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Jon Ronson
Jonah Lehrer is a writer and journalist who was publicly shamed in 2012 when the journalist Michael Moynihan exposed a series of fabrications and embellishments in Lehrer’s nonfiction bestseller Imagine: How Creativity Works. Though Lehrer begged Moynihan not to publish the article exposing him, Moynihan felt a journalistic responsibility to call out Lehrer’s malfeasance. Following the publication of the article, Lehrer resigned from his position at the New Yorker and watched as his publisher withdrew and destroyed every copy of Imagine still in circulation. Lehrer vanished from the literary scene—but months later, he decided to give a public apology at a Knight Foundation luncheon for journalists in front of a screen broadcasting a live Twitter feed of users responding in real-time to his address. The speech didn’t go over well—and when it was revealed that Lehrer received a $20,000 speaking fee for the apology, he was again shamed mercilessly. Lehrer shopped a new book proposal around afterwards, but the proposal leaked, and it was found to contain plagiarized and recycled language. Jon Ronson uses the account of Lehrer’s repeated missteps and serious public shamings to illustrate how people who have been shamed often find that the emotional weight of the “public shaming process” numbs them to the point of appearing disaffected or even sociopathic, as Lehrer’s most virulent detractors called him at the height of his shaming.
Jonah Lehrer Quotes in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
The So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed quotes below are all either spoken by Jonah Lehrer or refer to Jonah Lehrer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
We all have ticking away within us something we fear will badly harm our reputation if it got out—some “I’m glad I’m not that” at the end of an “I’m glad I’m not me.” […] Maybe our secret is actually nothing horrendous. Maybe nobody would even consider it a big deal if it was exposed. But we can’t take that risk. So we keep it buried.
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Chapter 8
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Almost none of the murderous fantasies were dreamed up in response to actual danger—stalker ex-boyfriends, etc. They were all about the horror of humiliation. Brad Blanton was right. Shame internalized can lead to agony. It can lead to Jonah Lehrer. Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least to a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.
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Chapter 9
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As it happens, Max’s and Andrew’s sins would in Puritan times have been judged graver than Jonah’s. Jonah, “guilty of lying or publishing false news,” would have been “fined, placed in the stocks for a period not exceeding four hours, or publicly whipped with not more than forty stripes,” according to Delaware law. Whereas Max and Andrew, having “defiled the marriage bed,” would have been publicly whipped (no maximum number was specified), imprisoned with hard labor for at least a year, and on a second offense, imprisoned for life.
But the shifting sands of shameworthiness had shifted away from sex scandals—if you’re a man—to work improprieties and perceived white privilege, and I suddenly understood the real reason why Max had survived his shaming. Nobody cared.
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Get the entire So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jonah Lehrer Quotes in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
The So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed quotes below are all either spoken by Jonah Lehrer or refer to Jonah Lehrer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
We all have ticking away within us something we fear will badly harm our reputation if it got out—some “I’m glad I’m not that” at the end of an “I’m glad I’m not me.” […] Maybe our secret is actually nothing horrendous. Maybe nobody would even consider it a big deal if it was exposed. But we can’t take that risk. So we keep it buried.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8
Quotes
Almost none of the murderous fantasies were dreamed up in response to actual danger—stalker ex-boyfriends, etc. They were all about the horror of humiliation. Brad Blanton was right. Shame internalized can lead to agony. It can lead to Jonah Lehrer. Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least to a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9
Quotes
As it happens, Max’s and Andrew’s sins would in Puritan times have been judged graver than Jonah’s. Jonah, “guilty of lying or publishing false news,” would have been “fined, placed in the stocks for a period not exceeding four hours, or publicly whipped with not more than forty stripes,” according to Delaware law. Whereas Max and Andrew, having “defiled the marriage bed,” would have been publicly whipped (no maximum number was specified), imprisoned with hard labor for at least a year, and on a second offense, imprisoned for life.
But the shifting sands of shameworthiness had shifted away from sex scandals—if you’re a man—to work improprieties and perceived white privilege, and I suddenly understood the real reason why Max had survived his shaming. Nobody cared.
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