High trust, low violence societies that maintain high levels of commons property (economic, environmental, moral, etc) are always going to need guilt and shame to prevent people from cheating on the social contract.<p>There is a reason we've evolved to have these emotions.
I don't think the article is entirely wrong but the example of shame from Twitter doesn't seem to fit as neatly as they'd like. For me, when I see something like this or #goodcispeople it's mostly about complaints and not targeting black men or cis people. If people feel shame from such complaint-fests I can't be sure if you're not just thin skinned. It really seems to me that's the real problem with utilizing such hashtags as examples since you have to go out of your way to find them.<p>Whereas the author could've more easily looked at how certain Twitter users have been stalked and harassed for not supporting full communism (I'm not kidding, people have been dogpiled, stalked, and harassed for this). That event fits better with what the author is trying to demonstrate than just random black women or trans women airing complaints on a hashtag at no account or person in particular.
Nearly all political persuasion is framed as a moral argument and dissenters are publicly shamed. Eg. You are a bad person if you drive a SUV. This is not just a property of the left
This is not limited to modern left. In USSR we were supposed to be ashamed of our free will, ancestry, sexuality, and so on. Communism is not much different from religion in this respect.
A shame, people try to use our best impulses against us.<p>Most people in modern societies have no idea what it is like to feel real oppression/suffering/etc etc.<p>Notice that this is a phenomenon limited to developed countries. People in other parts of the world would just sort of laugh and shrug off the shaming attempts.
I do not agree that modern left is 'self-destructive'. Self deception is very powerful. Usually (self)shaming follows goal to gain more control, discredit opposition, raise money...
To be fair, with Trump, the right is self-destructing a lot faster. If that weren't the case, I'd be worried. That's not to say there aren't valid criticisms here.