House Ethics Committee struggles to crack down on bad behavior; The Washington Post, April 2, 2022

 Paul Kane, The Washington Post; House Ethics Committee struggles to crack down on bad behavior

"Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) can cite almost verbatim the first rule of congressional conduct.

“Members shall behave at all times in a manner that reflects creditably upon the House,” he said, unprompted, during a Wednesday interview, forgetting just one extra “shall” in the opening clause of the House’s Code of Official Conduct.

As chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Deutch would like to see a bit more vigorous policing of behavior that doesn’t break specific rules but clearly brings discredit to the institution...

Deutch thinks there is room for the ethics panel to take up issues like this, if both sides are willing to just take the first clause of the rule book seriously.

“If members are doing things that are abhorrent, then it should certainly trigger a conversation about clause one,” Deutch said. “Again, the broadest interpretation of that rule is what is required.”"

Kanye West Isn’t the Only Person Behaving Badly at the Theater; The Daily Beast, December 4, 2018

Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast; Kanye West Isn’t the Only Person Behaving Badly at the Theater

"Manners are not just individual, they are collective. Going to a theater where thoughtlessness is so blithely practiced is a sad reminder how we have forgotten, or are forgetting, to occupy collective spaces in a civilized fashion. Theater noise-makers cut across all boundaries of class and age; what they share is a selfishness, of which using a mobile phone is the most visible and rankling example.

Here’s the thing. You are not at home. There are people sitting next to you. There are actors, like Bryan Cranston, trying to do their job a few feet from you. Yes, they are on a set, and yes the stage looks like a fictional world. But actually, we are all there together, and the social contract here is that you keep your mouth shut, and let the actors act. They can hear you. We can hear you."

Mob Shaming: The Pillory at the Center of the Global Village; New York Times, 6/19/16

Clyde Haberman, New York Times; Mob Shaming: The Pillory at the Center of the Global Village:

"Once upon a time, miscreants subjected to public ridicule were pilloried for perhaps a few hours. In internet life, that can last forever. “You never escape it,” Danielle Keats Citron said. She is a law professor at the University of Maryland and author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace” (2014).

“When you post something really damaging, reputationally damaging, about someone online, it’s searchable and seeable,” she told Retro Report. “And you can’t erase it.”

Does shame have a legitimate place in our lives? Mark Twain seemed to think so. “Man is the only animal that blushes,” Twain wrote in 1897.

“Or needs to,” he added.

Jennifer Jacquet, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University, shares the sentiment. In her book “Is Shame Necessary?” (2015), the professor argues that shaming can be a strategy for beneficial change, notably if the targets are corporate polluters and others whose deeds harm the commonweal.

She is not opposed to chastising individuals publicly, as long as the tactics are not abusive, but her preference is to call out governments and large organizations that behave badly. “Shaming is better used for the collective well-being,” she said in an interview."