After seeing how poorly people behaved during the pandemic, I just can’t believe that shaming is a useful tool. Antivaxxers were proud they were putting others at risk. That was not a small number of people. I knew individuals that could not even be shamed by those closest to them. I do not believe in shame as a tool for social change and the vague points you make about it do not fit with my actual experience. Not for individuals and sure as hell not for corporations or politicians.
I think it depends on the person and the situation. I was more thinking about canceling. While I don’t think harassing people or sending them death threats is a good thing, canceling is essentially shaming. It can severely affect certain powerful or popular people’s ability to grow and maintain an audience. Granted, there’s plenty of problems with it, not every person who is canceled deserves to be, and it may endear some people to the one being canceled, but it can limit someone’s ability to spread harmful ideas to new people. Again, I don’t think we should harass people. But I don’t think holding people accountable for their actions never works. Hence my point about doing both.
After seeing how poorly people behaved during the pandemic, I just can’t believe that shaming is a useful tool. Antivaxxers were proud they were putting others at risk. That was not a small number of people. I knew individuals that could not even be shamed by those closest to them. I do not believe in shame as a tool for social change and the vague points you make about it do not fit with my actual experience. Not for individuals and sure as hell not for corporations or politicians.
I think it depends on the person and the situation. I was more thinking about canceling. While I don’t think harassing people or sending them death threats is a good thing, canceling is essentially shaming. It can severely affect certain powerful or popular people’s ability to grow and maintain an audience. Granted, there’s plenty of problems with it, not every person who is canceled deserves to be, and it may endear some people to the one being canceled, but it can limit someone’s ability to spread harmful ideas to new people. Again, I don’t think we should harass people. But I don’t think holding people accountable for their actions never works. Hence my point about doing both.