
The Modern Left’s Self-Destructive Obsession with Shame - legodt
http://www.orchestratedpulse.com/2014/08/shame-left/
======
carsongross
High trust, low violence societies that maintain high levels of commons
property (economic, environmental, moral, etc) are always going to need guilt
and shame to prevent people from cheating on the social contract.

There is a reason we've evolved to have these emotions.

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norea-armozel
I don't think the article is entirely wrong but the example of shame from
Twitter doesn't seem to fit as neatly as they'd like. For me, when I see
something like this or #goodcispeople it's mostly about complaints and not
targeting black men or cis people. If people feel shame from such complaint-
fests I can't be sure if you're not just thin skinned. It really seems to me
that's the real problem with utilizing such hashtags as examples since you
have to go out of your way to find them.

Whereas the author could've more easily looked at how certain Twitter users
have been stalked and harassed for not supporting full communism (I'm not
kidding, people have been dogpiled, stalked, and harassed for this). That
event fits better with what the author is trying to demonstrate than just
random black women or trans women airing complaints on a hashtag at no account
or person in particular.

~~~
anonbanker
Go into
[http://reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction](http://reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction)
sometime. You may not be aware of the sheer volume of voices doing this, or
you're surrounding yourself with actual open-minded people.

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patrickburke
Nearly all political persuasion is framed as a moral argument and dissenters
are publicly shamed. Eg. You are a bad person if you drive a SUV. This is not
just a property of the left

~~~
bryanlarsen
The problem is the same.

The proposed solution in the article is very different.

[https://www.amazon.com/Solidarity-Struggle-Succeed-
Showing-F...](https://www.amazon.com/Solidarity-Struggle-Succeed-Showing-
Freedom/dp/0988628651/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1469729321&sr=8-5&keywords=solidarity+struggle)

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Grue3
This is not limited to modern left. In USSR we were supposed to be ashamed of
our free will, ancestry, sexuality, and so on. Communism is not much different
from religion in this respect.

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AnimalMuppet
"We confuse shaming for justice"

That, to me, was a brilliantly concise statement of the root of many problems.

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jimmywanger
A shame, people try to use our best impulses against us.

Most people in modern societies have no idea what it is like to feel real
oppression/suffering/etc etc.

Notice that this is a phenomenon limited to developed countries. People in
other parts of the world would just sort of laugh and shrug off the shaming
attempts.

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WhitneyLand
Scattered reasoning across multiple points that don't tie together.

I can't even agree or disagree with the author. Not cogent.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Seems a fairly straightforward article to me.

\- what is shame; links to scholarly papers

\- why is shame bad; links to scholarly papers

\- numerous examples of the left using shame; links to news reports & twitter

\- alternatives to the use of shame to accomplish goals: link to blog article,
calls for more ideas.

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thr8923
I do not agree that modern left is 'self-destructive'. Self deception is very
powerful. Usually (self)shaming follows goal to gain more control, discredit
opposition, raise money...

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supercheetah
To be fair, with Trump, the right is self-destructing a lot faster. If that
weren't the case, I'd be worried. That's not to say there aren't valid
criticisms here.

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ionised
Ahhh, that old _self-hating lefties_ nonsense.

What a waste of effort.

~~~
naters
Jeez, that seems unduly dismissive. While the title of the article might
suggest that it follows the rhetoric you're suggesting, it is in fact a pretty
well founded critique of "call out culture" and how it is a very real
impediment to meaningful social change.

I think the main problem with this line of thinking represented in this
article (and maybe this is what you are getting at) is that the use of shame
in political dialogue is a trait exclusive to the left. It has many parallels
in conservative thinking, but maybe in ways that we have grown used to (e.g.
values based on religious fundamentalism).

~~~
ionised
> I think the main problem with this line of thinking represented in this
> article (and maybe this is what you are getting at) is that the use of shame
> in political dialogue is a trait exclusive to the left.

That is what I was getting at.

You're right though, it was very dismissive. I should know better.

I just tired of that same old 'us versus them', 'left versus right' back-and-
forth, simplistic tribalism.

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loki49152
Leftism is a direct derivative of fundamentalist Judeo-Christian ideology.
There's no irony or contradiction here.

