The Shaming-Industrial Complex
The article kinda misses a major point:<p>&gt; Flanagan calls shame accompanied by progressive values “mature shame”<p>I would argue that shaming used to promote your political views is often the most damaging kind of shaming because on top of being the most divisive, it is likely counterproductive, an offputting move that damages your brand and often creates a powerful backlash against it.<p>Now there&#x27;s some subtlety here. It depends who you target in your shaming. The article does mention that shaming is considered more acceptable when punching up than punching down, which I would agree with, but you have to be very careful how you define that. Some people tell themselves they are punching up, when they are clearly punching down. One group this is clearly not privileged are the uneducated people who have always struggled at learning and understanding the world, who&#x27;s grasp of morality is limited and requires weekly reminders by moral leaders, who fall for internet conspiracy theories, who have no chance of having the academic understanding of race and gender that seems to be increasingly asked of people. These people who struggle in educational settings, are comparatively handicapped, often don&#x27;t have access to good stable jobs, are the first to become unemployed during recessions so are some of the most vulnerable people out there even when they are white.<p>Advanced morality about things like race and gender is complex and not within everyone&#x27;s reach. Advanced empathy involves multilevel recursive counterfactual meta-cognitive logic ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lesswrong.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;K4eDzqS2rbcBDsCLZ&#x2F;unrolling-social-metacognition-three-levels-of-meta-are-not" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lesswrong.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;K4eDzqS2rbcBDsCLZ&#x2F;unrolling-...</a> ) and sometimes, academic understanding of past history. Asking some of these people to understand these things is asking people in wheelchairs to run and run away they will. If you shame them for their handicap they will fight back.<p>It&#x27;s fine to shame the villainous leaders who manipulated these people for their evil ends, but if you shame the people for falling into the traps, you actually push them further towards those evils.