February 24th, 2014
In retrospect, the most surprising aspect of this story is that it took ten years for Charlotte Simmons to become quaint.
Side note: There’s a really interesting inversion of moral norms here. Check out this bit from the comments section of the story:
a current sophomore whose identity was easily discovered given his username and the Duke directory just posted Lauren’s real name and stage name on another (very popular) website’s comment section. while her identity is fairly well known on campus and the consequences are clearly hers to deal with now, it is extremely irresponsible and reproachable to post the girl’s personal information for the Internet to see. this is a fellow duke student, and he just risked her personal safety and professional future for the sake of a few internet “likes.” absolutely pathetic and indefensible move.
So the idea of passing moral judgment on someone creating pornography is a non-starter. But “revealing” the identity of the pornographer is “indefensible.”
It can be tempting to think that modern America is an amoral demolition derby for values, but that’s not right. In many ways, we’re more rigidly judgmental than the Victorians ever were. It’s just that the values which the culture prizes have shifted.
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That Jabari Parker seems like a well-adjusted kid. I sure hope he comes out for the NBA draft so that he can ply his trade in a more wholesome environment starting next year.
Nedward February 25, 2014 at 12:27 am
Here’s where I disagree with you: By my lights this seems a lot more like one of those real-life stories from which exactly nothing can be learned. “Fame-Seeking Coed Dabbles in Pr0n Work”–I’m just not picturing it anywhere on the leadership syllabus at the Galactic War Academy in the year 2100. This is really the sort of incisive journalism you’d find linked from TheAtlantic under a blog post called, “We Are All [***] Dumpsters Now”