Against Political Shame

The talk of shame and guilt has weakened the political prospects of the left.

During the first Obama campaign, I was pretty young, with an age in the low single digits. I remember supporting John Edwards in 2008 because his last name was Edward, a name he shared with my favorite train.

In short, I was not thinking about politics in a sophisticated way. But my sense is that at that time, the Republicans were the party of guilt and Puritanism. They were the party chiding people for playing the wrong kinds of video games, engaging in the wrong kinds of sex acts, and so on.

I got into politics around 2016, in response to the election. I was, as I’ve mentioned before, a major libertarian. I remember arguing with people at great length about political issues, always towing the libertarian party line. In those days, political debates seemed to be mostly about how to improve the owrld. That’s a good and reasonable thing for them to be about. I’m in favor of a good world! But now, it seems, especially on the left, politics has become far more occupied with shame. This is one of the things that has been quite disastrous for the political prospects of the left.

Of course, I’m not so naive as to think that politics was civil at that time. Attacks on both sides were vicious. But they were at least ostensibly about ways in which the other political party had bad views that would make the world worse. Politics has, more recently, become much more occupied with guilt and shame, particularly on the left.