Social Media Outrage/Cancel Culture

[Jeff Lebowski]

I agree with you philosophically. But practically, this would have never been a story had chaperones defused the situation by corralling those kids and demanding respectful behavior. If I was a parent of one of these kids, I would be livid that the group was allowed to remain in a situation that promoted kids to do stupid kid stuff. Which behavior, justly or unjustly, has now been memorialized forever by our stupid social media world.

Honestly, this all sounds like a stupid joke. A group of Catholic school students, Black Jews, and Native Americans walk to the Lincoln Memorial...

The whole thing is a stupid overreaction. At every level. Can’t believe we are even discussing this and not the shutdown.

[swampfrog]

I'd be interested to know what the the responsible adults do exactly in this situation. I'll even grant that the Native elder believed he was pacifying a raucous mob. The kids defaulted to trained HS behavior when confronted with an opposing tribe. They went into sports competition mode. The chaperones didn't teach this, American culture teaches this in gyms and stadiums throughout the country. Everywhere in the United States, high schools and colleges (and professionals) engage in ritual competition against one another. They chant, cheer, jump, sing, mock the other team, etc. They all are trained to react when a member of the opposing tribe (team) crosses the line.

What are the adults going to do? Don't we engage in tribal taunting here on this very board? Are we adults? Where are our chaperones since our behavior is reprehensible? Should we demand that the moderators shut down all inter-tribal disrespect? It's pretty rampant.

[frank ryan]

The whole thing is a stupid overreaction. At every level. Can’t believe we are even discussing this and not the shutdown.

Agreed. It’s a godsend for king cheeto. Professional activists can often be their own worst enemies. The Black Israelites are s bonafide hate group. The kids shouldn’t have been put on that spot and didn’t instigate but they shouldn’t be anointed for sainthood. I watched that long ass video. You got to keep an eye on high school students.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Agreed. It’s a godsend for king cheeto. Professional activists can often be their own worst enemies. The Black Israelites are s bonafide hate group. The kids shouldn’t have been put on that spot and didn’t instigate but they shouldn’t be anointed for sainthood. I watched that long ass video. You got to keep an eye on high school students.

This and the buzzfeed thing feed right into trumps fake news narrative. Grrr...

[Northwestcoug]

I'd be interested to know what the the responsible adults do exactly in this situation. I'll even grant that the Native elder believed he was pacifying a raucous mob. The kids defaulted to trained HS behavior when confronted with an opposing tribe. They went into sports competition mode. The chaperones didn't teach this, American culture teaches this in gyms and stadiums throughout the country. Everywhere in the United States, high schools and colleges (and professionals) engage in ritual competition against one another. They chant, cheer, jump, sing, mock the other team, etc. They all are trained to react when a member of the opposing tribe (team) crosses the line.

What are the adults going to do? Don't we engage in tribal taunting here on this very board? Are we adults? Where are our chaperones since our behavior is reprehensible? Should we demand that the moderators shut down all inter-tribal disrespect? It's pretty rampant.

Chaperones should not be viewed as caught up in the situational morality conflicts of Haidt. They are there to police kids and to minimize the dumb things all kids are prone to do. When my kids are off on school or sport trips, they are chaperoned for a reason. There is implicit trust that they will curtail bad behavior from all but the most bone-headed kids. And they are also there to make sure the kids represent well the sponsoring institution.

[swampfrog]

Agreed. It’s a godsend for king cheeto. Professional activists can often be their own worst enemies.

I disagree with you on many things, but on this, absolutely. The Trump spin team was given a gift.

[Sleeping in EQ]

That's the reason I previously tried to invoke the tribal nature of the interaction. Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind should be required reading when discussing these things. It provides a much better tool set for interpreting the exchange. The boys and their chaperones came to the capital to participate in a tribal religious ceremony. So did the participants of the Indigenous Peoples March. So did the Black Hebrew Israelites. Generally, Americans are still civil enough to draw lines and just have the tribes just chant at one another. It's a game, who can get one of the other tribes to physically engage the other first, so they can claim victimhood first.

From that viewpoint, the Native elder crossed the line first. He physically moved into the space currently occupied by another tribe. From his post-incident narrative, I (with many) others believe that was his true purpose, he wanted to be seen being repressed by invoking the boys' tribal instincts. He partially succeeded.

Whoa, and now you're on Jonathan Haidt!

We're really riffing the same song swampfrog.

[Eddie]

Chaperones should not be viewed as caught up in the situational morality conflicts of Haidt. They are there to police kids and to minimize the dumb things all kids are prone to do. When my kids are off on school or sport trips, they are chaperoned for a reason. There is implicit trust that they will curtail bad behavior from all but the most bone-headed kids. And they are also there to make sure the kids represent well the sponsoring institution.

I tend to agree with you. Given the circumstances, their best bet would've been to simply move where the kids were meeting - leave one chaperone there to redirect anyone else showing up, and make arrangements to meet the busses somewhere away from the confrontational protests.

But if that wasn't an option, I'm not sure their response was all that horrible for the circumstances.

The Black Hebrews were shouting foul things at them, so the chaperones OK'd the kids doing some of their school cheers to drown them out. Not knowing how things would turn out - that doesn't necessarily sound like a horrible idea. It occupies the kids, and has them chanting/yelling stuff that isn't inappropriate. In some ways, maybe the kids get to feel like they are engaging the hate group speech, because they are louder. But they aren't saying anything bad.

I'm not sure what you do about Phillips deciding to move into and among the boys. Do you have a leader go and ask him not to? Do you think one of the chaperones confronting Phillips and asking him to leave the boys and leave them alone is going to end any better than it did with the kid standing there staring at him? I'm guessing it just changes to an adult being seen as disrespectful to a Native Elder versus a kid. Either way they lose.

I'm not saying they handled the situation perfectly. But these folks were in a bad situation, and I while I think they could've done better, I'm not of the opinion that they handled it horribly. I still think the children handled themselves better than either group of adults.

[Moliere]

I agree with you philosophically. But practically, this would have never been a story had chaperones defused the situation by corralling those kids and demanding respectful behavior. If I was a parent of one of these kids, I would be livid that the group was allowed to remain in a situation that promoted kids to do stupid kid stuff. Which behavior, justly or unjustly, has now been memorialized forever by our stupid social media world.

Honestly, this all sounds like a stupid joke. A group of Catholic school students, Black Jews, and Native Americans walk to the Lincoln Memorial...

It’s the chaperones fault? Sure they could have helped better, but this is the fault of
the adults that confronted the children. There never would have been a story had the native elder not confronted the kids and banged his drum in their face.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Chaperones should not be viewed as caught up in the situational morality conflicts of Haidt. They are there to police kids and to minimize the dumb things all kids are prone to do. When my kids are off on school or sport trips, they are chaperoned for a reason. There is implicit trust that they will curtail bad behavior from all but the most bone-headed kids. And they are also there to make sure the kids represent well the sponsoring institution.

This thing was probably spontaneous. Do we know when and how it ended? Did some police get involved or did the adult chaperones step in? Aside from that, any focus on the chaperones as opposed to what the real problem is -- the online outrage mob going tribal and trying to mete out unbelievably disproportionate punishment on 15 year-old kids -- is misguided. I remember going to the California state capital on school field trips on a couple occasions in the 5th and 6th grade in the late 80s and the anti-abortion protesters were around in abundance (along with their horrific, graphic signs). I imagine these kinds of interactions have happened at the National Mall and various state capitals for decades. The difference now is every one has a video camera on them at all times and we have social media that some users employ to exploit our worst tribal instincts -- particularly pieces of shit like Kathy Griffin, Ron Perlman and John Cusack.

[swampfrog]

Whoa, and now you're on Jonathan Haidt!

We're really riffing the same song swampfrog.

[Northwestcoug]

The Black Hebrews were shouting foul things at them, so the chaperones OK'd the kids doing some of their school cheers to drown them out. Not knowing how things would turn out - that doesn't necessarily sound like a horrible idea. It occupies the kids, and has them chanting/yelling stuff that isn't inappropriate. In some ways, maybe the kids get to feel like they are engaging the hate group speech, because they are louder. But they aren't saying anything bad.

Is this what happened? They started chanting after the chaperones told them to? I'm asking because I didn't watch any of the longer videos.

It’s the chaperones fault? Sure they could have helped better, but this is the fault of
the adults that confronted the children. There never would have been a story had the native elder not confronted the kids and banged his drum in their face.

No. It's everyone's fault, unfortunately. No matter who started it or how much blame each group has, the kids were clearly acting disrespectfully. They share some of the blame, even though they were just doing what kids tend to do.

I don't know if chaperones were physically there at the time or not, but if they were, defusing the situation and moving away from the confrontation would clearly have made the kids the heroes in this sorry story.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Some amazing displays of doubling-down in this thread.

[swampfrog]

I tend to agree with you. Given the circumstances, their best bet would've been to simply move where the kids were meeting - leave one chaperone there to redirect anyone else showing up, and make arrangements to meet the busses somewhere away from the confrontational protests.

But if that wasn't an option, I'm not sure their response was all that horrible for the circumstances.

The Black Hebrews were shouting foul things at them, so the chaperones OK'd the kids doing some of their school cheers to drown them out. Not knowing how things would turn out - that doesn't necessarily sound like a horrible idea. It occupies the kids, and has them chanting/yelling stuff that isn't inappropriate. In some ways, maybe the kids get to feel like they are engaging the hate group speech, because they are louder. But they aren't saying anything bad.

I'm not sure what you do about Phillips deciding to move into and among the boys. Do you have a leader go and ask him not to? Do you think one of the chaperones confronting Phillips and asking him to leave the boys and leave them alone is going to end any better than it did with the kid standing there staring at him? I'm guessing it just changes to an adult being seen as disrespectful to a Native Elder versus a kid. Either way they lose.

I'm not saying they handled the situation perfectly. But these folks were in a bad situation, and I while I think they could've done better, I'm not of the opinion that they handled it horribly. I still think the children handled themselves better than either group of adults.

Now I don't have to type that up.

[Bo Diddley]

Honestly, this all sounds like a stupid joke. A group of Catholic school students, Black Jews, and Native Americans walk to the Lincoln Memorial...