Think back to high school lit. The copy of The Scarlet Letter I read was a Penguin Classic, so it was mostly black with a few letters and a big red A. It’s 1642, and Hester Prynne is standing on a scaffold in the center of town, facing public humiliation. She made a choice that conflicted with the prevailing cultural ethics of the time and is sentenced to wear a giant red A to define her as an adulteress for the rest of her life.
The sentence of shunning and the false morality are both delivered courtesy of the colony’s three government leaders: the reverend, the minister, and the governor.
But good news—the Puritan colony survives beautifully, because community oppression works! The self-righteous townspeople are so giddy to participate in the shaming and ostracization of Hester and her daughter that the sin-spread their leaders swore was coming never happens! The shame-bullies win!
No wait.
I think… maybe that wasn’t Nathaniel Hawthorne’s point.
Many of you can attest from personal experience that if you make one choice that conflicts with the capriciously unpredictable morality of the culture, everyone else is so pleased to judge a new penultimate sin that they happily join in the shame show.
It doesn’t matter that you’re a pack-a-day smoker right now, if you make *that one good choice*. You are a picture of health. America thanks you!
It doesn’t matter if you weigh 450 pounds, if you make *that one good choice*. You are helping to keep America’s hospital beds empty! You have made excellent choices to care for your body! Thank you!
It doesn’t matter if you let your potty-mouthed elementary-age children watch R-rated movies, play violent video games 4 hours a day, eat Hot Pockets dipped in Mountain Dew for breakfast, or have played tackle football since age 7. If you took your 12-year-old for *that one good choice*, you’re America’s parent of the year! Thank you for raising the next generation properly!
Honestly, worse than that hypocrisy is the opposite.
If doesn’t matter if you worked extras shifts as a “healthcare hero” through the worst months of 2020, if you have any hesitancy about making *that one mandated choice*, you’re unequivocally a selfish monster.
It doesn’t matter if you have a beloved family member who experienced a terribly unfortunate reaction after making *that one good choice*, if you have nerves about taking *that one mandated choice*, you’re unequivocally a selfish monster.
If doesn’t matter if you have a history of Bell’s Palsy or Guillain-Barre syndrome. If you feel anxiety about those life-altering conditions returning with *that one mandated choice*, you’re unequivocally a selfish monster.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a pregnant or breastfeeding mother who’s avoided sushi, soft cheeses, lunch meat, sleeping on your right side, and maybe has a history of miscarriage or infant death and wants to try and do everything 100% naturally because you just feel emotionally you can’t handle any more unknowns. If you haven’t made *that one mandated choice*, you’re unequivocally a selfish monster.
Just as a random example, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been a foster parent for eight+ years, taking medically needy children into your home for the better part of a decade, including a preemie addicted to cocaine and a NICU baby whose intestines were formed on the outside of their abdomen and a newborn who has hyperinsulinism among others. If you haven’t made *that one mandated choice* because you feel like you’d be more comfortable with a longer trial period and more transparent reaction-reporting procedures, you’re unequivocally a selfish monster who should never have gone into a career in healthcare.
(Obviously, this is a hypothetical.)
The simple fact is that if the townspeople hadn’t participated, the government would have never been able to ruin Hester’s life. Three people condemning her from the front of the crowd didn’t make her life hell, the people IN the crowd did.
If the townspeople hadn’t participated in shunning her for her personal choice, the government squawking would have amounted to nothing. But the people did participate, gladly. They literally took the shirt off her back to label her as unwanted, undesirable, the worst of society.
So, hey, if this is you—congratulations on being part of the angry mob that puts real people on the scaffold in town square (or on social media or in your family) because of your ever-changing, ever-evolving, goalpost-moving false morality.
If you took an honest look at yourself, I bet you’d find out why you’re so delighted that ‘those people’ are the current subject of societal disdain.
Because at least it isn’t you.
Yet.
