Canny Cloud

What is social humiliation 2.0?

“It’s a fair cop” [Monty Python, The Holy Grail]

Nowadays, the concept of a social punishment is derived from our well organised law enforcement system. Most of the time, you’ll think about community services ordered by the Court. But back in the days, around the 13th century, punishments ranged various methods of social humiliation.

It apparently used to happen after Mass or on market day when one’s sins would be exposed in front of a crowd before using one of the popular technical devices designed for public humiliation. The cucking stool is one of them -it has been made famous by the Saxons to punish dishonest brewers and bakers. The sinner was simply tied to the stool and publicly exposed at his/her door or paraded through the streets. The tumbrel was another device – a simple tipcart like the ones used during the French Revolution to transport condemned prisoners to the guillotine.

Similarly, the ducking stool was of similar manufacture and design except that it was made to immerse the person into the water. The chair was fastened to a long wooden beam fixed as a seesaw on the edge of a river. Sometimes, it was also mounted on wheels to parade the sinner through the streets. Then the magistrates would order a number of ducking depending on the sentence.

So much to catch a witch, a dodgy merchant or unruly married couples.

But in our modern society, human rights and dignity are meant to be heavily protected. Methods have changed. It is argued that one more modern form of social humiliation is “mobbing” – a more technical term for “bullying”. Workplace mobbing is apparently widespread – in the shape of gossips, rumors and unfounded accusations – to deliberately force someone out of their workplace by humiliation and emotional harassment. But the most troubling version of mobbing is Internet mobbing … our social humiliation 2.0.

In a CNN article – “From flash mob to lynch mob” – journalists investigated that Internet mobbing is a new form of public humiliation often out of control and unruled. As the article puts it:

The most concerning aspect of mobbing, though, is the way large groups of people can be mobilized to attack a perceived transgressor without their accusers providing any real evidence of their guilt. On the Internet, the mob can be judge and jury.

[...] A director at South Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communications, Oh Sang Kyoon told the International Herald Tribune, “Victims cannot live a normal life. They quit jobs and run away from society. They even flee the country. It’s like lynching victims in a ‘people’s court on the Web”.

The article gives away plenty of examples of random people (from China’s “Stiletto Kitten Killer” or South Korea’s “Dog Poop Girl”) who have been victims of Internet mobbing – especially in Asia Pacific where social norms are strict. Whether those persons deserved it or not, it seems that the concept of the ducking stool has simply evolved with technology and that witch hunts are not a thing of the past. But nowadays, no-one is getting wet.

If only it could be as fun as the Monty Python’s version:

Posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 10:32 pm. Filed under: Modern Economy, Other Tags: ducking stool, Internet Mobbing, social humiliation RSS 2.0 feed.