Personally I tend to think that at a personal level shaming people is not a great tactic, however at a societal level it is very powerful for effecting widespread change. People being shamed for hate speech is a large part of how racism, homophobia etc gets reduced from generation to generation. A major issue since Trump became president (although it's not restricted to just the US) is that many people are no longer ashamed to voice some of their hateful opinions. This has resulted in backward steps in that it has to some extent renormalised views that were largely being phased out.

A person saying this:

Should not say this:

Given this:

----

I do not think so:

That directly appealed to the empathy of millions of people, not shame. On top of that, Trump is a result of shaming, to a degree.

To be clear, I'm not talking about major shifts like those that were occurring during the civil rights era, I'm talking about gradual change that happens over generations. The civil rights movement was vital for ensuring changes in law and ensuring rights for black people and you're right that that wasn't really based on shaming people. However people's attitudes didn't change overnight when the laws were changed. It took decades for society to get to the point where things like using the n-word derisively gets you castigated and people rejecting these attitudes and shaming those who displayed them is a large part of how that gradual societal (as opposed to legal) change happens.

I get what you are saying, but being intolerant of behavior, is not shaming. Wide-spread public shaming did not occur until the internet, and social media.

Nah, widespread pubic shaming is as old as time itself. Think The Scarlett Letter. In fact I would argue, shaming was a more integral part of traditional societies than modern ones.

Anyways, I agree that shaming does not change minds. At the most it buries resentment, and cause people to give preference falsification.

Empathy and bringing people together to share their common humanity is what changes minds.

If shame is going to be your tool, you better make sure you have plenty of moral authority and the force to exert it, because that is what you are going to need to keep resentment suppressed.

Ironically, most of the progressive movements of the last few years to emphasize differences have actually ******ed progress. Progress is still moving inexorably forward (hopefully), but a lot slower than before.

Millenials are probably a lost cause, because they got fed all this toxicity at the wrong time in their development. But signs are the next generation things are going the other way and people will once again appreciate what makes them similar, instead of celebrating their differences.

I agree.

If an individual doesn't feel accepted, for example by being shamed or ridiculed or in other ways shun by their peers, they will seek acceptance and validation in other ways, especially in other types of social groups (often in a negative sense) - and they will adjust their behavior to the social norms of the group because this group becomes the source for acceptance, validation and social recognition. If you aren't accepted for who you are as an individual, you can achieve social status by adhering to the expectations and values of a social group.

The best (possibly only) way to counteract group think is by making individuals question the group's (and therefore, their own) beliefs. That can be done in part by criticising certain views in the public dialogue. However, it is relatively rare that people genuinely reflect on and reevaluate their views just because someone they disagree with tells them they're wrong. But it does serve the important purpose of letting people know that these views are, to many (most?), unacceptable which helps limit how widely they spread - and most importantly - how explicit they can be expressed in every day life. It is important that hate speech and racism are seen as socially unacceptable or it will spread like wildfire.

And it's significantly easier than sending everyone who share these views to live with a Mexican family for a month, which would almost certainly force them to reconsider a thing or two about their preconceptions.

One of the more infamous campaigns of shaming to change behavior was the campaign by progressives and African American Civil rights organizations to end lynching. Starting right after the Civil War lynchings were communal activities, announced in the newspapers, and sold as a quazi carnival evwnts.

The NAACP and others set out to infiltrate the communities and document and publish the frankly bizarre and grotesque events. They'd then take pictures and publish what happened. Through the public relations campaign they first got laws passed that made it illegal for police to hand over suspects in the possession to the mob and eventually shamed the people so much that by the time Emmit Till was lynched in 1955 the criminals took him in the night and tried to hide evidence of who did it. Emmit Till's mother showing his lynched body was the final body blow

At the Hands of Persons Unknown is a good history book documenting it.

I guess we have two different interpretations of what shaming someone, or a group, is. Exposing bad behavior can bring about shame for the people involved. That's not a reason to not expose it. However, you do not expose it to shame the people, you expose it to appeal to others peoples empathy, and/or to show others something bad/immoral in order to convince people we should not do this.

No ones motive should be to expose something to castigate them to shame. They should expose it to educate people and convince people this is bad. You are not going to scold and discipline your kid in public for doing something bad with the goal of shaming them, and you really should not do things with the intent to bring public shame upon them.

Yup, for example see Wookie's response.

See itshot, kelhus, et al.

Sounds like the difference between to educate and to scold comes down to the eye of the beholder.

Since basically all shaming in today's world takes place in public, for all to see, on the internet, doesn't it also count as exposing bad behavior? Do you see a difference?

I think Google's list of synonyms for "shaming" is interesting.

"cut down to size, take down a peg or two, put someone in their place, humble, chasten, abash, embarrass, chagrin, mortify, humiliate."

I think the internet provides a resonating chamber which tends to amplify shaming to max volume. It goes right to the last two synonyms, mortify and humiliate. There's little volume control.

I also think there's a lot of shaming over opinions rather than behavior. This type of shaming sometimes degenerates into ad hominem attacks and often amounts to a weak substitute for strong arguments. While there may be little chance of changing the person's opinion, onlookers see the resort to max volume shaming as elitist and bullying.


PairTheBoard

I think it's easy to tell the difference between exposing bad stuff, and shaming.