If I remember my media history correctly, the incredibly unpopular Vietnam war was the first time graphic depictions of war made it into American living room. Americans could no longer deny the horrors of a war fought half way around the world. During the Gulf War we didn’t just watch reports about bombs being dropped, we got to watch the explosions from the safety of our television sets.
Our dubious war on terrorism yielded the release of the horrific Abu Ghraib photos, which cast a particularly negative light on the condoned, rather than condemned, treatment of prisoners there. Lyndie England, the young woman featured smiling in a number of those images of degradation is talking to reporters after 18 month behind bars for her participation in the prisoner abuse. She blames the media and Joe Darby for the global outrage and Iraqi insurgency that followed.
“Yeah, I took the photos but I didn’t make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government,” she said, according to the report.
“And I feel sorry and wrong about what I did. But it would not have escalated to what it did all over the world if it wouldn’t have been for someone leaking it to the media. (Lynndie England Blames Media for Photos, Breitbart.com, 3/18/08)
Joe Darby, the young man who handed off the Abu Ghraib photos to the media, spent three years in protective custody with his family because of the death threats that followed.
Asked by the magazine if what happened at Abu Ghraib was a scandal or something that happens during wartime, England said it was the latter.
“I’m saying that what we did happens in war. It just isn’t documented,” she was quoted as saying. “If it had been broken by the news without the pictures it wouldn’t have been that big.” (Lynndie England Blames Media for Photos, Breitbart.com, 3/18/08)
General rule of thumb: If you’d have a problem with your actions being published on the front page of a major newspaper, you might reconsider those actions. If you stand by your convictions, you’ve got nothing to hide.
Incidentally, Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, studies the psychology behind what make people commit heinous acts. He’s most famous for the 1971 Stanford Prison experiment. His recent talks focus on Abu Ghraib, during which he shows this slide show of previously unreleased photos. They’re a disturbing reminder that government proclaiming to bring democracy and freedom to the world has plenty of skeletons in its own closet.
PS. For those of you who prefer your education entertaining, Das Experiment is a captivating film inspired by the Stanford Prison experiment.
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I always try to keep my actions on a level that makes me unashamed. That way I don’t have to be like some of my friends who are like, “Don’t post that picture.”
The St. Patrick’s Day themed episode of How I Met Your Mother included Ted being forced to listen the drunken voicemails he was leaving from the bar he was spending the holiday at. He was not happy with himself and vowed to change. . . we’ll see.
If you know you’ll be censoring yourself after the fact, isn’t that a sign to stop BEFORE you do something.
Thanks for reading.
I think never do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page is a bit of an over simplification. There are a lot of worthy private acts: anonymous acts of charity, attendence at addiction support groups, quietly working behind the scenes to bring positive change to any organization or goverment, supporting an illegitimate child that you don’t want your current family to know about.
My point is, if we make our standard what we would be comfortable with on the front page, then we are letting society’s standards superseed our own. At the end of the day we need to be comfortable with our actions and for those of us of a spirtual mindset, comfortable that our higher power, would approve of our actions.
Rob,
But if those private acts you mention came to light, you’d have nothing to hide: there’s no shame in seeking help for your problems or working to improve the community or to fundraise.
I don’t care what other people think when they read the newspaper; I just want to know that I’d be comfortable with the world knowing that Zak did X, Y, and Z.
The aspects of my life I wouldn’t want on the front page of the paper; those are the areas I need to work on because I know there’s something off
I suppose this rule of thumb is useless to sociopaths and similar sorts