Last semester, one of my professors was giving a lecture about President Clinton. He vaguely mentioned the affair for which Clinton's second term is remembered. He presented a single image: a photo of Monica Lewinsky. Without summarizing the scandal, without explaining political consequences or the impact of the media, he simply remarked, "need I say more?" and moved on.
Is Monica Lewinsky nothing more than an image on a screen? Is she nothing but a moment from seventeen years ago? Is she nothing but the shame and humiliation that her name now denotes?
This dismissal made me uneasy, but I accepted his treatment of her and bought into the lie that shaming someone online is okay.
Is Monica Lewinsky nothing more than an image on a screen? Is she nothing but a moment from seventeen years ago? Is she nothing but the shame and humiliation that her name now denotes?
This dismissal made me uneasy, but I accepted his treatment of her and bought into the lie that shaming someone online is okay.
In a TED talk last year, Monica Lewinsky queried her audience: “Can I see a show of hands of anyone here who didn’t make a mistake or do something they regretted at 22?”
Nervous laughter follows. “Yep. That’s what I thought.”
This rhetoric is uncomfortably similar to "You who are without sin, cast the first stone."
Why are her mistakes worse? Because we have all heard them and seen them? Because we would never sin "like that"? Because our own shame and desire to hide requires us to be distracted by mistakes that seem comfortably distant?
Monica is incredibly brave. She's speaking up, seventeen years later. And she's speaking for the voiceless, for those who are humiliated online and are uncertain whether life is worth it. She's saying that we cannot continue in public humiliation, in perpetuating a money-making industry of exposure, in pointing fingers and throwing stones:
“Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop. And it’s time for an intervention on the internet and in our culture. The shift begins with something simple, but it’s not easy. We need to return to a long-held value of compassion. Compassion and empathy. Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit, and an empathy crisis.”
Our culture has made Monica an object lesson. However, the only thing I've learned from shaming someone else is shame.
Yes, we do need to say more.
If I claim to follow Christ, and if I claim to believe in grace and forgiveness, then I will display compassion in my words. Monica quoted researcher Brene Brown: "Shame cannot survive empathy."
Nervous laughter follows. “Yep. That’s what I thought.”
This rhetoric is uncomfortably similar to "You who are without sin, cast the first stone."
Why are her mistakes worse? Because we have all heard them and seen them? Because we would never sin "like that"? Because our own shame and desire to hide requires us to be distracted by mistakes that seem comfortably distant?
Monica is incredibly brave. She's speaking up, seventeen years later. And she's speaking for the voiceless, for those who are humiliated online and are uncertain whether life is worth it. She's saying that we cannot continue in public humiliation, in perpetuating a money-making industry of exposure, in pointing fingers and throwing stones:
“Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop. And it’s time for an intervention on the internet and in our culture. The shift begins with something simple, but it’s not easy. We need to return to a long-held value of compassion. Compassion and empathy. Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit, and an empathy crisis.”
Our culture has made Monica an object lesson. However, the only thing I've learned from shaming someone else is shame.
Yes, we do need to say more.
If I claim to follow Christ, and if I claim to believe in grace and forgiveness, then I will display compassion in my words. Monica quoted researcher Brene Brown: "Shame cannot survive empathy."