So You've Been Publicly Shamed

by Jon Ronson

Maybe our secret is actually nothing horrendous. Maybe nobody would even consider it a big deal if it was exposed. But we can’t take that risk. So we keep it buried. Maybe it’s a work impropriety. Or maybe it’s just a feeling that at any moment we’ll blurt something out during some important meeting that’ll prove to everyone that we aren’t proper professional people or in fact functional human beings.

I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial.

‘I do think there’s lots to learn from porn stars about how not to be embarrassed or feel vulnerable,’ he emailed back. He added that a lot of sex industry people go on to become hospice workers: ‘They’re not freaked out by the body, so they can help people transition through illness and death. I’m not sure what would humiliate me at this point.

But I was struck by a report Anna Funder discovered that had been written by a Stasi psychologist tasked with trying to understand why they were attracting so many willing informants. His conclusion: ‘It was an impulse to make sure your neighbour was doing the right thing.’

But it feels like when I became a vegetarian. I missed the steak, although not as much as I’d anticipated, but I could no longer ignore the slaughterhouse.

We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside of it.