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Lindsey Stone
Max Mosley is a British socialite and former Formula One motor racing chief whose parents rose to infamy in Britain because of their ardent support of Hitler and their leadership of the British Union of Fascists during World War II. When the press caught Mosley at a German-themed orgy in 2008, the tabloid paper News of the World published photos of the encounter and described the event as Nazi-oriented. Mosley, however, went on the offensive—he insisted that there was no Nazi imagery present at the orgy, sued the paper for defamation, and won his suit. The paper later folded. Jon Ronson was fascinated by Mosley’s ability to emerge from his public shaming relatively unscathed and firmly in control of the narrative. By pointing out the pettiness of shaming someone for their sexual preferences, Mosley had maintained control of his own narrative and refused to feel shame for who he was and what he liked.
Max Mosley Quotes in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
The So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed quotes below are all either spoken by Max Mosley or refer to Max Mosley. 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 7
Quotes
I received an interesting e-mail from Max Mosley. Like me, he’d been thinking a lot about what it was about him that had helped him to stave off even the most modest public shaming. And now, he wrote, he thought he had the answer. It was simply that he had refused to feel ashamed.
“As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to feel ashamed,” he said, “the whole thing crumbles.”
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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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Get the entire So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed LitChart as a printable PDF.
Max Mosley Quotes in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
The So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed quotes below are all either spoken by Max Mosley or refer to Max Mosley. 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 7
Quotes
I received an interesting e-mail from Max Mosley. Like me, he’d been thinking a lot about what it was about him that had helped him to stave off even the most modest public shaming. And now, he wrote, he thought he had the answer. It was simply that he had refused to feel ashamed.
“As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to feel ashamed,” he said, “the whole thing crumbles.”
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.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
