Until we unapologetically reassert ownership over our heritage and nation unto a counter stigma, where we shame what is shameful, we cannot expect renewal nor, indeed, peace. Far from cruelty, the construction and assertion of stigma is heroic, an undertaking on behalf of civilization. 

For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that they strengthen social stigma. It is that social stigma which is really effective, and so effective is it, that the profession of opinions which are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial punishment […] Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion… [T]he price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.

Freedom, absolute freedom, especially of thought unto expression, is constrained by social custom, of cultivated, collective disdain. And as Mill notes, the construction of custom is bolstered by, if not downstream of and more powerful than, legal sanction.

We live in a Millian world, one geared toward the erosion of natural association and custom. For these vectors of “social intolerance” constrain independent, individual self-actualization. This, Mill despised. Which is to say, Mill hated what is natural and necessary in every well-ordered society. If we would have order ourselves, we must recover what he shunned and shun what he coveted.

The punishment for the violation of custom is stigma, or social judgment and pressure to conform. Paradoxically, and contra Mill, the suppression of stigma “induces men to disguise” opinion and discrimination. It is social pacification. Worse, forced inclusion and neutrality negates man, his natural diversity and sensibility. While a Millian frame might liberate, for a time, the individual from all constraints, it is diametrically opposed to its opposite, viz., communal self-determination, i.e., that to which sociable man wants to belong.

Stigma is another way of describing the social function of shame. Rationale or justification for shaming what is shameful are usually unthinking, engrained, and uninterrogated. Plato (Republic) describes the worthy guardian of the city as one who will “praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured by them, become fine and good,” and, in turn, will “rightly object to what is shameful, hating it while he’s still young and unable to grasp the reason.” Cultivation of right preference and taste is a prerequisite not only for exercise of authority—the good ruler must always feel the spirit and mood of his people—but the exercise of mature reason as well because the affections are oriented toward honor and achievement rather than material gain. Self-mastery requires fear of judgment, as Roger Scruton put it in his essay on stigma in City Journal nearly 25 years ago (“Bring Back Stigma”).

Therein lies the power of stigma as a natural social instinct. It is everywhere, always and already, present. Indeed, Mill’s dream cannot be recognized without the operation of stigma. That is, the intolerance of intolerance or shunning of restriction. But this is always a fantasy because a view from nowhere is impossible.

Every society designates things, behaviors, and practices that are shameful contrasted by what is honored. (The extent to which public or social shame corresponds to internal scrutiny is out of scope here.) Whatever is shameful is marked not only by punishment—often it is not overtly or legally punished—but, perhaps, more importantly by mockery. In a thick, healthy society the outlandish and unimaginable is humorous even as it is offensive because it lacks presence and, thereby, remains undesirable. No one is offended by the mockery of what is shameful and deserving of stigma because no one is practicing it, or at least those who are know that they should not and, therefore, dare not object to mockery of objectionable things.

The sacred and the blasphemous are perennial societal elements. Each is determined by the ruling element which is, in fact, the most powerful element. Majority opinion is not an actual thing. It is allusive and fickle. But a conception—a belief, really—of what is fashionable, accepted, sacred governs sociality whether it is objectively measurable or not. Perception rules.

This is the politeuma, the unwritten constitution of the community exemplified in great men or role models, in personification of virtue. And, contrary to colloquial belief, this dynamic governs more thoroughly and effectively than written, positive, civil law insofar as it dictates and compels behavior more immediately. What is shameful is always unlawful anyway. Law codifies and affirms what is already accepted.

What tells a society that cowardice and retreat are shameful actions? Why was the death of Achilles “beautiful”? Who enforces chastity and modesty at scale? In both cases and many more besides, it is stigma. “Principles,” supposedly timeless, develop to reinforce or rather summarize these things. Today, “equality” and “fairness” serve as taglines for acceptance of all manner of levelling and licentiousness today, but for all their promise of “freedom,” they operate as custom and stigma.

Shame corresponds to the law of fashion—literally, what is in style. Locke, in the Essay on Education, observes that it is not good and evil that most powerfully directs men but shame and esteem, that is, fashion. Likewise, Aristotle (Ethics), determines that a virtuous member of society is one who grasps what is shameful and honorable and acts accordingly.

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