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The Modern Left’s Self-Destructive Obsession with Shame

50 points by legodt 10y ago

TempleOSV409 10y ago
The nigger brain cannot understand what a random number is.
ionised 10y ago
Ahhh, that old self-hating lefties nonsense. What a waste of effort.
- naters 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    > 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.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
Scattered reasoning across multiple points that don't tie together. I can't even agree or disagree with the author. Not cogent.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  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.
carsongross 10y ago
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.
patrickburke 10y ago
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 10y ago
  The problem is the same. The proposed solution in the article is very different. 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 https://www.amazon.com/Solidarity-Struggle-Succeed-Showing-F...
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Nearly all political persuasion is framed as a moral argument That's because most political disagreement is disagreement on moral first principles (it often includes disagreement on facts, but that's rarely the root of the divide.)
- helthanatos 10y ago
  Politicians are terrible and soulless... All of them.
pastProlog 10y ago
He starts out an accusation of the left being obsessed with shame by using a Christian minister as a counterpoint? I watch the televangelists on TV sometimes. They constantly have segments where men admit to masturbating and cry out for forgiveness to the assembled audience about how they "gave in to their sin". It's one of the many bizarre things I see on them. These masturbation and pornography repentance segments are shown over and over. This bizarre behavior is a cornerstone of the Christian right, yet the left is accused of it? The example he uses is accusations of racist, discriminatory behavior. Well, the accusation can be true or it can be false. Outside of the KKK, I don't know many people who say a real accusation of racist, discriminatory behavior should not be shamed. They usually complain when they say there has been a false accusation of such behavior. Whereas these bizarre right wing Christian public confessions of masturbating are bizarre whether the guy jerked off or not. You can go to Youtube and search for pornography and sin, pornography and christian, masturbation and sin. Sometimes the say supernatural forces and demons and devils lead them to this. Also, for Europeans etc. puzzles by my statements, obviously I live in the USA. These things are common here outside of cosmopolitan metropolises like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles etc.
supercheetah 10y ago
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.
Grue3 10y ago
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.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
"We confuse shaming for justice" That, to me, was a brilliantly concise statement of the root of many problems.
norea-armozel 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.
thr8923 10y ago
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...
jimmywanger 10y ago
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.
loki49152 10y ago
Leftism is a direct derivative of fundamentalist Judeo-Christian ideology. There's no irony or contradiction here.

50 points by legodt 10y ago

TempleOSV409 10y ago

The nigger brain cannot understand what a random number is.

ionised 10y ago

Ahhh, that old self-hating lefties nonsense. What a waste of effort.

naters 10y ago
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 10y ago
  > 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.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

Scattered reasoning across multiple points that don't tie together. I can't even agree or disagree with the author. Not cogent.

bryanlarsen 10y ago
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.

carsongross 10y ago

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.

patrickburke 10y ago

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 10y ago
The problem is the same. The proposed solution in the article is very different. 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 https://www.amazon.com/Solidarity-Struggle-Succeed-Showing-F...
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Nearly all political persuasion is framed as a moral argument That's because most political disagreement is disagreement on moral first principles (it often includes disagreement on facts, but that's rarely the root of the divide.)
helthanatos 10y ago
Politicians are terrible and soulless... All of them.

pastProlog 10y ago

He starts out an accusation of the left being obsessed with shame by using a Christian minister as a counterpoint? I watch the televangelists on TV sometimes. They constantly have segments where men admit to masturbating and cry out for forgiveness to the assembled audience about how they "gave in to their sin". It's one of the many bizarre things I see on them. These masturbation and pornography repentance segments are shown over and over. This bizarre behavior is a cornerstone of the Christian right, yet the left is accused of it? The example he uses is accusations of racist, discriminatory behavior. Well, the accusation can be true or it can be false. Outside of the KKK, I don't know many people who say a real accusation of racist, discriminatory behavior should not be shamed. They usually complain when they say there has been a false accusation of such behavior. Whereas these bizarre right wing Christian public confessions of masturbating are bizarre whether the guy jerked off or not. You can go to Youtube and search for pornography and sin, pornography and christian, masturbation and sin. Sometimes the say supernatural forces and demons and devils lead them to this. Also, for Europeans etc. puzzles by my statements, obviously I live in the USA. These things are common here outside of cosmopolitan metropolises like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles etc.

supercheetah 10y ago

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.

Grue3 10y ago

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.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

"We confuse shaming for justice" That, to me, was a brilliantly concise statement of the root of many problems.

norea-armozel 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.

thr8923 10y ago

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...

jimmywanger 10y ago

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.

loki49152 10y ago

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