[explainplease]

Your distinctions between shame and censure are arbitrary and meaningless. e.g.:

Censure: "You shouldn't have done that."

Shaming: "You shouldn't have done that. Shame on you."

The point is the same. If an action is deservedly shameful, then so be it.

Shame that brings positive change is not a bad thing; it is a natural social consequence. The problem is lack of forgiveness even after repentance. How can one's debt to society be paid when convicted by the court of public opinion, prosecuted by the NYT? The exile is indefinite.

One of the problems in our society now is shamelessness, i.e. the lack of social consequences for some actions encourages people to take them. Compounding that is the media, which now acts as self-appointed arbiters of who should be ashamed, when, and why, depending on a person's current favor with the politically powerful. Displease the wrong people, and words uttered a dozen years ago without complaint are suddenly cause for outrage, according to them. Meanwhile, others who said much worse things yesterday are lauded. It's all a big farce.

Democracy dies in darkness, all right--the darkness of the evil of the contemporary press.

[taneq]

> The point is the same. If an action is deservedly shameful, then so be it.

The point is different because censure (as we're using it here) judges the action but shaming judges the person.

Censure: "That thing that you did was bad."

Shaming: "You are a bad person for doing that thing."

[explainplease]

No, you are arbitrarily deciding that "shaming judges the person," and that shaming means, "You are a bad person." That's what you think it means. You do not get to decide what "shaming" means to everyone, and it's not right for you to tell others what "shaming" means to them.

Besides that, even if one thinks that shaming does "judge the person," that's not necessarily bad, either, because rightful shame can lead to changed behaviors, which is good for the person and for society as a whole. However, this only works as long as forgiveness is available to those who change.

The problem our society currently has is that forgiveness is often denied, even after repentance. The judgments of the court of public opinion are essentially permanent, which is not healthy. And it's doubly bad when relatively old words and actions can be cited as a reason for judgment and outrage today.

[dexen]

>The problem is lack of forgiveness even after repentance

If anything, repentance leads to more and longer lasting stigma. The repentant person will most likely get excluded from the polite society - which usually means from any high-profile business and social setting.

Meanwhile standing staunchly by one's actions (or strong denial) - even better if coupled with some pushback - tends to create a counter-narrative, with its own team of supporters.

Not saying this is right or wrong, merely that showing weakness in the face of metaphorically bloodthirsty crowd tends to lead to worse results than standing up for oneself.

[explainplease]

Yes, that's exactly my point: forgiveness is withheld, even after repentance. Admitting guilt is double-punished, and doubling-down is comparatively rewarded.