Technology may change, decency does not

Maybe Anthony Weiner still doesnt get it.

After the married politician who fell from grace in 2011 after accidentally tweeting a photo of his crotch to his 45,000 Twitter followers instead of the 21-year-old college student he meant to send it to stepped aside from publicity, the New York Times Magazine profiled Weiner and his equally, if not more, high-flying wife, Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff for Hilary Clinton.

And while Weiner, who is speculated to make a political comeback of sorts, is amply self-effacing in the article, which was posted online Wednesday and will run in print on Sunday, referring to himself as idiotic and full of praise for Abedin, it appears the senator still doesnt really get it.

He seems to blame Twitter for his digressions and poor choices.

You know, like spin the wheel! he said in regards to Twitter in the article. Find someone to say something to you! And if it wasnt 2011 and it didnt exist, its not like I would have gone out cruising bars or something like that. It was just something that technology made possible and it became possible for me to do stupid things. I mean, the thing I did, and the damage that I did, not only hadnt it been done before, but it wasnt possible to do it before.

A Washington Post blog, innovations, seemed to echo the sentiment.

As wearable cameras, social media-enhanced mobile operating systems and easy-to-use animated gif generators emerge and proliferate it is all but certain Weiner will not be the last person to surprise himself and the world with an unintended innovation in the realm of scandal, the post said.

But while indeed technology may change the ease at with which individuals are able to ruin their reputations or relationships, it is not the technology that is ruining their reputations or relationships.

Technology has not changed standards of human decency.

Weiner, in a traditional sense, did not have an affair with anyone. He didnt go cruising around bars as he said. Yet the choice he made to send the photo to the college student had the same elements of betrayal and lack of respect for himself and those around him that would accompany the conventional definition of a marital digression. And accordingly, Weiner felt the accompanying impact on his career and life that traditionally accompany such choices.

Advents in technology might reduce the guilt trip for those with proclivities to act upon poor impulses looking to justify such actions, but technology certainly doesnt create monsters
among us.

Divya Kumar is a junior majoring in mass communications and economics.