Saturday, 21 April 2012
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Is embarrassment a motivator ?
I will not be using any names in this post because I choose to keep myself out of local drama. I just wanted your thoughts with this.
I've been a little pissed/hurt by some things that I saw on Facebook recently and I am not sure how to react. This doesn't seem completely wrong, but I can't say that I find it right either.
A few posts back I showed you pictures of the flooding that happened in our town that led it to be considered a destruction area ( I think that's what it is officially called) This happened in September 2011.
While browsing through Facebook I saw that a friend had commented on a lady who used to be a council member. I am unsure if she still is, the resources for such a small town are a little complicated to find. I know she has been on council for years and years.
She had went around town and took pictures of peoples houses that were in bad shape. To be fair, not all of these houses were in the flood plain. some of them had a mess for no reason at all. There were about 150 pictures posted of things like mold growing up the side of a house, flood garbage in a yard, junk piled under a porch, to some other pictures of things I didn't understand like plastic children playhouses in the yard, american flag decor on a porch, and someone looking out there window while the pictures were being shot trying to hide behind their window shade.
I think this stems from the fact that mostly ever homeowner in town received a letter from the borough saying that they were guilty of making repairs on their houses and not having permits for the repairs after the flood. I think this is what fueled her to post pictured of other peoples mess since her house sits high on a hill and is kept clean. Plus the borough had stated that they would no longer be taking people brush and grass clippings which made her go on a rant about how worse things are going to look now that the borough won't take those things.
I understand that people need to clean up their messes. I am a little upset about the way this was done though. I don't think that embarrassment is a good motivator, especially when you're trying to be helpful. It also hits a sore spot because my house was flooded and I busted my ass to clean it up. My house did not get it's photo taken but what if it had ? We try very hard to keep our things nice and it's a real nasty thing to do to publicly try to embarrass people when you do no know their full situation.
I do get the point. However, after the flooding people came together and helped each other out. We had dinner alongside each other at the local churches who gladly offered free meals. Some people worked and some people didn't. However, some people that are really trying were targeted in this pictures. What offends me the most is that people from other states that are her friends are leaving comments and gawking at our devastation.
Here are some of the comments:
"do people actually live in these houses.what a mess.It looks like the slums."
" wawawawa shicikshinny ...pics...i dont see the big deal here...there was alsways a slum side and the rest cared about what there houses look like....the slum section always looked like these homes now we have to have a pity party cause there "embarrassing"....grow up and fix them up.........I got your back...~~♥♥~~"
There are more negative comments that go on to say stuff like " garbage bags cost less than beer and cigarettes" pretty much coming to the conclusion that people who have a mess only have a mess because they are dirtbags.
I really think that there is a better way to clean up a mess. I don't think embarrassment works. I certainly hope that this person won't be running for council. I like my so called leaders to have more intelligence and tact.
What do you think ? Does embarrassment work ?
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Comments (8)
In my personal experience, embarrassment is not a good motivator. I am sure there are various reasons as to why these houses aren't getting cleaned up: lack of money for proper cleaning and renovating, lack of time to actually do the work, don't want to, etc. Some reasons aren't great reasons, but that is just what it is. There might be some people who just don't care...well, there's nothing you can do about that. I can understand that she wants her town to look good, but this isn't the way to do it. There are other ways of getting things done. I know we were quick to clean up our yard after we moved in and got a ticket for having weeds too tall and generally poor appearance of home.
I guess from the kind of pictures you described she might have been trying to get whomever to realize that it's patriotic to help-out other people that are in need and have children (aka families) just like them. So I suppose she was trying to make whomever be sympathetic than embarrassed, which is a motivator. But it's better to ask her, really, than wondering and being upset about it, in my opinion.
@nov_way - The actual reason they were posted was embarrassment of others. What I was unsure of how was she thought this was going to help anyone and how it bettered her situation. I am pretty sure sympathy was not a factor, it was more of a throwing people under the bus type deal.
Only for pre-teens who are totally invested in the peer pressure network. The very young and the mature not so much. Sad that an elected official would be so juvenile.
Well thank you for clearing that up for me.
You get negative results when you try to embarrass someone. What she did, even if she was trying to help out, was kind of uncalled for.