Comments on: Snow-Day Shouting Shaming

By: Brian Holland

Brian Holland — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:23:15 +0000

What strikes me is not the generational divide on propriety (calling an administrator at home, demanding an explanation, etc.), but rather the generational divide on technological realities and public/private concepts. The administrator listed his home telephone number and his wife voluntarily recorded a message on the student’s voicemail — both of which seem rather naive if you seeking to avoid contact or to rely on some ephemeral nature of oral communication. But where the generational divide is even more accute is in the act of taking the wife’s message to a “public” forum. Either she didn’t realize it could be done or didn’t believe it would/should be done. The student on the other hand likely believed that this was precisely the forum in which to air the dispute. That is what social network sites are for (or at least what they have become). That doesn’t make the wife’s message “private”, the student’s action “wrong” or the technology “bad”, it is simply outside the (self-defined) reality of many in the wife’s generation. Would we decry the student’s action if he was caught in the hall playing back the recorded message for friends? I would venture to guess that, in his mind, that is exactly what he was doing.

By: locksley

locksley — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:58:12 +0000

Calling an administrator at home seems not at all comparable to taking London and forcing King John into negotiations at Runnymede.

You may also recall some other trifling incidents in the history of the right to petition. Yet, it is certain that both the impertinent transgressor and the well-insulted sovereign had their heads cut off —and all questions well–buried— by the time of the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights (1689).

Or is all that just too “outlandish” for you provincial yankees?

By: Bong hits 4 Jesus

Bong hits 4 Jesus — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:57:04 +0000

The Internet seems to be fostering a race to the bottom in terms of etiquette and ethics. Does anyone doubt that the student’s view that (s)he’s “petitioning a public official” comes from the outlandish view of what the first amendment supposedly means online (see autoadmit)? And the YouTube response reminds me how as recently as 1998, people thought it was unethical to tape someone unawares (see Linda Tripp).

As for the idea that the snot nosed brat thought this was his/her 1st amendment right — good thing the Court put an end to that for high school students last term.

By: Lawrence Cunningham

Lawrence Cunningham — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:21:21 +0000

The You Tube link indicates that the entry has been removed by the user, a positive sign and good ending to the costly learning exercise.

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:41:16 +0000

The wife overreacted, but the student was way out of line in calling the administrator at home, and then in whining off to the world at large at how horribly unfair life is. I second the “snotty-nosed little brat” comment.

By: James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:36:01 +0000

The thing about such stories is that no one involved has behaved well. Indeed, the two transgressive phone calls are roughly comparable. The problem is that the lever of the online mob mentality creates a race to YouTube. Whoever posts their clip of the other behaving badly first wins because their story gets told while the others is putting its boots on. That race isn’t healthy.