But what you embrace as historical and perennial in shunning, shame, and ostracism is in like historical and perennial company with compassion, forgiveness, mercy, etc.
But for many of us in the US, in the GenX and Millenial generations that we grew up in, we experienced the worst of the shunning culture in high school, among small town cliques, and in the midst of certain church groups; and then social media came, and we witnessed a clear turn where the dreaded "Mean Girl" dynamics that we hoped to have escaped in a liberalizing adult world of funky tattooed weirdos, long haired UNIX nerds, rainbow-flagging Unitarians somehow became the dominant voice of social media culture and it was somehow being championed loudest of all by some of those same colorful weirdos!
Maybe you're happy with that turn, but you can't really take away the disappointing and disorienting transition that many of us experienced as it took hold.
[–] squidmaster 3 days ago
The colorful weirdos were never better people in the first place, so I don't know why you're surprised. People who don't presently have the power to exploit others tell themselves that they don't, or wouldn't anyway, because they're better people. This is self-flattery. Give them power and they'll promptly demonstrate their corruption.
Nietzsche wrote quite a bit about this dynamic.
[–] saghm 3 days ago