Shame vs. Guilt Ted Talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en

Recommendation from Ellen!

Lebron's Unsinkable Ship

Explaining his understanding of how America can reimagine the democratic project, Lebron praises Otto Neurath for his ship metaphor, which ultimately demonstrates that democracy cannot be restarted, but instead it must be built upon our existing structures. Neurath's extended metaphor portrays a ship at sea that needs improvement to continue its voyage, but also cannot return to its port. Lebron praises Neurath for the concept of "continuing [to] build the ship at sea" (141). He argues that like the ship, democracy cannot be abandoned and must be improved in "unfamiliar or uncomfortable circumstances...that requires attention to navigate it properly. This endeavor is attended by perils as well as promise" (141).

This understanding of democracy is valuable because of its practicality; it affirms that not revolution is needed to attain racial equality. However, Lebron’s praise of Neurath's metaphor draws some questions for me. Lebron describes the ship as "good enough to get us going, but nevertheless imperfect," which is why the ship must be continually improved (141). This concept of improving the ship led me to question: At what point have we improved or changed the ship so much that it is no longer the same ship that we left at the port?  By this question, I mean to ask if there any parts of the ship that are fundamental. If any part of the ship can be rebuilt and improved, it seems to me that the type of ship we begin with is insignificant. To apply this to Lebron’s theory, it seems that the principles we identify at our founding, such as the principles in our Constitution, are not necessarily the principles that need to persist as we continue to modify our democracy. As a result, I believe that the ship metaphor opens the possibility of moving completely away from the kind of original democracy or founding principles that Lebron insists that we rely on. 

I also took issue with Lebron's analysis of the ship as unfit "to get us to our final destination” (141). From my understanding of Lebron’s theory of shame, a society that is racially just is one that is continuously checking its adherence to its principles through processes of shame. This constant flux is inconsistent with the concept of a ship that reaches a port, because this implies that at some point, the ship will be perfect, or at least good enough for us to leave the ship. This idea of eventually abandoning democracy once we have reached “the promised land” seems incompatible with Lebron’s emphasis on continually improving the ship. To be consistent with his argument, I think Lebron would need to abandon the idea of an “end point” that the ship is attempting to reach, or more clearly identify what this “promised land” would look like.

Agency and Autonomy

One of the advantages of understanding race as social value, according to Lebron is that it "straddles the divide between agency and social construction by at once being sensitive to the way social power impacts beliefs and attitudes but denies that it does so in a manner that rejects the possibility of agency, thus agents can still be held accountable for their racial beliefs and actions after they have been made aware of how they offend against racially egalitarian principles" (48). 

(1) This certainly adds an important block to understanding race as a social construct or as "goods begets goods." Under the goods begets goods conception, it is unclear what we “choices” we have if everything is determined by our access to some level of goods. Under the social construction theory (to simplify) race is a construct in our heads, allowing us to freely engage or not engage with race as an aspect of our society. My question is: what does Lebron’s “straddling” of these two ideas actually look like? He wants to both acknowledge agency and the power of institutions to impact our behavior. I find this argument very compelling, but wonder if he is actually able to do so. He argues later that, “social observation suggests to a rational person in that position is that blacks must not be worth much. Thus, social value suggests itself as being the underlying causal principle in any case” (50). I struggle to see how we can have true agency what race can simultaneously account for our rational decisions. Such a force would take away autonomy. Lebron continues to show that institutions constrain us as well. “Institutions do more than constrain – they produce. Further, while they certainly structure incentives, they also moderate normative aspects of human interaction that depend on ethical commitments that may or may not have a relationship to the idea of incentives” (54). Finally, Lebron’s hypothetical interaction in the corporation reduces his autonomy: “In this scenario my value to the corporation is no longer measure by my role and performance but by arbitrary norms articulated by those with more or less overwhelming power; thus I am reduced to something less than a fully autonomous, intrinsically valuable agent” (56). All of these further examples prove to me that our agency is constricted by outside forces, but Lebron does not go on to explain where our agency comes into play. This concerns me – without addressing the positive role of agency in these hypotheticals that he purports his social value theory has, it is unclear what type of choices or freedoms we really have.

(2) If we are accountable for our racial believes and actions after we “have been made aware of how they offend against racially egalitarian principles,” does that mean that we are not beforehand? At what point is the responsibility on society to make us see the discrepancy between our own purported moral values and our actual behavior? I’m not sure if Lebron is suggesting that as long as we can plead ignorance, we cannot be held accountable. I would argue that at least in American society, it would be very difficult to be completely ignorant of our failure to meet our moral values – thus the responsibility falls on ourselves to be aware of how our actions and beliefs offend racially egalitarian principles – which would mean we can all be held accountable. 

Shame vs. Guilt

One of the key discussions Lebron touches on is the tension between shame and guilt. It’s largely something he discusses in the reading we did for the paper instead of the reading for the seminar, but it seems like a pivotal issue for Lebron. We discussed it briefly in my tutorial, but I thought it would be productive to bring it up again.

Lebron sees guilt as the appropriate response to the present situation regarding racism in America: “We affirm better, but we rarely do better, […] racial inequality remains a distinctive feature of American society, and, for this reason, the problem of racial inequality ought to be a source of great shame.” (20) He uses shame as a key tool to motivate positive change, arguing: “Shame on this view can support out best aspirations in a manner beyond helping make our vision for a better way clearer; indeed, it can help bring our deliberations and actions into coherence with our prior affirmed ideals.” (25)

I can’t help but disagree with Lebron’s optimistic view of the outcome of shame. It seems improbable to me that shame could possibly be a reliable motivator on the national level in order to achieve change of the kind he is advocating. I understand that his aim is to trigger shame in people—which would imply that they recognise their own fault and the obligation to do better. While this seems like a good start, people are not amendable to self-criticism. Within the social justice tradition self-criticism is encouraged, but on a larger societal scale there is little to no chance of people embracing shame as the appropriate moral response, regardless of how apt Lebron’s argument is.

Additionally, it seems to me that shame triggers guilt, and guilt is a problematic motivator of behaviour. Being called out and criticised leads to people going on the defensive and entrenching their position, quite the contrary of what Lebron is looking for.

I fully concede that this is a problematic argument—shame is the right response; I’m simply disagreeing about the likely results of such a strategy. Lebron is targeting a “a more secure way of directly addressing our co-participant’s ethical shortcoming[s].” (34) It therefore seems appropriate to expect a more concrete strategy that goes above an ideal response and aims to achieve guaranteed results. 

Danielle Allen and "Our Declaration"

Christopher J. Lebron talks at significant length about Danielle Allen’s emphasis on “introduc[ing] new lessons concerning co-citizenship” (Lebron 131).  Allen explains that rather than focusing on “oneness” in society, we should rather focus on “wholeness” of society by “accept[ing] differences but in which we identify each other as co-participants in the project of ongoing cooperation for the common purpose of upholding democracy, even as we may disagree about how to best secure that vision (Lebron 132).  Thus, Allen explains that we must be willing to work with “others” or “strangers,” in other words, those who believe different things or have different features, as co-participants and co-citizens “for the common purpose of upholding democracy” (Lebron 132). 

Interestingly, last semester, I read one of Danielle Allen’s later books, “Our Declaration.”  In this book, Allen performs a “close reading” of the Declaration of Independence with the ultimate goal of demonstrating its ability to defend equality for all citizens as co-participants in American democracy.  She explains that equality is “the single bond that makes us a community” and she further demonstrates that equality is the most important principle evoked in the Declaration (Allen 23).  She spends the first several chapters of her book talking about the ways in which teaching the Declaration to others is beneficial.  She ultimately concludes that teaching the Declaration is important because it allows every person, regardless of background, to reclaim and transform the role of citizen, “deepen[ing] our capacity for moral reflection” and “grow[ing] as citizens” (Allen 44).  By understanding the language of the Declaration, we are claiming it as ours. 

In particular, Allen talks about teaching the Declaration to a night class of “adult students who were without jobs or working two jobs or stuck in dead-end part-times jobs” (Allen 31).  She explains, “my night students generally entered into the text thinking of it as something that did not belong to them.  It represented instead institutions and power, everything that solidified a world that had, as life turned out, delivered them so much grief, so much to overcome” (Allen 34).  Yet, Allen points out to her students that, on the other hand, the Declaration serves to uphold political equality, “engag[ing] all members of a community equally in the work of creating and constantly re-creating that community” (Allen 34).  With political equality, “citizens become co-creators of their shared world” (Allen 34).  Just as Lebron argues for re-education in order to change our national character, Allen demonstrates that her students “experienced a person metamorphosis” by re-learning the Declaration of Independence, which, in turn, changed the character of her students (Allen 35).  Allen shows that there are ways in which we can be taught to change our personal attitudes, morals, and implicit biases by being “re-educated” about our systems of democracy and of formal equality. With “full public knowledge to aid in the development of being good democratic selves,” Allen supports Lebron’s claim that we “would be better positioned to be effective partners in sharing a scheme of ongoing cooperation” (Allen 146). In this way, Allen would explain, re-education would help bring us closer to "wholeness."

Securing Stability or American Soulcrafting?

Lebron's solution for the “problem of social value” is democratic perfectionism, which "will make central attention to a kind of democratic ethos fundamental to a good democratic society marked by race. Put differently, it attends to American soulcrafting" (53). As we see in Lebron's suggestions from Chapter 5, this involves robust government involvement in deliberately changing the national character. By his account, there is a "moral and ethical burden which we must be aided in relieving -- others must help us be free of it" (52). The project is presented as a worthy cause, even if it involves “nudging” hesitant citizens.

However, Lebron makes clear that he is not in favor of just any shifts in our Constitutional scheme. He writes, "Institutions are designed for stability, [and] thus are intended to resist change" (59). In what can be read as denouncement of Popular Constitutionalism, he continues, "Acknowledging that our institutions would be at risk of too accurately reflecting the times, subsequently reflecting swift and possibly destabilizing shifts in patterns of political power” (60). Lebron warns we should be wary of such radical transformations -- except in the case of racial injustice, which he believes we should all be ashamed of.

While Lebron clearly thinks his project merits a substantial shift, is important to examine his basis for this assertion. He relies on an apparent fundamental disconnect: our institutions are out of line with principles we value as a polity. However, isn’t it also true that the frequent Amendments (within the unstable system he denounces) would reflect the values of the citizens whose Senators are in power? The obvious response is that our government is not designed to be altered by slim majorities, and there’s a good reason for that. However, if Lebron’s policies/solution to the problem of social justice are to distinguish themselves from these more partisan issues, they must reflect the disposition of our entire body politic; we would have to all – or at least mostly – agree that our current system is cause for shame, and that we really are falling away from our ideals in a way that merits the sort of shifts he is proposing. Is he right to assume that we agree on these things? And if we don’t agree on these things, could we really proceed as he suggests, since we would be pursuing the interests of a mere majority – in much the same fashion as his quixotic Popular Constitutionalists?

If not hierarchy, then what?

I found Lebron's discussion of historically evolved power very interesting, especially how institutions can come to display bad character.  Lebron writes that "while hierarchy is often taken in a pejorative sense, it is not intrinsically offensive" (56.)  I find this confusing considering the discussion of hierarchies that follows.  Lebron argues that hierarchies are essentially just an order of accountability of people in relation to one another to achieve a common goal.  Where things go wrong is when the employee-boss relationship moves beyond just accountability, and the employee begins to be defined on the terms of his boss and, an employee's "value to the corporation is no longer measured by [his/her] role and performance but by arbitrary norms articulated by those with more or less overwhelming power" (56.)  Because the employee's values becomes defined by arbitrary norms, they begin to be treated as means to the end of the corporation.   This sounds very similar to Marx's arguments, especially when Lebron mentions the power of narratives in justifying 'group ascendency'.  Those in power have control over the public narrative, and can using the narrative can "assign themselves positive social value while portraying others as justifiably possessing lower standing" (57.)  This progression of hierarchies evolving into domination and subordination seems almost inevitable to me, so I wonder how Lebron can argue that hierarchies are not intrinsically offensive.  The readings on human nature from Hobbes is particularly relevant here; the hierarchical structure seems to inherently promote a survival of the fittest mentality in which success is valued more than virtues such as equality or fairness.  The reading made me wonder what a hierarchical structure that does not become dominating would look like?   Is this even possible?  In America, and I assume in most countries, private and public sectors are organized hierarchically, and we have justified this structure because of its efficiency and productive power, and because of positive feedback, "profit becomes an end for action as well as the means" (58.)  Is there a way to structure institutions or corporations to strive for something other than profit?  The past few readings make it seem to me that in many ways, capitalism is inherently opposed to equality, yet many of the authors we read want to work within the system we have.  

Personal and Institutional Shame: Spellman or CMC?

Within Lebron’s account of systemic racial inequality, he points to both the shame on a personal and institutional level. He claims that institutions and people can both have bad character, and there seems to be a tension between who or what can be held accountable. Lebron notes both that institutions are not “merely an emergent property of a collectivity of individuals’ decisions” but are also “created by people and susceptible to being shaped by human agency” (56). When he discusses racial inequality as something systemic, he looks to the history of institutions to point out how the racial inequities were enshrined into institutions. When an institution realizes it is straying from its most important commitments, such as slavery in discordance with constitutionally protected human equality, they should feel shame. Lebron holds that this institutional shame can be used as a “political vehicle” for change. Yet, in his last sentences, he holds that people, on a personal level, “in the quiet of the night, alone with [their reflections]” can “make significant gains” towards a more equal society (153). It seems that Lebron himself is confused on if institutional or personal shame can really create change.

When loosely applying this to the rupture of campus climate last semester, I felt a similar tension, especially regarding Dean Spellman’s resignation. When the flyers inundated every inch of campus, each grievance towards the college read on the bottom of it “this is not an acute incident”. This echoes Lebron’s understanding that the problem is systemic, not “merely a collection of discrete instances of inequality” (34). This seemed reasonable to many students on campus, as reflected by a lack of institutional support of marginalized groups, lack of African-American professors, lack of student ethnic diversity, and the historic creation of CMC, mostly originally populated by the GI-Bill era of many privileged white men. Although CMC has come a long way from that standard, it was—and still is—visible that there is a long way to go in terms of inclusion on campus.

However, when two students did not eat until Mary Spellman stepped down, the pair seemed to put acute pressure on an individual to take responsibility—and forfeit her career—for an institution wide, systemic issue. Taylor Lemmons published on her blog that Spellman’s infamous email was not an acute incident, either, that Spellman had a history of failing to support marginalized groups on campus. The obvious response to that would be: Did Dean Spellman have any resources to point these students towards? Or was she simply failing to do her job on the basis of being a supportive figure to all students at CMC? In her resignation email, Spellman nodded to this systemic issue “Most important, I hope this will help enable a truly thoughtful, civil and productive discussion about the very real issues of diversity and inclusion facing Claremont McKenna, higher education and other institutions across our society”. When alluding to this notion within her resignation entitled “Difficult Decision” it seems that Spellman herself was under a similar tension that I see within Lebron. Was Spellman’s resignation a necessary personal step, a product of personal shame, integral to taking more substantive institutional steps? Or was her resignation not warranted, since Spellman, too, was rooted in a system of implicit bias and racial inequality, an institution that has systemic problems for which she, herself, could not be held accountable? I am not sure, and wondering if we can reflect a bit on this using the framework of Lebron, with a little bit of space from the tumult of last semester.

Arthur Ripstein (Kant): Nudists' Favorite Philosopher

Ripstein’s understanding of Kant’s argument for the State’s involvement through public action is based on obligation to “equal freedom.” Ripstein begins by critiquing understandings of public action by the state that focus on such actions as a balancing of competing interests. For Ripstein’s Kant, the state can build roads not because they are balancing the interests of liberty and safety, but because they state builds roads as a means of protecting every member’s equal freedom from private intrusion by another: “Public terms of access to roads are just structural features of public guarantees that there will be no private terms of access to other persons” (250). In short, public roads solve the issue of one being reliant on one’s neighbors to interact with other people. They allow the voluntary interactions that are so important to contract theory to remain voluntary and free, not subordinate to someone else’s desires: they continue the “rightful condition.”

Ripstein notes, though, that the members of society must also balance the fact that the roads are designed to protect the individual members freedom with an obligation to not prevent anyone else from using the public space. In many ways this seems a similar argument to basis of the roads in the first place: no one person’s actions should be able to limit another’s freedom. Ripstein lists some acts that Kant argued violated this agreement originally that still hold today like begging and large noisy public crowds, and notes “these examples all occur in public spaces. Their universal practice would make those spaces unavailable to the public, or impede public use of the space” (263). Only actions that privately appropriate the public space, though, are an issues according to Ripstein’s Kant and one’s opinion of actions that don’t hurt the “rightful condition” should be acceptable: “The fact that I do not like or approve of what you do in public plays no part in the analysis, no matter how upsetting I might find your conduct” (264).

This raised an interesting thought in my head: what would he say about public nudity? The argument against begging or prostitution was that it involved a privately motivated action that prevented another individual from using the road as they wished because the beggar or prostitute (male or female) would block the way while soliciting what they sought. Could public nudity, or other things that we currently consider unfit for public display for that matter, be rightly banned under this model? I would think not.