Shame and consent

Casey Chalk writes at The Federalist,

the Left has been appropriating shame to serve its ideological objectives for generations.

Psychoanalyst Joseph Burgo, writing for the Washington Post, observes that the #MeToo movement is a bit ironic, given that “shame has increasingly come to be viewed as a repressive force whose shackles must be thrown off.” Indeed, the progressivist agenda counsels everyone to “feel no shame,” whether they be “gay or transgender or overweight; having had an abortion; having survived rape or childhood sexual abuse; or struggling with mental illness or addiction.”

…liberals have certainly employed shame for certain pet causes, usually related to environmentalism or the sexual revolution.

…The effects of divorce are a huge drain on our nation’s wealth and resources. If the United States enjoyed the same level of family stability today as it did in 1960, one sociologist has estimated that the nation would have 750,000 fewer children repeating grades, 1.2 million fewer school suspensions, approximately 500,000 fewer acts of teenage delinquency, about 600,000 fewer kids receiving therapy, and about 70,000 fewer suicide attempts every year. Wilcox’s research has found similar detrimental effects caused by cohabitation.

Yet our culture, media, and dominant institutions have not only abandoned any kind of shame attached to divorce, cohabitation, or other deleterious side-effects of the sexual revolution (e.g. abortion on demand, pornography); we promote them as an intrinsic part of our freedom to pursue our own life goals and self-actualization.

Curiously, the only elements of the sexual revolution mainstream culture seem focused on attacking are those perceived to violate consent — harassment, rape, etc. Even here the hypocrisy runs deep: children from divorced families don’t consent to broken homes; the approximately 650,000 American babies aborted every year don’t consent to their conception or subsequent murder; and most parents have not consented to a culture where children are exposed on average to pornography at the age of 11.

…Ironically enough, far removed from the Enlightenment and its attempts to remove the shackles of institutional religion’s influence on society, modern experts are (seemingly unknowingly) taking their cues from the tactics of pre-modern Christian societies. Forms of shame — both public and internal — are now good and useful. So is public penance and ultimately, forgiveness (although one wonders why darlings of the Left like Al Franken are being forgiven so quickly). If only liberals had a principled means of applying shame, we might actually be able to cooperate on a vision of the common good for all Americans.

Read more here.