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Social media in this day and age is the modern version of the scarlet letter. People shame, judge, and bully others without even a second thought on social media due to the fact that they are masked by a cyber barrier. Actions stay on the internet forever and allow people to be judged far more easily than they ever were in Puritan times.

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In the April 1886 issue of The Atlantic Monthly Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel, reviewed his father's The Scarlett Letter. Towards the conclusion of his stunning, 9,000+ word essay, the younger Hawthorne reflected on the moral irony of Hester Prynne's world:

This [the scarlet A] is her punishment, the heaviest that man can afflict upon her. But, like all legal punishment, it aims much more at the protection of society than at the reformation of the culprit. Hester is to stand as a warning to others tempted as she was: if she recovers her own salvation in the process, so much the better for her; but, for better or worse, society has ceased to have any concern with her.

"We trample you down," society says in effect to those who break its laws, "not by any means in order to save your soul,-for the welfare of that problematical adjunct to your civic personality is a matter of complete indifference to us,-but because, by some act, you have forfeited your claim to our protection, because you are a clog to our prosperity, and because the spectacle of your agony may discourage others of similar unlawful inclinations."

But it is obvious, all the while, that the only crime which society recognizes is the crime of being found out, since a society composed of successful hypocrites would much more smoothly fulfill all social requirements than a society of such heterogeneous constituents as (human nature being what it is) necessarily enter into it now.

Likely as we are as 21st century Americans to congratulate ourselves for not behaving the way our Puritan ancestors did, things aren't as different as you might think. Millennials may be an urbane, diverse and "tolerant" generation, but they are also caught in a vicious cultural mire of shaming, vindictiveness, and postmodern puritanical preening that rivals their 17th century ancestors.

Owing largely to the recent publication of Jon Ronson's well-reviewed book So You've Been Publicly Shamed, some light is being shed on the cavernous world of social media "shaming," a merciless phenomenon that is more common and more serious than many-perhaps most-believe. Of course, few people would be surprised to learn there are dark corners of the internet or that digital anonymity can bring out the worst in people. But the problem of public shaming goes beyond meanness. In its worst manifestations, shaming is a weapon wielded by volunteer morality gatekeepers to, as Julian Hawthorne put it, "trample you down."

Ronson's work has resulted in the publication of several frightening stories, such as what happened to Justine Sacco . Yet few commentators on this social phenomenon-including Ronson-seem willing to explore shaming's causes or offer a serious moral worldview of public confrontation. Listening to shaming stories is important, of course, but we are not likely to overcome this vicious trend if we cannot speak in clear and objective language about it.

Julian Hawthorne's insights into his father's novel might be helpful in remedying our deficient understanding of contemporary public shaming. Hawthorne is on to something when he identifies the public shaming of Hester Prynne as non-redemptive and merely the removal of a "clog" from the engine of the culture. The hypocrisy of the moral authorities of Puritan Boston was not only that they were guilty of sin as well, but that they turned sinners away from the society and the hope of redemption under the pretense of holiness.

In the case of online shaming, this is even more apparent. What happens in social media is far from the reconciliatory purpose of confrontation as taught by Jesus in Matthew 16. As Ronson notes in his chilling accounts, the purpose of social media shaming seems to be to deluge an offending person(s) with enough derision and scorn that they are forced to disappear from the public eye in a kind of enforced penitence. Social media shaming is not at all meant for reconciliation or personal healing; quite the opposite, in fact-the more offense and outrage can be generated, the better. Exacerbating all this is a communication medium that rewards participants not for temperance, patience and forbearance, but for immediacy and cleverness. If outrage is the currency of social media, shaming is a blue-chip stock.

As Hawthorne writes, the impulse behind the shaming of Hester Prynne was not a desire for moral rectitude but removal of a cultural wart. If the sinner is removed from the public square, the people can resume trusting in the merits of their membership in society. This contra-benevolent desire to keep the community free of anything that disturbs a narrative of cultural holiness is remarkably descriptive of much of our culture-warring today. Consider the astonishing absolutism with which some proponents of same-sex marriage engage those who disagree with them. In many cases, the motivations are made explicit: Opinions which contradict a majoritarian view on sexuality must be exiled out of the public square. What is this, if not a Puritanical impulse to keep society "pure" and maintain the citizenry's religious faith in it?

The Scarlet Letter' s context was, of course, a Christian-Puritan one. That is not the case in our American culture today. Instead of an assumed, civic Christianity, the country is embracing an assumed, civic secularism. Traditional religious beliefs are welcomed as long as they are not exposed to the population at large. Keeping certain beliefs isolated from the mainstream of culture-thereby maintaing a sort of doctrinally "pure" public square-is often peddled under misleading language about "separation of church and state." What is really happening is the substitution of one culturally-ruling philosophy for another.

In other words, we still have Puritanism today, only of a secular kind.

Our progressive sensibilities have not, alas, resulted in a genuinely compassionate culture. We no longer have the kind cruel civic Christianity that The Scarlet Letter depicted, yet we still have the shaming scaffolds (they're called social media now) and we still have ineffable moral codes that must not be trespassed. These codes may not be Levitical but they are indeed legalistic: laws about privilege, sexual autonomy, "trigger warnings," and much, much more. Violation of these laws can and do result not only in public shame but legal prosecution.

It surely must befuddle those on the inside track of our transforming culture-just as we seem to be learning what true progress is, we rebuild the shaming scaffolds of our Puritan forefathers. Can we not have a culture that embraces the moral equivalence of all forms of sexual expression, the existential (read: non-transcendent) nature of love, and the casting off of ancient beliefs about God and the universe, while simultaneously widening the margins of civic life to include all kinds of beliefs, even those that discomfort us? Cannot we live out the promises of the Sexual Revolution while saving a place in our midst for those who opt out?

No, we cannot. The reason is simple: A broken American conscience cannot be trusted. Compassion is a class that secularism doesn't offer. Exchanging the Puritanism of Arthur Dimmesdale for the Puritanism of Alfred Kinsey is not progress. Cultural elites may say we are becoming a better people because we break with human history on the meaning of marriage or the dignity of human life, but a glance outside suggests otherwise.

A longer version of this essay first appeared at samueldjames.net

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In the April 1886 issue of The Atlantic Monthly Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel, reviewed his father's The Scarlett Letter. Towards the conclusion of his stunning, 9,000+ word essay, the younger Hawthorne reflected on the moral irony of Hester Prynne's world: This [the scarlet A] is her punishment, the heaviest that man can afflict upon her.

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Murder and rape are both things that most definitely place a scarlet letter that symbolizes no moral integrity and someone that is extremely sinful. People who commit such crimes deserve to be judged based on their actions as they have passed the point of no return and harmed others in the process. In such cases their actions are so heinous that they do define them as people.

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There are internet lists of sexual predators who have commit crimes in the past that mark them for life. While sex offenders who performed actual morally incorrect crimes, such as rape and sexual harassment should be marked with a scarlet letter to shame their actions. This is due to the fact that they harm others. However, some crimes that caused you to be on that list have nothing to do with harming others, and therefore they should not define a person for life.

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On February 21, 2007, Rodney White stepped back into freedom after 15 years and six months in a federal prison in Richmond, Virginia. He went back to school and earned a degree in Paralegal Studies, and began applying for jobs. However, three of the companies he applied to refused to even let him interview, because he checked the box that asked if he was ever convicted for a crime. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne presents Hester Prynne, a character that is heavily judged and discriminated because of one mistake in the past. However, this happened around 1650. Does the so called "scarlet letter" still apply to a certain group of people today? The answer is a resounding yes; ex-convicts are the wearers of the modern day scarlet letter.

Perhaps the greatest parallel between society in the 1650s and 2016 is the burden of a single mother convicted of a crime. Hester was a single mother convicted of adultery, and the burdens she had to face in raising her child were innumerable. At one point, the governor wanted to take Pearl away from Hester just because he thought Hester would be a bad influence on her. Luckily, and with a bit of convincing from Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester was able to keep her child. But many ex-convicts can't say the same. Ex-convicts are generally unable to find housing, rejected from colleges, and denied job opportunities just because of one mistake int eh past. Additionally, The Adoption and Safe Families Act was passed in 1997 to allow for children of incarcerated parents to be adopted rather than put in foster homes. However, many ex-convicts are unable to regain the rights to their biological child. For that reason, many incarcerated single mothers place their children in dangerous foster homes just to avoid the risk of losing custody once their sentence is over. For example, one single mother in Los Angeles was sentenced for armed robbery, but it turned out that the items she stole were formula mix and diapers for her three-month old baby. The fact that she would be arrested and be in jail for up to five years because she was trying to take care of her baby is one that shows ex-convicts are the bearers of today's scarlet letter, as one bad deed in the past led to the lifetime of sorrow that is losing a child.

Though the culture has changed from 1650 to 2016, moral judgement has not budged an inch. Ex-convicts are branded by their past behaviors, and for that reason are unable to find housing, education, employment, and take care of their own children. But to what avail? The system just forces ex-convicts into a deeper life of crime, because they lose the opportunity to make a good life for themselves and lose the people they love the most. Their communities don't treat them with respect, they feel as though they have lost their dignity, and they have no way to climb up the social ranks. The criminal justice system in the United States is something that absolutely has to change, as they are the wearers of 2016's scarlet letter, and we hope they can remove that awful mark as fast as possible.

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On February 21, 2007, Rodney White stepped back into freedom after 15 years and six months in a federal prison in Richmond, Virginia. He went back to school and earned a degree in Paralegal Studies, and began applying for jobs.

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Clothes are a scarlet letter that people often judge to determine social status and wealth, as well as personality. People look to see if others are keeping up with the latest trends, buying the most expensive clothes, or simply just matching their clothes well. Clothes are an important part of our personalities, as we see with the protests of many against uniforms at school due to the fact that they take away our freedom of expression. However, clothes are just barely a part of who we really are and do not deserve to be judged so harshly.