Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty at the Conservative Party’s manifesto launch (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Almost a year ago, in July 2023, Rishi Sunak’s government named and shamed Britain’s most unruly towns. The media, unsurprisingly, lapped it up: places subjected to higher levels of social disadvantage were described as “bad towns” filled with “streets of shame”. All who lived there were tainted.
We rarely think about what it means to assign towns or neighbourhoods to the bottom of our moral geography; but those who live in them often feel ashamed, not because they have committed any wrong but because they know they are seen as lesser beings. They report feeling small and powerless, with their behaviour “painfully scrutinised and negatively evaluated”. Sadness, depression and a sense of isolation can often follow. The effect on the self can be devastating.
Curiously, this kind of humiliation becomes possible only when a society has, in its ideology, transcended ideas of natural difference, and convinced its citizens that they are due equal rights and dignity. For instance, when women and non-white people demanded equal rights and dignity, they rightly began to push back against the everyday slights and humiliations visited on them by dominant groups, who found shaming people on the basis of their gender or race increasingly frowned upon.
In the great era of post-war social democracy, something similar began to happen in the case of social class. In the most wince-inducing scene of The Remains of the Day, set in the Thirties, the butler — Stevens, whose life goal is to serve his master with complete devotion and professionalism — is humiliated by the patrician friend of Lord Darlington who wants to demonstrate the lower class’s ignorance of global affairs and therefore the error of permitting them to have a vote. Yet, despite our own embarrassment and rising sense of outrage, the butler, played in the film by Anthony Hopkins, did not seem to feel the humiliation — because he accepted implicitly that he was of a lower social order and should not be expected to know these things.
Social shaming is by no means confined to the lower orders, whom today we refer to with terms such as disadvantaged communities and the precariat. In fact, shaming is a general phenomenon of stratified society, although its effect is much more apparent in some.
A survey of Australians we commissioned for our new book, The Privileged Few, found that half of young adults admit to having felt ashamed about where they grew up, the school they attended, or their parents’ employment. Shame is a strong emotion to admit too, even in an anonymised survey. We found that parents in households with children are much more likely to admit to feelings of shame than those in households without children, perhaps because adolescents feel shame more intensely than adults and memories of emotional wounds fade as one grows older. In our follow-up focus groups, some made poignant comments about how, as children, they thought they were normal until someone denigrated their suburb or their school or even their father’s low-status job.
The side effect of this shaming is worryingly that people lower down the hierarchy say they conceal where they live or where they went to school, either by lying or becoming evasive when asked. One of our informants spoke of how “people would cringe when I mentioned the… suburb I came from, so sometimes I’d pick another suburb, so they don’t cringe”. Another said that when he mentioned his state school to a partner at the accounting firm where he works, “he visibly recoiled… He looked at me differently.”
In 2012, Owen Jones published Chavs, a powerful polemic against the demonisation of the working class, or at least the element of it characterised by the media and some politicians as “feckless, criminalised and ignorant”. But the extremes of condescension, scorn and even disgust directed at “chavs” should be understood within a broader distribution of “microaggressions” up and down the social scale and manifesting in feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, resentment, guilt, envy, arrogance and contempt. Unlike debates over the microaggressions of race and gender that have dominated the public domain in recent years, the microaggressions of class are often ignored. Yet they seethe beneath the surface, erupting at times when the privileges enjoyed by elites become too brazen, too egregious — justas they did during the pandemic.
As the Covid virus spread in the early months of 2020, and London began to shut down, wealthy families fled the city for their sanctuaries in the country. Others took to their yachts or flew to Caribbean islands. Estate agents fielded inquiries from the super-rich for “mansions with bunkers”. Newspaper stories reporting the flight of the rich attracted a torrent of bitter and cynical comments from the public.
We argue in our book that relations among those up and down the social scale are fraught with emotional effort and inner turmoil. Informants for our study (in “egalitarian” Australia) admitted that they pay more attention and respect to people they believe are wealthy or influential. Some look up to them even though they don’t want to and it goes against the grain of their moral code. One conceded that if someone pointed out a billionaire at a party then “I think you may afford them a bit more respect”. These comments were made bashfully, as if looking up to the rich and powerful went against some inner principle or entailed a small sacrifice of dignity.
At the other end of the spectrum, some from a higher position in the hierarchy may want to be respectful and congenial in their relations with those below, but risk being seen as condescending, disrespectful or unduly familiar. While one spoke of levelling-up by changing the way she speaks and carries herself in the presence of a higher status person, another, who had attended an elite school, commented that the adjustment can work the other way so that “you might come down a notch or two”. But he has also discovered that the gulf between the elites and the rest sometimes takes the form of disdain from below: “You get on really well with somebody and then they ask you that dreaded question ‘Where do you live? What school do you go to?’ And the instant you say it, their face drops.”
We are not suggesting an equivalence between disdain from above and disdain from below. The face drop does not have the social power of the cringe. As Kathryn Abrams observed, “a war of disgusts is one that those less socially privileged are unlikely to win”.
These injuries of social class are often felt most painfully in the schoolyard, among children yet to learn the rules of social inhibition or, indeed, respect for difference. In schools, interactions among students and between students and teachers are beset by the everyday slights and humiliations associated with social and economic difference. Yet the language of class, once a powerful tool serving the interests of equality and dignity, has fallen out of fashion. The words to parry the microaggressions of class are absent.
If you speak to 11-year-olds, they can call out sexism and racism, even ageism, but when it comes to discrimination or vilification on the basis of class or social status they are dumbstruck. Those students who intend to remain in the state system after primary school are often shamed by those whose parents are sending them to elite private schools. Public schools are “shit”, said one. How does an 11-year-old respond? With an explanation of the social benefits of the public education system? Or with an epithet such as “snob”, which has little rhetorical power in the neoliberal area of “choice” and getting ahead by whatever means possible. The absence of a language of class politics — as opposed to a vibrant language of gender and racial politics — means that shaming on the basis of social status or the school one goes to is taken in as personal wound rather than as an expression of social division.
Students at elite private schools in Britain as elsewhere are taught to assume the superiority of their position. As one graduate observed: “I joined Westminster School [in London] for sixth form. On my first day we were given a talk by the headmaster, who told us: “You are the crème de la crème of this country. Sitting around you are future leaders. Don’t you forget it.”
These schools aim to imbue the offspring of the elite with certain higher moral and spiritual qualities, a process known as consecration, sanctifying these students as beyond the ordinary and moulding them into objects of power and influence; in short, elite. They are taught the dispositions of ease, confidence and entitlement appropriate to a world of privilege.
The uncomfortable conclusion we draw is that elite privilege is best viewed as a set of everyday practices that sorts and reproduces social strata. Studying the alchemy of how privilege is done, whereby elites seek and are granted exclusive benefits, suggests that the privileges bestowed on elites are not a by-product of wealth but an organising principle used to enforce social difference. In the end, it is our collective compliance that makes elite privilege so deeply entrenched and “natural”, even though it is responsible for so many harms: economic harms, civic harms, and psychic harms, not least the everyday system of shaming and humiliation that is characteristic of a society of privilege.
Still, it’s a dangerous game for the elites because shaming can congeal into resentment, a political anger that can break through in unpredictable ways. A political class that not only lacks an understanding of the problems of class demonisation but actively seeks to participate in it is doomed to face the reckoning of a vengeful electorate.
Clive Hamilton is professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra and the co-author of Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
CliveCHamilton 
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SubscribeSo now they’re coming for Pinker, who is about as ‘progressive’ as you can get.
Progressive,yes. Woke, emphatically not.
Not really coming for Pinker, but sending a message to more junior, less established, less secure academics.
Pinker has a rather charitable interpretation of (or excuse for) the tactics of woke’ism, identity politics and political correctness, and so forth. These are pure bigotry — ruthless application of stereotypes to individuals regardless of any inappropriateness or gross inaccuracy/inapplicability, requiring either malign intent or absolute ignorance or brainwashing (by professors or the press or activists) with a false narrative combined with an overriding tendency and ability to engage in confirmation bias (to continue to support the narrative in one’s imagination).
I consider the culture-war activist and campus nonsense to be pure fraud by self-interested parties who are some combination of Leninist/Marxist and fascist, more or less. I believe that the leaders of these loosely defined and organized “movements” know exactly what they are pushing, and have no utopian notions whatsoever, but well understand that they can utilize the ignorance of many to lure with utopian appeal.
There appears to be a tremendous instinctive appeal of the utopian promise of socialism/communism/fascism (all variants of the same basic theme) that is built into human nature. It requires some historical knowledge to disabuse one of the idea that the utopia is even remotely possible, and to recognize that certain types of people will always be attracted to the kind of authoritarian or totalitarian power necessitated by real-life attempts to implement these ideologies. These would be Stalin-like characters at best — nothing about them is good for societies, especially relatively free and prosperous ones.
There has been a frightening additional growth of (self) entitlement, infantilization and expectation of a paternalistic environment that has increased in prevalence with each successive generation since the end of WWII in Euro/American societies (at least). Appeal to this has enhanced the ability of the malcontent ideology to convince, false and phony as it is.
IMO these jerks should be ridiculed and ignored. But the press is almost totally part of the “movement”, and so there is a sort of Catch-22 problem. Too many lazy intellects will listen to a narrative or look at a “painting” and buy in, rather than developing and implementing a skepticism with the skills needed to gather valid info and separate this from all of the disinfo and misinfo — e.g. skeptical reading skills.
The pandemic has just been a microscopic example of the same social phenomena, aided by the near universality of social media now. Even most well-educated people, I find, have no idea how to draw accurate conclusions from the epidemiological data which is freely available to anyone everywhere now, at least in Euro-American countries.
Thank you Freddie for this fascinating interview with Steven Pinker. Although insightful in itself, within it are several references to the extremely important open letter published in Harper’s magazine calling for the end of cancel culture with 150+ signatories from across the political spectrum. Hopefully one of the excellent Unherd team is penning a commentary on this extremely important event in the free speech debate as we speak. I would hate to think that purely because many of the signatories are left-leaning and one line in the letter casts aspersions on President Trump that it is not deemed of sufficient interest to the Unherd readership to merit a slot within the big four daily stories on our site.
Some good discussion in here along with the meat of discussion about free speech (on which Pinker’s stand is genuinely inspiring).
1. Sayers challenges Pinker on whether the Enlightenment might be partly responsible for the Woke, gesturing at their shared attitude that the world can be re-engineered if given enough effort. Pinker responds that he views the Woke as one form of counter-Enlightenment, which I think is fair enough and true, but also it seems like he missed Sayers’ point a little, and didn’t address the similarity.
I think there is a grain of truth when you contrast this element against its (almost definitional) absence in conservative thinking, but ultimately Wokism is not special for drawing on this Enlightenment idea and using it for other purposes, and many of the radical ideological failures of the 20th century — on the left and the right — could lay equal claim to such inspiration.
2. Sayers wonders whether the Enlightenment’s relative lack of focus on subjective value and ‘nourishing the soul’ fosters populist backlash. Pinker doesn’t really seem convinced that the current moment in Anglosphere politics demonstrates that. I think I would agree with Pinker’s doubt that it clearly points to a trend of decreasing happiness. The idea is worth considering, but it also seems like it could be the function of some other element of society compatible with Enlightenment values to nourish the soul.
No Pinker was on the money with that I think.
Wokism came out of the Enlightenment only in as far as it came out of movements long after and would therefore logically have some tenuous roots in it. But even that is stretching it.
The woke are actively, explicitly and vocally rejecting the Enlightenment across the board, because for them it is seen as the root cause of most prejudice and is too white and western for their liking.
Yes, what a splendidly
acerbic, spiteful, debate that was, and the Woke “never forgive and never forget”.
However I don’t have much sympathy for Pinker, he has always “run with the hare and hunted with the hounds”.
“ªPinker states that the right populists are a bigger threat than the left ‘because they are in power’ extraordinary !! So after 4 years of Trump what has actually happened that threatens our freedom?? Meanwhile the woke establishment has been enacting and fermenting profound and deeply corrosive societal change while being kept OUT of office -that is surely a great deal more threatening ?
Things that threaten our freedom under trump:
A deeply corrupt, vindictive DOJ.
A new Postmaster General who directs local facilities to “slow down” delivery of first-class mail, meaning many people near the end of routes don’t receive any mail, or not on a regular basis. To connect the dots, this threatens our free and fair elections.
A terribly mismanaged pandemic that has made it risky to leave our homes, or to walk around unencumbered with a face mask; and has closed nearly the entire world to a US passport.
A threat to “postpone” the election, which he clarified the same day he made it was NOT meant as a joke.
I could go on.
He also strangely makes no reference to woke social media enterprises and their unaccountable control and manipulation of the public square which is beyond the reach of the democratically elected ‘populist’ politicians
I think perhaps the “I’m all right” is actually a healthy contempt.
It bothers you that a free press is able to publish freely, and you would prefer they be within the reach of your preferred politicians? That violates the first amendment.
Nothing strange about it. Nationalist/Populist movements invariably devolve into authoritarian dictatorships. A few modern places one can see this process as it happens: the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, and Brazil. Everybody wants a strong Daddy to keep them safe and make sure everyone else behaves. Some of us are more conscious of it and able to remove it from our politics than others.
I’m assuming by “woke rebellion,” you refer to people having a modern view of older institutions and mores.
“Woke” refers to things like people taking a critical look at accepted truisms, such as “Christianity is a force for good in the world,” or “Black people have as much chance as anybody else of making it in America,” or “If Black people would only obey the (always courteous and lawful) police, no one would get beaten or killed.” In evaluating current events, “woke” refers to a preference for secular humanism and compassion, a sort of “do no harm” ethos, along with a focus on reform of unfair practices. “Understanding that terms like ‘Kung flu’ and ‘China virus’ drive bigoted behavior towards Asians, we resolve not to use them” is one current example.
We seem to be between the devil and the deep blue sea – between an arid materialistic scientism and a ‘popular’ movement that seeks to impose the primacy of raw unreflected emotion on all discourse and every aspect of society.
I guess, if by “Left orthodoxy” you mean findings derived from careful studies of child development, including the powerful “twins separated at birth” studies that amuse us by pointing out, “They both like blue-checked shirts!” and “They’re both in church choirs!” and “Look how similar their bedspreads are!” I’m a developmental psychologist who’s naturally given a lot of thought and study to the question of nature/nurture. I, like my colleagues in that field — not linguistics — have certainly not concluded that only nature is formative.
I don’t believe developmental psychologists have an interest in “cancelling” Pinker. We accept that he’s talking through his hat and ignore him, similar to how we don’t take our dirty car to a shoe shine to be cleaned.
I continue to marvel that things as apolitical on their surface as cloth face masks, to what traits are heritable and which more refined by peers and parenting, have become “left” and “right,” with “left” ideas being based on swell-designed, replicated studies, and “right” meaning “I don’t like leftists and I don’t like this idea, therefore this idea is ‘left’.”
But who the hell are these “people”
They don’t represent the majority….does democratic majority no longer have credence?
I am stunned to constantly hear that “everyone is outraged” when in fact very few give a toss and the “outraged” are dangerous minority nut jobs!
Free speech runs both ways!
You seem kind of upset. Outraged, even.
How far we can go or how deep we can search in the deepest realm of our minds depends on how much we dare release ourselves and embrace new assumptions that might lead us into a better human condition. I must say that Socrates might have been wrong but by getting him to have the hemlock he became a victim of injustice. Let’s remember that truth is not necessesarily a democratic experience.
First they came for Katie Hopkins…
He makes a good point that if certain ideas are not allowed to be scrutinised then they run the risk of gaining currency. That is something everyone on all sides of an issue would do well to ponder. Cancel ideas and the very argument you so despise is allowed to live on!
The canaille have always been there and social media is simply another street corner. What has changed is the integrity of people who have entered contracts with targets of the mob. I believe it should be possible for anyone who loses any job as a result of such mob screeching to sue the nuts off the person firing them and get exemplary damages.
Let’s play this one out. Suppose an employee is caught on tape screaming, “America is a cesspool and I hope someone bombs US back to the Dark Ages!!” It gets posted online and everyone has an opinion about this guy, many of them negative.
The online mob does their “research.” They find out who the loudmouth is. They find their employer, and deluge them with video and strong opinions. Freaked out, the employer decides he doesn’t want his business associated with this kind of speech. They’re pretty sure keeping them on will cause some customers to forsake him, and their profits will drop. This has turned into an existential threat to their business.
Is it not the employer’s right to hire and fire whomever they please?
Die Gedachten sind Frei. But open speech is not free, and it’s getting more and more costly as the Jacobins look for that handy guillotine.
Off with their heads!
My own alma mater shelters one Noam Chomsky, who also happens to be an academic linguist like Pinker. I doubt very many have read even one work by Chomsky in the field of linguistics, but of course he spouts off incessantly and ridiculously about topics he knows absolutely nothing of. The fact that a clown like Chomsky can do so as successfully as he has is also a good reflection of the susceptibility and ignorance of the society at large.