I took her to the local clinic and was told by the physician that Vivian could not be salvaged. Nevertheless, it was not too big of a deal to purchase infant formula and obtain filtered water and baby bottles. With the help of our main local person, Miriam (barely educated and literate, hugely intelligent and talented, a devout Christian, and fiercely hard-working), Vivian not only survived, but thrived. Owing to the corona virus situation (I was “trapped” there at the beginning) and some situations at home, I haven’t been in Honduras since April 2020, but at that time she was a healthy teenager. I admit I am proud of what we did in relation to Vivian, and I think it was consistent with what it means to be proud of something.

Perhaps the opposite of pride is shame, though an argument could be made, as mentioned above, that a counterpoint to “pride” is something just is. Nevertheless, our culture is riddled today with claims (and accusations) of pride and shame. There is kind of a social media dance where, for example, an aging celebrity decides she (almost always a female) needs to release photos of her in a bikini or some other sexually flaunting attire. In response, people who seem to have nothing else to do “shame” her for being too old for such an exhibition. In counter-response our celebrity is hurt and offended and takes a strong stand against “body shaming,” and likes and dislikes subsequently accumulate like packing material from Amazon deliveries in a landfill. Apparently this cycle satisfies an acute and dire need for attention by all parties.

“Pride” has become a version of participation trophies for the self-esteem generation, i.e. something completely disassociated with any kind of effort or accomplishment. Similarly, “shame” is no longer a motivating factor (at least for people with some level of a conscience) to correct a personal failing or make good an injury done to another, but a means to facilitate selfishness and narcissism, under the guise that “shaming” someone is a horrible thing horrible people do; the caveat that the behavior being “shamed” is in accord with a preferred fad of the moment. For example, any criticism or even observation of sexual promiscuity will be met with the accusation of “slut shaming,” which is not far behind “racism” on the metric of cultural faux pas. Pretty much all selfish hedonism is now shielded by the accusation “You Are ______ Shaming!"

Of course,no reasonably mature and considerate person is not going to “shame” someone for a maladaptive behavior if is a personal imperfection and doesn’t effect others. For example, no decent person is going to go up to an obese individual and say, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, fatty!” On the other hand, discussing obesity in general and it’s significant health consequences, with the hopes of “flattening the curve “(to borrow from the corona virus glitterati), is (or at least was) a responsible and compassionate thing: encouraging behavior of being active (or at least less sedentary) and making healthier food choices, etc.

However, the progressive sin of “fat shaming” has arrived with force and fanfare, meaning a sub-genre of obese celebrities has been put forth and they are to be celebrated. Even an observational mention of “she’s really heavy” can land someone on the pitchfork of progressive judgment. Of course the celebrity status itself is based on being obese, which sets up the typical progressive conundrum: if you note and/or react to the obesity you are a fascist, but if you don’t notice and embrace it you are also a fascist.

Recently I came across an article by a conservative columnist named David Strom entitled Healthy at any size? No, it's better to be obese. It opened with three sentences: Eating yourself into an early grave is praiseworthy. Stunning and brave, in fact. We get flooded with propaganda about how being morbidly obese is actually healthy, and that women with layers of fat rolls should flaunt them and be proud of their curves. It mentioned an article in the Washington Post that declared there is a common desire among teen-aged boys is to look muscular (I well recall my weight-lifting phase, but never in my life did I remotely achieve “muscular”). The article concluded that teenage boys engaging in healthy diets and exercise could be a “red flag” for obsession. Wow, who could think at such a profound level! Strom also referred to predictable article in Time magazine entitled The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise…

The ultimate thesis of his writing is that the more elite (wealthier, educated, etc) one is, the less likely they are to be overweight, yet the (leftist) elite are largely the force behind normalizing and “accepting” obesity. He asks the question, "Why this is?" And answers it as follows: “No, I think it has more to do with maintaining their own social power by promoting indolence itself in the lower classes. A fat and lazy lower class is unlikely to displace the current occupants of the halls of power, and lazy people tend to prefer having things handed to them rather than exhibiting ambition to get ahead. Such people are easier to rule and to perform social experiments upon. And when they fail the Elite don’t pay the price.”

An interesting and probably correct argument from a political-societal-economic standpoint, but I think he missed the personal aspect, which is many people, perhaps most, have a need to feel superior to others. As far as obesity goes, if you are in good physical shape, it might well be fun and satisfying to compare yourself with the failings of an obese person, especially if you are a weak person with a tenuous self-concept, which in many ways characterizes the leftist elite.

Throughout the bastions of the leftist elite- politics, media, technology, academia, corporations, government, “non-profits-” we find lots of people with impressive credentials but little accomplishment, lots of wealth that was gained at the expense of others as compared to the benefit of others, experience within their insulated salon but not within reality. It must be frustrating to live in privilege not really earned, but it can be reconciled with meaningless virtue signaling complemented by feeling superior to others, not just in association with obesity, but all sorts of things- educational levels, financial and residential status, types of preferred entertainment (they like NASCAR!), and so on. The key here is to pretend you have compassion for your inferiors, but with the overriding (and never stated) concern to maintain your superior and privileged status.

The elite certainly relish shaming their perceived inferiors, they just need to be selective. In terms of hedonistic/lifestyle behaviors, the only one left for them to shame is tobacco: people who smoke cigarettes have been an object of elite contempt for decades; smoking dope is, of course, hip and cool. It is in the realm of culture, religion, and politics that their really sharp knives of shame and scorn are revealed, and the greater the swath of their disdain the better they feel about themselves. Hence, we have people such as Joe Biden characterize 10’s of millions of fellow citizens as fascists, with essentially no “He really shouldn’t have said that” response from his political bedfellows.

In fact, at this moment we are approaching the time of deepest Republican shame as the current debt limit ceiling is about to expire, and it’s time to increase the amount of money we don’t have that the government can spend. As it stands, the Republicans want to hold expenditures to last year’s massive deficit spending of $6.272 trillion, whereas the Biden admin wants to increase it to $6.8 trillion. Of course, in either case it transfers even more money to the pockets of massively wealthy people. Typically the Republicans “make a stand” at the beginning, but are accused of wanting people to die and flirting with financial ruin, so they bow their heads in shame and give in. The shame stakes are higher this year, however, because the Biden admin is not just predicting the usual government “shutdown” and starving old people, but that without another increase, “It would make it easier for oil companies to use toxic chemicals that cause severe burns, damage people's eyes, and quite literally melt bones...and poison the lungs of our children.”

And wanting to literally melt people’s bones and poison the lungs of children is, you have to admit, pretty shameful. Yes, the Republicans who want minimally less deficit spending are Just Like Hitler! Shame on them...and us. In closing: