyone I can trick by nondisclosure into exposing themselves to my loaded gun here."

[go_utes01]

What do you consider "view/treat as equal"? Does that mean not calling the unwed mother a "slut", the obese person "fat"? If not, then exactly how would this social stigma work?

How about not celebrating those behaviors as equally good or praiseworthy? You do not need to call people names to stigmatize behavior. Increased education and frank (respectful) discussions concerning the personal and societal costs associated with the behaviors, without fear of reprisals from the PC police. Celebrating good behavioral choices has the collateral effect of shaming the bad behavior, without the necessity of name-calling.

[Stone holm]

How about not celebrating those behaviors as equally good or praiseworthy? You do not need to call people names to stigmatize behavior. Increased education and frank (respectful) discussions concerning the personal and societal costs associated with the behaviors, without fear of reprisals from the PC police. Celebrating good behavioral choices has the collateral effect of shaming the bad behavior, without the necessity of name-calling.

That doesn't sound like stigma to me. Stigma is not positive reinforcement, stigma is branding something or someone as inferior or of bad report. This thread is about stigma. I think that it has been legitimately put forward that stigma has developed against people who smoke. I think all would concede that there was at some point in the past in America a stigma against unwed mothers and gays. Now a stigma is developing in the country against people who display intolerance of gays. People that get smacked with stigma tend to call that bullying. Examples being teenagers who came out as gay committing suicide and putting the cause as bullying, citizens losing a culture war with the LGBT community saying they have been bullied, etc.

[thesometimesaint]

If you think stigmatizing harmful behavior is punishing people, then we have different definitions of punishment. So, to be clear, you believe that society should view/treat as equal the different behavioral choices I presented before, e.g. unwed pregnancy, poor eating habits, video games/tv over studying? Still curious.

Unwed pregnancies are a social problem in that they often leave the woman without means of financial and/or emotional support. Stigmatizing the woman does nothing to alleviate the pregnancy and/or the lack of support. I don't know about what you learned about reproduction, but there has been only one virgin birth in the history of this world, and that one occurred some 2000 years ago. It takes two people of the opposite sex to make a human baby. But it is virtually always that it is just the women whom pays the price when unwed and pregnant.

Poor eating habits have their own rewards. Us stigmatizing the malnourished does nothing to help them eat better. Educating the ill informed, and providing the necessary funds for food security does a much better job. SEE http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865575139/Hungry-in-America-New-documentary-shows-food-insecurity.html?pg=all BTW You can be overweight and still be malnourished

Video games are mostly just a waist of time, but they can be a gentle diversion if used for a limited amount of time. Same with the TV. BTW the percentage of American homes with a TV is higher than the percentage of American homes with a car.

My position is pretty easy to understand. Use the most effective, least invasive, means to achieve the desired goal. Make no mistake about it social stigmatizing/bullying people is a type of punishment. Do you think overweight people don't know they're fat? Do you really believe that they don't hear the rude comments from the inconsiderate? Do you really believe calling people rude/cruel names changes behaviors? Do you really believe that out of sight is out of mind, that if we just don't see them, they cease to exist? We as a society have become very good at punishments. Lets try something that is actually effective for a change.